Milwaukee Bucks: Best and Worst of the 2016-17 Season
By Adam Coffman
Worst: Shaddy Vaughn
As then the second-youngest player in the league, Rashad Vaughn had an extremely forgettable rookie season, posting a negative-6.1 box plus-minus and shooting just 30 percent from the field in 14.3 minutes per game.
Still, hope remained in the fact that Vaughn was just 19 years old. As the second-youngest player in the league, there was ample room to grow, although the 2016-17 season would prove crucial in terms of his longer-term future with the Bucks.
A 22-point performance in the Bucks’ first win of the year raised eyebrows, but the rest of the season did not give us much more to feel optimistic about. In fact, that breakout game would account for over 15 percent of his 142 total points on the season.
Although he did raise his field goal percentage from an embarrassing 30.5 percent to a slightly better but still abysmal 37 percent, nothing else jumps off the stat sheet or game tape as showing marked improvement.
As Malcolm Brogdon and Tony Snell impressed in their roles, Vaughn showed himself to be largely the same player as last season, which led to his minutes falling to under half of last year’s total.
Last season, hope could be found in uncertainty. We hadn’t seen that much of Vaughn, therefore judging him on a small sample size would be unfair. After two years in the league, it’s becoming clear that this sample actually does reflect on what caliber player we’re dealing with.
There’s just not that much about Vaughn that would label him an NBA-level talent. His three-point shot is streaky, or at least we haven’t seen nearly enough of it, he can’t really create his own looks outside of contested midrange fallaways, and his on-court IQ leaves a lot to be desired.
That’s a lot of boxes that still havent been checked in order to assure a future in the league.
The Bucks exercised their team option on Vaughn for next season last October, and they could retain him the following year in the same way. It’s fair to assume that next season will be his last chance to prove himself to Milwaukee, as it just won’t be worth keeping a non-asset around going forward.