Milwaukee Bucks: Donte DiVincenzo must overcome shooting woes

Donte DiVincenzo may have greater opportunity with the Milwaukee Bucks next season, but he first must overcome his shooting struggles.

With a host of moves in and out during free agency, there’s no position on the Milwaukee Bucks’ roster more interesting than the shooting guard spot heading into the new season.

Malcolm Brogdon‘s departure opened up the starting berth, while Tony Snell‘s trade to the Pistons also offered change that would later be addressed by the veteran additions of Wesley Matthews and Kyle Korver.

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All told, the Bucks can at least feel good about where they’ve finished the offseason in terms of options at that position, particularly as Sterling Brown, Pat Connaughton and Donte DiVincenzo remain on the roster.

Still, that by no means suggests any kind of clarity in terms of how Milwaukee’s rotation at the 2-guard spot will play out.

It remains to be seen who will win the starting spot by the time opening night comes around, but equally uncertain while that remains in flux is how the rotation will fill out behind the starter.

All of that points to a major opportunity for some of the more unheralded players on the Bucks’ roster, with second year guard Donte DiVincenzo standing out as one of the most intriguing players to fall under that category.

If DiVincenzo is to have any impact in his second season as a pro, first and foremost, it will be essential that he can stay healthy for the majority of the campaign. The 22-year-old made a strong impression early as a rookie, but his season was ultimately derailed by long-running issues with heel bursitis.

With only 27 games played in total, the end result wasn’t far off a redshirt bow in the NBA season for the former Villanova Wildcat, but even beyond the issues he faced with his health, there were other concerns present in what DiVincenzo demonstrated when he was on the floor.

For as much as the Delaware native showed a clear path to making an impact with his high energy, defensive competitiveness, and impressive rebounding, DiVincenzo’s three-point shooting left a lot to be desired.

Considering shooting was one of the elements of his game widely touted as a primary reason why the Bucks drafted him 17th overall in 2018, and how central spacing the floor is to Milwaukee’s philosophies, it’s fair to wonder if DiVincenzo can find a path to minutes next season without taking a major step forward from distance.

DiVincenzo had no issue in letting fly from distance, averaging 7.3 three-point attempts per 36 minutes, but making only 26.5 percent of those shots represents a major issue.

Across his three years in college, DiVincenzo averaged 37.8 percent from deep, even jumping over 40.1 percent from three-point range in his final year under Jay Wright.

There’s no reason to believe DiVincenzo won’t be able to improve upon a particularly disastrous shooting performance in his rookie season, but it’s also fair to say the early glimpses of DiVincenzo’s shooting should bring some sense of reality to anyone that had him pegged as a top tier sharpshooter. That wasn’t what the numbers showed in college, and it certainly wasn’t what he offered up in his first samplings of NBA action.

DiVincenzo’s stroke is generally smooth, and there’s no reason why he can’t become an above average three-point shooter, which would be more than enough for the Bucks. Even that will require a lot of work, though, and it’s fair to say if expectations weren’t already tempered, they should be at this point.

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The potential emergence of Donte DiVincenzo as a key contributor for the Bucks would be a major development for Milwaukee, but it remains very much a work in progress. Put simply, expecting DiVincenzo to look a transformed player on opening night seems like a real stretch, but there could still be a meaningful reward for the Bucks if they remain patient and the player can iron out his own current flaws.

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