Milwaukee Bucks: Best and Worst of the 2016-17 Season

Best: The Rooks

The Bucks made a huge splash with their first-round draft pick last summer, selecting Thon Maker, a 19-year-old who had just recently been granted draft eligibility, with the tenth overall selection.

Initially, the pick angered many who saw Maker as a risky long-term project. These sentiments were easy to understand – Thon had never played at a level above high school ball, and he was incredibly raw from an NBA perspective.

Here’s what I projected for him back in July:

"It’s probably best to assume that Maker may spend at least a little amount of time in the D-League… fans should expect him to take on a role similar to what Rashad Vaughn filled last year, appearing mostly in garbage time and in the absence of those who are injured."

For the first part of the season, this was mostly true. Maker’s minutes increased every month of the season, going from playing in garbage time in November and December to spot starts and extended run in January to starting games and playing major minutes in the playoffs.

It might be tough to believe if you didn’t watch the games, but Maker was actually a net-positive contributor against the Raptors, protecting the rim on defense and running the floor with a vigor on the other end.

His three-point shooting is his most attractive offensive skill thus far – although he fell off a bit after the All-Star Break, Maker finished the season shooting over 37 percent from behind the arc. His rim protection was also underrated, as opponents shot five percent lower than average around the hoop against him.

Thon is much farther down his developmental timeline than anyone would have expected or even hoped for, which only furthers the parallels between him and Giannis. It goes without saying this should make Bucks fans extremely excited.

Related Story: The growing importance of Thon Maker

Malcolm Brogdon was a different story, taking on a larger role almost immediately at the start of the season.  As a 24-year-old rookie, his value never lay in upside, but instead in the immediate impact he could bring to the next level.

His game is polished for a rookie, almost confusingly so, and he has an arsenal of veteran tricks that make up for his deficiencies. You’ll often see him shrewdly take advantage of his defender’s bad positioning and slice into the lane for a backdoor cut.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Brogdon’s season was the fact that this was his first year playing point guard full-time, as he appeared almost exclusively at the two while at the University of Virginia.

Maybe because of this experience, he’s excelled both off-ball and on, shooting over 40 percent on three-pointers, 90 percent of which were assisted.

He took over the starting job at point midway through the season and the Bucks never looked back. For the foreseeable future, unless the team can find a starting caliber point in free agency, it looks like he’ll be manning the point.

Both of the Bucks rookies were instrumental down the home stretch of the season, as Brogdon played the point masterfully and Thon’s efforts were enough to make John Henson more or less irrelevant.

These two could not be more opposite – one is a foreign born barely-20-year-old with a game as raw as anyone’s and a ceiling equally as unknown, and the other is a 24-year-old Master’s degree holder who is older than the franchise’s centerpiece and possesses the repertoire of a ten-year vet.

An odd couple to be sure, but the Bucks absolutely need both of them for their future.