Milwaukee Bucks: Free throw woes stretch beyond Giannis Antetokounmpo
By Adam McGee
Giannis Antetokounmpo‘s free throw struggles have been well-documented this season, but the Milwaukee Bucks’ issues in that department run deeper.
There are very few elements of the Milwaukee Bucks’ game that haven’t been immensely impressive so far this season. The Bucks are a juggernaut offensively and defensively, but still they’re not quite perfect.
Those who’ve watched the Bucks closely will be very much aware about Giannis Antetokounmpo’s difficulties at the free throw line, and that storyline will likely only become even more important as the season progresses.
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The truth, though, is that Milwaukee’s issue with taking full advantage of their freebies stretches beyond the MVP frontrunner, and trickles down throughout much of the rest of roster.
It goes without saying that volume dictates that Antetokounmpo’s misses are comfortably the most impactful of any Buck, but it doesn’t mean the cumulative effect of role players missing on their occasional visits is entirely inconsequential either.
On the whole, that equates to the Bucks shooting just 72.7 percent from the free throw line, which is the worst mark of any team in the NBA not named the New York Knicks.
In addition to Antetokounmpo, that percentage comes from key role players such as Robin Lopez, Wesley Matthews, and Pat Connaughton shooting comfortably below the levels they have at previous points in their career.
Robin is perhaps the most striking example, as having spent most of his career as an unusually steady free throw shooter for a big of his size, he’s floundered in that department as a Buck.
A career 75.1 percent free throw shooter, RoLo has made just 51.3 of his attempts this season, albeit at a very modest volume.
Matthews’ shooting has been riddled with inconsistency and ups and downs across the course of the season from all over the floor, and although his 75.6 percent free throw shooting is respectable, it’s not quite meeting the standards of his career 82.4 percent mark.
Connaughton is a particularly interesting case too, given that much like his three-point shooting, his shooting percentage from the line has never quite lived up to the standards that would have been expected of him since signing with the Bucks.
Having shot 84.5 percent from the free throw line with the Trail Blazers, Connaughton has been steadily in the low 70s as a Buck, with his current season tracking at a career-low 72 percent.
With Antetokounmpo making just 60.6 percent of his free throw attempts, the Bucks really do need the rest of their players to at least perform up to their usual standards from the stripe.
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As things stand, the Bucks are so incredibly dominant on most nights that free throw shooting has rarely factored in to deciding the outcomes of their games. The assumption would be that close games will become a much more common feature when the postseason rolls around, though, and so it would be nice to see the Bucks not pass up quite as many easy points as they have to this point in the year.