The only part of Giannis Antetokounmpo’s game that seems to be lacking is his three-point shot, but the Milwaukee Bucks star might be getting closer.
One of the most interesting parts of how star players in the NBA are discussed has to do with their age. Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo started in the All-Star Game this past season, but much of the national dialogue is about what the young star can’t do.
A recent Sports Illustrated piece by Ben Golliver highlights this oddity, although it’s just one of many, many examples. After a six-game playoff series against the Toronto Raptors, the piece is about the one shot Giannis didn’t take in a Game 6 that saw him score 34 points and make over 56 percent of his shots.
With the game on the line and the Bucks down three, Giannis elected to drive to the basket after a significant wait. He made the dunk attempt, but the Bucks would go on to lose the game after that chance to tie up the score.
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It became a topic of conversation, albeit one I didn’t have much interest in discussing at the time on Twitter. The ever-pertinent phrase about Giannis Antetokounmpo rose to the forefront of every Bucks discussion: What a great game, but imagine if Giannis could shoot.
It’s certainly true that Giannis did not do a good job from beyond the arc in the regular season. He shot just 27.2 percent from three-point territory, a number well below league average. One encouraging part of the Greek Freak’s long-range game was that he kept shooting threes despite the low success rate.
Giannis attempted 180 threes in the regular season, 62 more than he ever shot in a single season before. That’s no accident. When asked about specific areas of improvement he is going to focus on in the summertime, Giannis offered three of them: leadership, getting stronger, and being able to knock down open threes.
“I was extremely tired, but I was motivated by my teammates and the fans in the crowd." - @Giannis_An34#FearTheDeer pic.twitter.com/HuaORvVexZ
— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) April 28, 2017
There is certainly a chance that Antetokounmpo comes back next season as a decent threat from outside. He was better in the postseason than he ever has been in any regular season, hitting 40 percent of his 1.7 attempted threes per game against Toronto.
In addition, there were a few months during the regular season when Giannis was pretty good from beyond the arc. He shot 36.6 percent in December, and made 32.1 percent of his threes in Milwaukee’s fantastic month of March.
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The key is consistency. Giannis shot under 30 percent more often than not in terms of month-by-month production, and his 27 percent for the season means more than the postseason or a single month do, because those sample sizes are so tiny.
Still, there are signs that a productive shooter can be built out of Giannis Antetokounmpo. His often-mentioned work ethic, when applied to shooting, could make the Greek Freak even freakier by next season.
There are plenty of examples of NBA players adding a three-point shot to their game. Brook Lopez and Marc Gasol both had long careers before this season, and both of them made more threes in 2016-17 than they did in their prior seasons combined–by a total of 134-3 and 104-12, respectively.
Just because those players managed to add a shot doesn’t mean that Giannis will. Maybe he never does. That isn’t the end of the world–he started the All-Star Game at age 22! Even without a shot, Giannis looked like one of the best few players in the Eastern Conference for most of the season and postseason.
The Bucks have won games without Giannis hitting threes, and by adding a role player or two and getting healthy they can continue to do so next season and beyond. The prospect of Giannis forcing teams to respect his ability to hit shots is tantalizing, but it’s important to remember that he’s already fantastic.
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Let’s stop talking about how good Giannis could be, and focus on how good he already is. There’s always room to look down the road, but this near obsession with Giannis becoming a shooter doesn’t seem healthy for how he’s perceived league-wide, and it’s almost disrespectful considering the level he’s already at.