Milwaukee Bucks Still Have Faith In Michael Carter-Williams

With a number of strong comments from personnel within the Milwaukee Bucks in recent days, is Michael Carter-Williams still seen as a key cog in the team’s future?

There have been a number of surprises involving the Milwaukee Bucks in recent days, but perhaps one of the most unexpected has been the positive chatter surrounding Michael Carter-Williams.

In spite of plenty of trade rumors surrounding the young point guard over the past 12 months, Carter-Williams remains in Milwaukee with the busy trade interval of NBA draft night now in the rear view mirror.

Prior to the draft and in the days since there has been a notable trend of key figures within the organization being vocal about MCW’s role within the club’s future.

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That might seem normal for a team to pump up their own player publicly, a skeptic might even suggest it could point to an effort to inflate trade value too, but it hasn’t always been the case with Carter-Williams and the Bucks.

In short, the relationship between both parties seemed a little bit tetchy at best throughout last season.

The former Philadelphia 76ers point guard found himself consigned to a role from the bench on a number of occasions throughout the year, and was often quick to complain that the reasons why weren’t always the most forthcoming in being communicated.

Benched in Charlotte in November, Carter-Williams noted that he had a feeling he was going to be on the bench as he suddenly found himself out of the starting five in practice, yet there was no more formal explanation.

Then, as made headlines at the time, MCW also had a relatively animated reaction to discussions of Giannis Antetokounmpo running the team’s offense next season, when he spoke to the media for his exit interview.

"“I think this Giannis playing point guard next year got a little out of hand. I think he’s definitely going to control the ball a lot more, but as far as, he’s not going to guard a point guard. I’ll be guarding the point guard. I think we’re just going to be playing through Giannis a lot more. I watch Draymond Green, he handles the ball a lot and gets a lot of assists and I wouldn’t say he’s a point guard. Or LeBron or someone like that. So I think the whole ‘what am I going to do now because Giannis is the point guard’ is a little out of proportion.”"

Although it has been clearly established that Giannis will be the primary initiator, at the time many believed Carter-Williams comments to be an expression of his own confidence rather than an official thought process from his team.

With recent comments from both Jason Kidd and John Hammond, that may yet have to be re-assessed though.

In Kidd’s Thursday press conference to mark his recent contract extension, he was asked about what the approach would be for next season when the team reconvened. Without any mention or prompts of Carter-Williams’ involvement, his name featured quite prominently.

"“Understanding that if you’re in, no matter how well you shoot the ball or how bad you’ve shot the ball that day, that you’re committed to your teammates. That’s where it starts. We can talk about three-point shooting, but that’s going to take care of itself. You look at Giannis, you look at Jabari, they’re going to shoot more threes, and they’re going to make more threes. Michael’s going to shoot more threes, he’s going to make more threes.But we’re not going to talk about offence, we’re going to talk about defense. That’s where we’re going to hang our hat, and it starts with Michael. We feel that he’s one of the best defensive guards in the league and he sets the tone for us. Having Michael out there in front leading the group, we have to get back to that and we just didn’t do that well last year as a team.”"

Talking about Carter-Williams leading the group, and being one of the best defensive guards in many ways feels like a throwback to the time when he was acquired for the Bucks. With his failure to demonstrate an ability to fill both of those roles in the past 18 months, many experts and fans alike had started to believe that Milwaukee had moved on from hoping for such contributions.

When John Hammond appeared on Bleacher Report Radio on Sirius XM on Sunday, he offered a further indication that the team isn’t ready to move on from the former Syracuse man too.

The acid test of such potential confidence is going to come on Friday when the free agency market opens.

Still on an affordable rookie contract, at present there really is no overwhelming reason for the Bucks to move on from MCW, but working from what he displayed last season, there’s little reason to believe he can start in a team where he won’t be the primary ball-handler either.

If the Bucks make a conscious push to acquire a proven, starting caliber free agent point guard, perhaps his role will be in coming from the bench and the Milwaukee brass are currently just working towards softening the blow.

Next: Milwaukee Bucks Rumors: Is Matthew Dellavedova A Free Agent Target?

On the other hand, if no standout candidate is acquired at that position in the coming weeks, we could be in for another roller-coaster year of the Michael Carter-Williams experiment.

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