Milwaukee Bucks: Grades for Kyle Korver’s one-year, veteran minimum deal
By Adam McGee
Role
Korver’s role is likely to consist of significant minutes coming off the bench, particularly in staggered lineups that will help him to space the floor for key non-shooters such as Giannis Antetokounmpo and Eric Bledsoe.
Having said that, Milwaukee’s situation on the wing is increasingly intriguing and it’s by no means simple to project just how Budenholzer will opt to split up his minutes across a number of capable contributors.
I recently wrote about how Pat Connaughton could figure into the discussion for the team’s starting shooting guard spot, alongside obvious candidates such as Sterling Brown and Wesley Matthews. The truth is Korver may well factor into that conversation too.
The prospect of starting a 38-year-old might seem unorthodox, but it could be an option that the Bucks explore in order to maximize Korver’s minutes alongside both Antetokounmpo and Bledsoe. Considering those lineups may be best suited to covering up his defensive vulnerabilities only offers further impetus to such an experiment, even if it resulted in him playing fewer minutes than others in the wing rotation, albeit coming in for key stretches at the beginning and end of games.
Wherever he fits into the rotation or the Bucks’ various potential lineups, Korver will be Milwaukee’s best shooter. That provides value in its own right, but how Korver gets his shots is even more significant in terms of how it can turbo-charge a team’s offense.
Korver plays in frequent motion, running from one side of the court to the other, curling around screens, and often setting picks of his own for ball-handling teammates. The threat posed by Korver’s deadeye accuracy prevents opponents from cheating off of him for even a second, and in a team with Antetokounmpo that will only force increasingly impossible decisions for opposing defenses.
Not only should Korver offer the Bucks the kind of deadly shooter that they can involve in set plays in crunch time — something they could have done with in the Conference Finals — but his play style should also provide Milwaukee wider encouragement to move the ball, make the extra pass, work off screens, and create more efficient shots across the floor.