The Milwaukee Bucks Need To Add A Shooter This Summer (Again)
By Ti Windisch
For the second consecutive off-season, the Milwaukee Bucks find themselves in need of reliable shooters.
Hello darkness my old friend…
It feels like decades since the Milwaukee Bucks’ last off-season, but here we are. For the second consecutive summer, the Bucks have a very important need to fill: Milwaukee needs shooters.
Wait, wasn’t this addressed last summer? The Bucks added Greivis Vasquez and Rashad Vaughn on draft night, in order to bolster their outside shooting.
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Unfortunately, Vaughn shot 29.3 percent from three-point range and Vasquez made just 24.7 percent of his threes.
Some of the players that the Bucks gave away to other teams provided much more to their teams in terms of outside shooting than anyone Milwaukee added could last season.
Ersan Ilyasova hit 37.1 percent of his triples in time split between Detroit and Orlando, while fan favorite Jared Dudley managed to knock down 42 percent of his threes in Washington.
Ilyasova got paid $1.6 million more than Vasquez did last season, but still made $100,000 less than O.J. Mayo (who made just 32.1 percent of his three-point attempts).
Dudley, who was traded to open up more salary cap room, made around $2 million less than Vasquez did last year despite being a remarkably better three-point shooter. Whoops.
Vasquez and Mayo are both likely out the door this season, which will open some room to add more shooters who can hopefully actually shoot in their place.
Unfortunately Jerryd Bayless is also entering free agency, and he was Milwaukee’s best shooter last year. Bayless was the only Buck to hit over 40 percent of his triples, and one of just two Bucks to hit at least 35 percent of their threes.
Bayless might actually be indispensable to Milwaukee. As Jason Kidd noted in exit interviews this year, the Bucks need shooters. Bayless has proven he fits well on the team, and more importantly he’s proven he can knock down shots.
The other Buck to hit more than 35 percent of their three-point shots is Khris Middleton, who will continue to provide a big spacing boost to the Bucks.
Outside of those two, the only other Bucks to hit at least 30 percent of their threes were Steve Novak, Tyler Ennis and Mayo. Mayo and Novak aren’t under contract for next season, but Ennis will be around.
That leaves the Bucks with one good shooter and one okay shooter that will probably be around next season, in Middleton and Ennis. Even if both Bayless and Novak are brought back, that’s just four shooters on the team.
Good space and pace teams have more than four good shooters. 30 percent three-point shooters aren’t necessarily great, but they can at least space the floor somewhat. The Atlanta Hawks have ten of them.
The Golden State Warriors have nine, including three 40 percent sharpshooters. The Bucks need to find some spacing this summer, badly.
Assuming the Bucks keep current non-shooters in Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jabari Parker, John Henson, Johnny O’Bryant and Michael Carter-Williams, there are still ten spots open that could house shooters.
If things go right for some of those players, they could end up nailing more than 30 percent of their threes next season. JOB is technically a perfect one-for-one from three-point territory, but he and Henson will never be true three-point threats. Nor will Greg Monroe, if he sticks around.
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Parker, Antetokounmpo, Vaughn and Carter-Williams all have the potential to surpass that 30 percent mark as soon as next season, though.
There’s no certainty that any of them do, but all four of them have proven at one point or another (Giannis and MCW earlier this season, Jabari and Vaughn in college) that they can shoot.
If all four of them come through–which is a stretch–the Bucks would have eight shooters if Novak and Bayless are both retained. A more likely result would probably be getting around six true floor-spacers out of this group, though.
Getting that number up to eight or nine would completely change how Milwaukee’s offense runs. Those awkward moments where everything stalls out would be rarer, thanks to the threat of real perimeter shooting.
Getting Giannis re-signed should obviously be the first priority this summer, along with resolving the center situation, but adding shooters really should be addressed sooner rather than later.