Taking Control
In line with many of the numbers already discussed up until this point, something that’s not up for debate about Giannis’ postseason effort is the way in which he seized total control of his team.
Having posted a career-high usage rate of 28.3 percent for the 2016-17 regular season, Antetokounmpo saw even more of the Bucks plays go through him in the playoffs when that number increased to 30 percent.
The list of Bucks who’ve managed to be at the center of so much of what their team has done, while also making a varied and sizable contribution across the box score is incredibly rare.
If we measure Giannis’ overall contribution using Box Plus/Minus (BPM), the Greek posted a rating of 6.0 for his team’s six games with the Raptors. Of any Buck who has played more than 10 minutes per game with a usage of 25 percent or higher during the playoffs, Antetokounmpo is the only one who can be charted with a BPM of 6.0 or higher.
| Crit | Crit | Crit | Crit | Tota | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rk | Player | Season | Age | Tm | Lg | BPM | USG% | MP | WS | G |
| 1 | Giannis Antetokounmpo | 2016-17 | 22 | MIL | NBA | 6.0 | 30.0 | 40.5 | 0.7 | 6 |
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/29/2017.
This is only still the beginning of Antetokounmpo’s playoff journey, and obviously in the longer term the most important stat will become series and possibly even championship wins. For now though, Giannis is already setting himself apart from great Bucks of years past.
Next: Milwaukee Bucks: 5 Takeaways From Series Loss To Toronto Raptors
With his abilities, there’s no reason to believe that Giannis can’t go down as one of the best players the franchise has ever seen, and the early returns certainly don’t give any reason to believe otherwise.