Giannis Antetokounmpo looking to stay one step ahead of opponents

Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo is increasingly opening up his game as the season has gone on, bracing for the inevitable attention and strategy he will see against opponents during the postseason.

Giannis Antetokounmpo, and the Milwaukee Bucks as a whole, have heard all of the noise as they have rampaged through the rest of the NBA this season.

The reigning MVP is an undeniable force on his way to the rim as he continues to grow into a more dominant player year over year. But Antetokounmpo’s long-gestating jumpshot gives one flaw for Bucks opponents to take advantage of the Greek forward’s shooting deficiencies, and to wall off the paint in an attempt to cut the head off the Bucks’ proverbial snake.

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This is nothing new for Antetokounmpo, but what has been new to see is how the 25-year-old is going one step ahead and trying to find and develop the counters that are necessary to withstand the pressure that will come in the coming months from opposing defenses.

Antetokounmpo’s development into becoming a willing 3-point shooter has steadily grown under the watchful eye of head coach Mike Budenholzer over the last two seasons.

Hitting such shots hasn’t been all that smooth throughout the year, but Antetokounmpo standing as a 30.6 percent 3-point shooter on 271 attempts is a mild victory, given the stasis of his jumper before Budenholzer’s arrival.

Even with this ongoing development, Antetokounmpo still sees plenty of daylight when primarily pulling up from the top of the key. Case in point, 222 of Antetokounmpo’s 3-point looks have been regarded as wide-open, per NBA.com/stats’ tracking data. As has long been the case, opponents will be more than happy with Antetokounmpo deviating from attacking the basket and live with the results of that choice.

Where Antetokounmpo’s pursuit to open up his game beyond the paint is getting interesting is the variety of looks and shots he’s attempting in between the paint and the 3-point line.

We’ve seen an increasing amount of fadeaway and turnaround jumpers from Antetokounmpo just inside the paint, the kind of which SB Nation’s Mike Prada expertly detailed and profiled recently. Antetokounmpo is now 33-of-63 on those kind of shots this season, good for 52.4 percent.

But it goes beyond attempting those kind of shots as Antetokounmpo has looked to take advantage of mismatches in the post and brandished step through moves and jump hooks when forced to go to more finesse finishes rather than barreling through his defenders.

As the frequency of those shots have steadily gone up, Antetokounmpo’s certainly felt some growing pains in how to develop these counter measures into becoming viable weapons in his wide-ranging shot arsenal. Antetokounmpo still stands as a subpar mid-range shooter as he’s hit 38 percent of his 108 mid-range looks this season and he’s averaging 0.60 points per post touch this season.

In spite of that, Antetokounmpo has vowed to veer into the more uncomfortable and less formed parts of his game and not take on the herculean task of attacking the paint against a wall of ready defenders as he put it recently to ESPN’s Kevin Arnovitz:

"“We’ve got more,” Antetokounmpo said to ESPN about this season’s team. “People don’t realize that. We are hungry. We have a great team, guys who can knock down shots and make plays. And their leader is not going to try anymore to jump over five guys in the paint, and all that s—.“Last year, I was stubborn. This year, I want to win a championship. If there are five people in front of me who want to hold me back from that goal, there are four guys on the court who will make plays. That’s what makes us dangerous.”"

The immediate returns of Antetokounmpo trying to diversify his offensive game may see his sparkling scoring efficiency take a hit, like we saw in the Bucks’ most recent win over the Indiana Pacers earlier in the week.

What we’re basically seeing in real-time is the prohibitive MVP favorite for the second straight year trying to rewire his game, ever so incrementally and progressively as we’ve hit the stretch run of the regular season. That’s far from an easy thing to do for one of the league’s greatest talents and down nights only expose how much growth Antetokounmpo has to make in this regard, all for the basketball world to see.

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But getting comfortable with the uncomfortable may lead Antetokounmpo to his biggest aspiration that isn’t already standing on his trophy mantle: an NBA championship.

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