Milwaukee Bucks: Will Khris Middleton be an All-Star in 2019?

The Milwaukee Bucks’ Khris Middleton broke out in the 2018 playoffs against the Celtics. Can he carry that momentum into landing an All-Star game selection in 2019?

On April 15, 2018, at the TD Garden in Boston, MA, the Milwaukee Bucks were trailing the Boston Celtics in Game One of what would be a seven-game series in the first round of the NBA playoffs. It was 99-96 with the Celtics on top and just 0.5 seconds left on the game clock.

On the previous play, Celtics point guard Terry Rozier buried a three-point field goal that was almost definitely the game-winning bucket. After a timeout, the Bucks came out to try and run an out-of-bounds play to get an open shot and a chance to tie the game.

After a few seconds of action, little materialized for inbounder Giannis Antetokounmpo to pass to. Nearing a five-second violation, Giannis finally passed it to teammate Khris Middleton, standing stationary a few feet away from Antetokounmpo near the sideline, approximately 35 feet away from the basket.

How Khris Middleton can make the 2019 All-Star team

If you haven’t heard, LeBron James has moved to California and the conference that he has dominated for the past decade is now up for grabs. Not only is there space at the top for a new team, but he also left his All-Star spot behind.

If Middleton is going to make an All-Star roster, this coming year may be his best opportunity. Not only did James leave for the Western Conference, but so did Toronto Raptors All-Star DeMar DeRozan. (However, Kawhi Leonard is taking DeRozan’s place in Toronto and is almost guaranteed an All-Star spot by default if he plays this season. Although that is kind of a big “if” with Leonard.)

So, what does Middleton need to do to get an invitation to Charlotte for the 2019 NBA All-Star Game?

Well, let’s look at how things stand in the Eastern Conference.

We can practically pencil in at least four of the players who will be the All-Star starters from the Eastern Conference. Middleton’s teammate Giannis Antetokounmpo, the returning Kyrie Irving, the aforementioned Kawhi Leonard, and Joel Embiid will almost definitely make up the majority of the starting lineup, assuming they are healthy.

The last guard spot is most likely to go to one of John Wall, Victor Oladipo or Kyle Lowry. It can be difficult to predict fan voting, but my guess would be Lowry gets the starter nod. Regardless, those eight players are almost definitely (barring injury) going to make the All-Star game.

A key fact to remember about the All-Star selection process is that, although the fans vote who will start the game, the coaches select the remaining seven reserve spots that fill out the rosters. A player could have zero fan votes to his name and be selected by the Eastern Conference coach.

For the sake of hypotheticals, we’ll say that the starters are: Irving, Lowry, Antetokounmpo, Leonard and Embiid. The no-brainer reserve selections are Wall, Oladipo, and Boston’s do-it-all center Al Horford, with Kristaps Porzingis likely also in the mix if he can return early enough from his ACL injury. Horford may be a little bit of a surprise, but he was an All-Star last year, and with the Celtics primed to win 60+ games this year, it’s hard to not see them get multiple All-Stars in a conference thin on star talent. That’s nine of the 12 spots taken.

Barring injury or unexplained regression, it’s hard to see any of those nine players not making the All-Star team. This leaves three spots open for Middleton to get. Other players he’ll probably be going up against for one of the spots include the returning Gordon Hayward, reigning Rookie of the Year Ben Simmons, 5-time All-Star Kevin Love and rookie sensation Jayson Tatum.

Some other names that could be considered are Miami’s Goran Dragic, Charlotte’s Kemba Walker, Washington’s new center Dwight Howard, Knicks big man Enes Kanter and Raptors big man Serge Ibaka. But, with Porzingis and Horford being penciled-in as reserve big men, it’s hard to see a coach picking a center like Kanter or Howard to fill out the roster, so I’m confident it’ll come down to Simmons, Hayward, Love, Tatum and Middleton.

With Irving and Horford already on the team, the probability that Hayward and Tatum both make the team, considering that one of them will likely come off the bench, seems remote. So we’ll set aside a spot for one of Boston’s wings, but assume only one makes it. That’s 10 spots taken.

Now it’s Simmons vs. Love vs. Middleton for the remaining two slots. Now we can start to look at some numbers. In Simmons’ Rookie of the Year campaign, he averaged 15 points per game along with eight assists and eight rebounds per game.

Simmons is just scratching the surface of his potential and is already a really good player, it would surprise no one if he produces even more in year two as he grows his game alongside fellow rising star Joel Embiid.

Love, on the other hand, has been in the league for years and has always produced at a high level. Last year, he averaged 19 points per game and eight rebounds, and with James gone and more offensive focus going to Love, those numbers could inflate more. Love averaging a double-double in the 20-10 range over the season is a very real possibility.

However, Love hasn’t played more than 60 games the last two seasons and missed the All-Star game last year with an injury. Also, team success may not be criteria for an All-Star selection, but if Cleveland can’t even sniff the eight-seed in a barren eastern conference, it would be hard to reward Love with an All-Star invite.

And now, finally, we come to Middleton. In the 2017-18 season, Middleton averaged 20 points per game along with five rebounds on 46 percent shooting from the field. Despite the career-high production, Middleton was passed over by the fans, coaches and even commissioner Adam Silver when it came to choosing replacements for injured players.

In new head coach Mike Budenholzer’s up-tempo, three-point-heavy offense, Middleton is poised to flourish as a sharpshooting marksman with a quick and accurate shot. His height makes him a matchup nightmare against smaller guards and Budenholzer will likely be able to get him better shots easier than the previous coach Jason Kidd did.

Middleton can also benefit from increased interest in the Milwaukee Bucks as a team. With a new coach, a certified superstar in Giannis and a brand-new arena, Milwaukee was awarded 18 nationally televised games slated for the 2018-19 season, including a Christmas Day matchup against the New York Knicks. Middleton will have plenty of opportunities to ball out for a national audience.

If Milwaukee can take advantage of the vacuum at the top of the conference left by James, and show themselves to be a serious contender in the East, it would be hard to overlook Middleton, the team’s clear-cut second-best player.

Numbers-wise, a slight uptick in points per game wouldn’t be a surprise as Middleton should turn in more of his post-ups and long two-pointers into more consistent three-point shots in Budenholzers space-focused offense.

With slightly better production, more national attention and an improved team, Middleton would be positioned well to snag one of the reserve spots for the All-Star game. The East is up for grabs this year, and so are its All-Star selections. If I were to guess I’d choose Middleton to get his first chance to suit up as an all-star.

It would be a terrific achievement for a player who has often been overlooked and underrated throughout his career. The former second-round pick has grown from a throw-in asset in the Brandon Knight–Brandon Jennings trade to an offensive weapon who could start on nearly every NBA team.

With the boost of being able to play against the NBA’s best players in the All-Star game coupled with the chance to play alongside one of the most popular players in the NBA on a team built to compete for the next handful of years, I would even bet 2019 is just the first of many All-Star invites for Middleton.

Get used to the cold-blooded assassin that is Khris Middleton, NBA. He isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.