A Deeper Look At The Impact Point Giannis Has On The Milwaukee Bucks
By Ti Windisch
Giannis Antetokounmpo‘s new Point Giannis role has paid off wonderfully for the Milwaukee Bucks in both obvious and subtle ways.
Giannis Antetokounmpo has proven recently that he can legitimately play all five positions on the NBA floor. He’s spent time as a wing player, a forward, and even some minutes as a center.
And now Giannis is a point guard too, since Jason Kidd gave him the reins on offense. That decision is working incredibly well for the Bucks–Point Giannis has flourished.
His statistics are flat-out unbelievable over the last 15 games (the time he’s ran Milwaukee’s offense). Point Giannis is averaging 19.5 points, 9.5 rebounds, 7.1 assists, 1.8 steals and 1.9 blocks per game. He’s had four triple-doubles in that time.
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Milwaukee is much better with Giannis running the show as well. The Bucks are 9-6 over those 15 games, a marked improvement over Milwaukee’s 29-38 record.
The Milwaukee Bucks should all obviously be excited about Giannis hitting his stride and the team being much better. But some Bucks have even more reason to be excited than others.
Much has been made about Jabari Parker‘s recent hot streak, in addition to the emergence of Point Giannis. Those events are sort of independent of each other.
Greg Monroe‘s bench tenure opened up space for Jabari on offense, which is likely just as important to his increased role than Giannis running the floor.
It is encouraging that Jabari is maintaining his grip on a significant portion of Milwaukee’s offense despite Monroe returning to the lineup, and that might be thanks to Giannis.
Jabari Parker receives more passes per game than all Bucks besides Khris Middleton from Giannis Antetokounmpo, and more of Giannis’ assists come on passes to Jabari than on passes to any other Bucks players.
Since taking over the offense, Giannis has dished 34 assists to Jabari. He’s made 39 field goals resulting from Giannis passes (five must not have counted as assists, for whatever reason), two of which are three-pointers.
Interestingly, Jabari shoots 33.3 percent on three-point attempts coming from Giannis. The sample size is tiny (he’s two-for-six on Giannis threes in the last 15 games), but it is worth noting that Giannis has set Jabari up for a percentage of threes much higher than his average (18.8 percent).
Jabari is not alone in making a good percentage of his Giannis threes. Three Bucks make over 40 percent of their Giannis threes–Khris Middleton, O.J. Mayo, and Jerryd Bayless.
Out of the three, only Bayless makes a lower percentage of his Giannis threes than his normal three-point attempts. He’s currently making 40 percent of his Giannis threes, and 43.5 percent of his three-point shots in general.
Middleton makes a remarkable 50 percent of his Giannis threes, compared to 40.8 percent of his total three-point shots. It’s Mayo who saw the biggest boost in three-point percentage with Point Giannis around, though.
Mayo made just 32.1 percent of his three-point shots over the course of the season, but he shot 46.2 percent on Giannis threes.
It’s not just three-point shooters that have benefited from Point Giannis. Miles Plumlee makes nearly all of the shots he attempts when he gets a dish from Giannis. Plumlee missed just six of his 24 attempted field goals following a Giannis pass, good for a ridiculous field goal percentage of 75.0.
Many of those are probably alley-oops, but those easy points count just the same as any other two-point basket.
Greg Monroe actually does slightly worse when Giannis is running the floor, as he’s currently shooting 51.7 percent on shots following Giannis passes (Monroe’s field goal percentage on the season is 52.2).
Monroe, Bayless, and Michael Carter-Williams are the only Bucks to shoot worse following a Giannis pass than they usually do (with at least 20 field goals attempted following a Giannis pass over the last 15 games).
The best part of the Point Giannis data for Bucks fans has to be the synergy between the Big Three. Khris Middleton shoots over 50 percent from the field following Giannis passes, and Jabari Parker is just under that mark.
That relationship is not a one-way street. Giannis makes 51.9 percent of his shots following a pass from Middleton, and an astonishing 57.6 percent of his field goals coming off of Jabari passes.
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Even without Giannis in the equation, Middleton and Parker work well together. Middleton makes 45 percent of his shots following a Parker pass, and Jabari makes an insane 65 percent of his shots that follow a pass from Middleton this season.
Despite the lack of spacing between them, these three have figured out how to work together perfectly. When Milwaukee’s Big Three shares the court in the Point Giannis era, the Bucks outscore the opposition by 7.3 points per 100 possessions.
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That’s not an overwhelming margin, but these three are just getting started. Watching them all grow together and seeing how much better the group can get will be an amazing time for Bucks fans going forward.