The Milwaukee Bucks have added shooters to the roster, but they don’t have anybody who can make their own space on offense.
The Milwaukee Bucks offense should have no problems being efficient. After all, the Bucks have a true superstar in Giannis Antetokounmpo, great complementary players in Khris Middleton and Jabari Parker, and a solid group of shooters around those three.
Even with all that, the Bucks were just 13th in offensive rating and 20th in points per game in 2016-17. It seems like Milwaukee has all the tools to be an effective offensive team, so why haven’t the Bucks been that?
Well, aside from the obvious injury problems the Bucks have dealt with, another answer might be explained by Kevin Pelton’s latest piece. Pelton wrote about Stephen Curry and how he’s made the pull-up three-pointer “the most important shot in the NBA.”
The piece is great and you should read it, but here’s the thesis of it:
"The ability to shoot the pull-up 3 changes the way opponents defend pick-and-rolls and isolation plays, forcing them to come out higher to be able to contest a deep shot off the dribble."
As Pelton writes, while pull-up three-pointers aren’t actually that efficient of a shot for most players, they’re still both more effective than pull-up two-pointers and valuable in how they open up the floor for the rest of the offense.
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The top 10 players in the NBA at making pull-up threes this year is a list of 10 of the league’s best point guards: James Harden, Steph Curry, Russell Westbrook, Kemba Walker, Isaiah Thomas, Damian Lillard, Kyle Lowry, Mike Conley, Kyrie Irving and Chris Paul.
Notice that there aren’t any Bucks represented on that list. In fact, there are no Bucks in the top 50 of made pull-up threes from this season. Matthew Dellavedova was first on the team and 93rd in the NBA in that stat. Malcolm Brogdon was 96th, and Giannis Antetokounmpo was 99th.
The Bucks have a few good spot-up shooters, but the team lacks anybody able to make their own space on offense. Milwaukee finished last in both attempted and made pull-up threes in the regular season. That explains why Milwaukee’s ball handlers in pick and roll situations were so bad–only the Philadelphia 76ers got less points per possessions out of their ball handlers last season.
It’s easy to say that the Bucks should simply go out and find a spot-up three pointer to run the floor, but good luck adding any player on that list of pull-up shooters. Milwaukee might be able to manufacture more pull-up threes with the team’s current personnel, though.
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Malcolm Brogdon shot 37.0 percent on pull-up threes last season, while Jabari Parker hit 40.9 percent of his pull-up triples. Those two players could do with running more pick and roll and actually taking those shots more–if their percentages stay anywhere close to what they were last season it would open up the Bucks offense in a huge way.
The really interesting case will be how Giannis fares at those shots next season. The Greek Freak actually pulled up from deep more than any other Buck, although he made just 24.2 percent of those looks.
Giannis has said he’s going to work on his shot this summer–if he’s hitting pull-up threes in the 30+ percent range next season, he’s suddenly going to become a whole lot harder to guard.
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The Bucks likely won’t be able to add a shooter on the level of Curry or Harden, but even getting Brogdon, Jabari and Giannis to become decent at those shots will force defenses to creep out towards the arc. That movement will give the Bucks interior attackers easier lanes to the rim, and result in a much more efficient Bucks offense next season and beyond.