Milwaukee Bucks: Can Pat Connaughton be more than just a shooter?
Although he’ll be depended on to stretch the floor and act as a three-point specialist, new Milwaukee Bucks wing Pat Connaughton may have more to offer beyond his perimeter shooting capabilities.
When news broke of his two-year, partially guaranteed deal with the Milwaukee Bucks late last month, there was little to no mistaking the appeal Pat Connaughton is bringing to his new home in the league.
Like all of the early offseason additions the Bucks made in free agency, as well as the draft this summer, Connaughton will be relied on to help space the floor and knock down shots from long range under the new offensive system new head coach Mike Budenholzer will be implementing with the help of his coaching staff.
Connaughton’s track record doing so is not as well established as the likes of Ersan Ilyasova or Brook Lopez as he’s coming off his most featured season where he knocked down 35.2 percent of his 210 three-point attempts last year with the Portland Trail Blazers.
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That element of the Notre Dame alum’s game will undoubtedly be honed throughout his stay in Milwaukee and the success he experiences from that level of the floor will be critical to how long his stint will be, considering the second year of his deal is non-guaranteed.
As much as his three-point shooting will be a focal point next season and potentially beyond, is it possible Connaughton’s services are being sold just a little short?
That question obviously requires us to look at how he fared among other areas of his game and how he was deployed in Portland under his former head coach, Terry Stotts.
Considering how much he played off the ball and the activity he displayed running off screens, off handoffs and off cuts, Connaughton’s underlying dynamism may end up being tailor made for the offensive overhaul Coach Bud looks to achieve.
The ability to be a threat off of handoff looks may be especially key, considering Connaughton tallied 1.26 points per possessions on those situations and ranked in the 94th percentile of players around the league, per NBA.com/stats. For additional context, the Atlanta Hawks ranked the seventh-most handoff plays of NBA teams in Budenholzer’s last season at the helm there.
In general, Connaughton’s dribble drive game isn’t as crisp compared to when he’s saddled off the ball at this stage, but promising results have been produced on the 25-year-old’s part nonetheless.
Small sample size alert, but Connaughton posted a 56.3 effective field goal percentage on his 43 shots attempted off of one dribble and a 53.5 effective field goal percentage of his 43 shots attempted off of two dribbles.
Switching sides, Connaughton’s defensive qualities are worth exploring due to how unheralded they may be in relation to the goals the Bucks have already set out to accomplish under Budenholzer.
Coming from a Blazers team that ranked eighth in terms of defensive efficiency, Connaughton certainly doesn’t carry the reputation on that end as some of his former teammates such as Al-Farouq Aminu and Maurice Harkless.
However, interesting facets stand out in Connaughton’s defensive play such as his occasional preference to contest and block shots at the rim off the weak side as well as on the perimeter, which resulted in a 1.2 block percentage last season.
But even without having to block shots, the Massachusetts native’s athletic ability and length gives him an advantage to close out and bother shots attempted by opposing players. That resulted in Connaughton registering a 41.2 defended field goal percentage on the 6.3 defended field goal attempts per game he faced last season.
Of course, it should go without saying there’s no guarantee that Connaughton’s array of skills may translate seamlessly coming to Milwaukee nor may he get the same level of opportunity as he did in his last year in Portland.
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With that said, taking a flier of Connaughton stands justified on the Bucks’ part and there may just be more than initially meets the eye in terms of what he can offer them, should things go swimmingly.