After a disastrous playoff series spoiled an otherwise solid first season with the Milwaukee Bucks, Eric Bledsoe will now need to move past his struggles.
The Milwaukee Bucks moved a significant share of their chips to the center of the table with their acquisition of Eric Bledsoe last November.
Parting with draft picks to add any player at this point in the team’s development was always going to be a risk, but in Bledsoe, they opted to add a skilled point guard with experience of driving teams forward into the mix.
With a first full season in the books, it’s safe to say the results of that experiment have been mixed so far.
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Although it included some peaks and troughs, Bledsoe put together a strong regular season as he got a feel for playing alongside his new teammates and appeared to grow in comfort and confidence.
Considering his somewhat reduced role on a much more competitive team, Bledsoe’s numbers retained some similarity to his production from Phoenix, as he averaged 17.8 points, 5.1 assists, 3.9 rebounds and 2.0 steals, while shooting 47.6 percent from the field and 34.9 percent from deep.
That level of play established Bledsoe as a key cog of Milwaukee’s plans, and the expectation was entering the playoffs with a player of that caliber would make them a very different proposition to the team that was eliminated by the Toronto Raptors 12 months earlier.
In what proved to be a hotly contested seven-game series with the Boston Celtics, unfortunately Bledsoe didn’t give the Bucks much of anything outside of headaches. With averages of just 13.6 points, 3.7 assists, 3.6 rebounds and 1.0 steals on 44 percent from the field across the seven games, instead of playing the part of game-changer, Bledsoe looked every bit like a player who hadn’t been in the postseason for five years.
Rather than getting the best out of his game and helping his team to win, Bledsoe’s energy was focused in all the wrong places. It started in Game 1 when an embarrassing defensive breakdown saw him allow a wide open three with less than a second remaining, and from there, Bledsoe appeared to be consumed by his personal matchup with Terry Rozier.
As Rozier drove the Celtics forward, the truth is it wasn’t much of a matchup. Still, all the way through to Game 7, Bledsoe seemed determined to show up Rozier with nothing else eliciting the same level of emotion or celebration from the Alabama native.
With a season average version of Bledsoe, the Bucks could easily have advanced to the second round. The fact that they didn’t get that has likely changed the perception on Bledsoe’s long-term fit with the team, yet facing a contract season, the 28-year-old will need to recover and help an improved Bucks team to kick on again.
Speaking during exit interviews, in response to a question about how his offseason work would be shaped by the benefit of a full season’s knowledge of his teammates, Bledsoe noted:
"“I mean, it definitely does because you’re working on shots you’re going to get in the real game. Taking a lot of time working on that.You know, spot-ups, [with] Giannis [Antetokounmpo] and Khris [Middleton] handling the ball a lot, being in spot-up situations. And I thought I did a great job of knocking down the shot when it was passed to me, but being more of a threat in that area. Just picking my spots during the game.”"
The potential impact of that improved awareness and understanding certainly shouldn’t be underestimated, but the playoffs revealed an even more important lesson for Bledsoe.
After years of being able to play a selfish brand of basketball on a losing team in Phoenix, the worst habits that Bledsoe picked up may well be more mental than physical or skills-based. Rozier showed just how easy it was to get into Bledsoe’s head and throw him off his game, and that simply has to change moving forward.
The former Kentucky Wildcat is by no means lacking in ability, and as things are currently set up, he has a great opportunity to contribute to a winning team in Milwaukee. Even more importantly, the Bucks will likely need him to thrive in that role to hit their own ceiling for the upcoming season.
To do so, Bledsoe needs to put the Rozier saga behind him, but he also needs to abandon the emotional baggage that leads to him falling into those traps in the first place.
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With greater discipline, self-awareness and a team-first mindset, Bledsoe could even exceed the Bucks’ expectations from when they traded for him. As he looks to secure one last big pay day for himself, putting the team ahead of the individual could reap rewards for both Bledsoe and the Bucks.