Giannis Antetokounmpo continues experimenting with in-between game

Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo continues to show off flashes of different shots in his vast arsenal, the latest of which has been a one-legged fadeaway to throw opposing teams off guard.

When Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo steps on the floor, everyone knows where he wants to get to offensively.

The seven-footer morphs into a battering ram on a nightly basis as he careens to the basket numerous times over a given game. And no player in the NBA attempts more shots directly at the basket than Antetokounmpo, a feat he’s doing for the third straight season, per NBA.com/stats.

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As a result, the scouting report on Antetokounmpo has been stark for a number of years now: wall off the paint and challenge him to take shots out of his comfort zone.

Of course, that strategy is much easier said than done for all teams, but it doesn’t change the fact that Antetokounmpo’s jump shot is still the biggest hurdle the 25-year-old has to overcome in his all-encompassing game.

Antetokounmpo has been at work trying to develop his shooting touch beyond the restricted area to overcome his shooting deficiencies and, for the better part of the last 12 months, he’s made big strides on that front. That especially stands for his 3-point shooting as Antetokounmpo is taking the most 3-point attempts in his career (215) and is connecting on such tries at a 32.1 percent clip, the highest mark for him since his rookie season back in 2013-14.

But the space that opposing teams will cede to Antetokounmpo beyond the restricted area leaves plenty of room inside the arc for the seven-year forward to do plenty of damage and little by little, he’s grown comfortable finding different counters to make those teams pay. The latest example of this has been Antetokounmpo flaunting a one-legged fadeaway shot at the nail on the floor a la soon-to-be Hall of Famer, Dirk Nowitzki.

All season long, the Bucks have tried to add some more variety to their overall shot selection and have slightly relaxed on their Moreyball-like shot selection that came into effect with the arrival of head coach Mike Budenholzer before last season.

That’s opened up the game of Bucks supporting star Khris Middleton and Antetokounmpo has followed suit by displaying a variety of fadeaway jumpers over the team’s ongoing winning streak as the video from Jonathan Gauthier shows below.

Maintaining a level of consistency is key for Antetokounmpo to develop this latest type of shot into becoming a full-fledged weapon in his shot arsenal, but the fact that the Greek phenom has made these kind of inroads is a sign of the progress and comfort he’s made all across the board.

It’s a small sample size, but the results currently speak for themselves as Antetokounmpo has converted 55.6 percent of his 36 shots that have been deemed as fadeaway attempts. Overall, Antetokounmpo has tried open up his finesse game throughout the season and he’s been able to hit 42.5 percent of his 127 shot attempts in the paint outside of the restricted area.

That’s an uptick from the 38.5 percent Antetokounmpo shot on 161 attempts from that same area of the floor during MVP-winning campaign. And it’s important to note that Antetokounmpo hit 16 of his 39 fadeaway attempts last year, good for 41 percent.

As much as these latest developments alleviate some of the long-standing concerns revolving around Antetokounmpo’s jumper, it doesn’t change how much is left to go in broadening out his scoring chops altogether. NBA.com’s John Schuhmann noted in his latest notebook that Antetokounmpo unsurprisingly posts one of the biggest discrepancies of players around the league on shots taken within the painted area compared to elsewhere on the floor on a minimum of 100 shots taken from both ranges.

Antetokounmpo’s jump shot remains the lone hole opposing teams can live with letting him take and when he has it going, all they can do is tip their hat to the four-time All-Star. Refining his touch from three, mid-range and elsewhere will only make Antetokounmpo that much more of a complete force, as we all know.