Milwaukee Bucks: What’s the best role for Malcolm Brogdon?

Throughout his brief time with the Milwaukee Bucks, Malcolm Brogdon has proven to be an incredibly valuable complementary piece, whether in the starting lineup or coming off the bench. What role will he serve under new head coach Mike Budenholzer?

Since being taken with the 36th overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, Malcolm Brogdon has filled many purposes for the Milwaukee Bucks.

We certainly saw the former Virginia Cavalier hit the ground running in his introduction to the league, which he rode all the way through his rookie season and led to him taking home Rookie of the Year honors at the end of the 2016-17 year.

Although his sophomore campaign was limited to 48 games as a result of picking up an injury midway through last year, Brogdon polished some of the rough edges in his game while simultaneously reinforcing the strong-suits that have quickly become his calling card to this point in his NBA career.

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The 25-year-old has done all of this while being shifted in and out of the starting lineup as well as anchoring and propping up struggling second unit lineups under the team’s previous coaching regime of Jason Kidd and Joe Prunty.

Now Brogdon is set to experience yet another significant change in his young professional career with the arrival of his new head coach, Mike Budenholzer.

With that, the question of what kind of role best serves Brogdon is fast approaching with the 2018-19 season inching ever closer.

The question is obviously two-fold, considering that Brogdon eventually returned back to his starter status midway through the Bucks’ first round playoff series against the Boston Celtics.

In addition to that, Brogdon had to adjust from his established role of manning the backcourt unit for significant lengths in his rookie season to playing less with the ball in his hands, largely due to the Bucks’ acquisition of guard Eric Bledsoe.

Of course, this only speaks to the versatility Brogdon brings to the floor whenever his number called and the fact that he’s done so very admirably to this point is very encouraging in of itself.

With that said, we’ve seen Brogdon flourish with a bigger responsibility to create scoring opportunities for himself and for others under the rudimentary offensive schemes that the Bucks deployed during his first two years in the league.

Just last season, Brogdon tallied 0.97 points per 100 possessions when acting as the lead ball handler in pick-and-roll situations, which ranked him in the 86th percentile of players around the league, per NBA.com/stats.

Combine that with his increased effectiveness with hitting shots off the dribble, especially from beyond the arc, and Brogdon seems tailor-made to revert back to his sixth man role to give him more freedom to lead the Bucks’ second unit.

With the added spacing that will be prioritized under Coach Bud as well as the chances for chemistry with similarly savvy frontcourt players like Ersan Ilyasova or Brook Lopez, Brogdon could very well assume the connector role he held during his first year in the league.

The beauty in having a player of Brogdon’s jack of all trades-like nature means there’s no shortage of roles and responsibilities he can reasonably cover on a nightly basis.

Brogdon will have company in that regard as virtually all of the Bucks’ offseason additions hold similar qualities and/or traits that Budenholzer and his staff will look to leverage around the team’s cornerstones in their first season in Milwaukee.

Plenty of time still stands between now and the start of the team’s training camp, but that won’t quell the speculation over the many roles Brogdon may end up filling throughout his third season in Milwaukee.