Milwaukee Bucks: Eric Bledsoe’s maintaining his 3-point shooting range

Milwaukee Bucks point guard Eric Bledsoe has taken great strides to maintain his consistency from long range in recent years. By doing so, he’s able to extend his ranges hitting threes this season.

On a Milwaukee Bucks team that features the prohibitive favorite for Most Valuable Player and a player crafting a historic 50-40-90 season, it’s easy for Eric Bledsoe’s contributions to get lost in the shuffle.

That certainly played out in the team’s chase to have multiple All-Stars for the second straight year, and both superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton managed to pull off the feat as Bledsoe fell short of earning his first-ever All-Star appearance this season in Chicago.

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At 30 years old and in his 10th NBA season, Bledsoe may be viewed as something of a finished product or a known commodity.

There are some notable exceptions to that sentiment, with Bledsoe’s 3-point shooting ability leading off that list. Since arriving to Milwaukee nearly two and a half years ago, Bledsoe has sought ways to improve and maintain his 3-point shooting prowess to mixed results.

This year, however, Bledsoe has avoided extended cold spells shooting the ball, thanks to the guidance of Bucks assistant coach Ben Sullivan and some healthy advice from veteran sharpshooter Kyle Korver as The Athletic’s Eric Nehm divulged earlier this season.

After the Bucks’ win over the 76ers Saturday night, Bledsoe is hitting 34.3 percent of his 3-point attempts this season, which stand just above his 33.6 career 3-point percentage.

The key to Bledsoe standing as an adequate 3-point threat has been his ability to knock down triples off the dribble. Of players around the league that have attempted 90 or more 3-point attempts off the dribble, Bledsoe has the third-highest percentage at 40 percent, standing behind Damian Lillard, Bojan Bogdanovic, Marcus Smart and J.J. Redick, per NBA.com/stats.

The vast majority of those attempts and subsequent makes have come from well beyond the arc, especially on the wing from the 3-point line. The Kentucky product has connected on 36.2 percent of his 149 attempts taken from above the break this season.

That’s quite the uptick from the 33.9 percent clip Bledsoe compiled on 319 above the break 3-point attempts last season under his first season playing under head coach Mike Budenholzer and his staff.

The combination of those two marks certainly goes a long way in the Bucks being able to space the floor and Bledsoe being able to create some gravity to open up the floor for himself and for his teammates. That’s crucial to maintain the Bucks’ offense as being multi-dimensional and staying true to the unpredictability of Budenholzer’s read-and-react system.

No one would mistake Bledsoe’s 3-point shooting prowess as being the most adept skill in his offensive package, but given how this Bucks team is constructed, it’s certainly the most vital asset in making all of the parts in the team’s offense hum. And it will obviously be crucial in Bledsoe being able to make his previous postseason struggles a thing of the past when the Bucks’ playoff run comes around in several weeks.

Whether that comes to pass will keep Bucks fans on the edge of their seats in a couple of months time. But his ability to be the spacing threat he needs to be for Budenholzer is one way for him to overcome those past failings.