Milwaukee Bucks: Revisiting Brook Lopez’s 2019-20 season so far

Milwaukee Bucks: Revisiting Brook Lopez’s 2019-20 season so far – One question moving forward

While Lopez’s defensive influence and production has never been better than it is now throughout his 12-year career, the opposite may be true of Lopez’s play offensively.

Well before Lopez arrived in Milwaukee last year, he had already transformed himself into a modern day stretch-5. It was only until joining the Bucks, though, that Lopez’s range shooting was supercharged after connecting on a career-high 36.5 percent of his 512 3-point attempts last season. In fact, Lopez’s 187 made triples from last year rank third-highest in team history.

But this season, Lopez’s trademark shooting outbursts have been very few and far between as his 3-point percentage has plummeted down to 29.6 percent on the year so far.

To be fair, Lopez’s shooting struggles haven’t been isolated to this NBA season as it all can be traced back to the Bucks’ playoff run last year where he attempted 75 threes and sank them at a 29.3 percent clip. That carried over in the limited run that Lopez had with Team USA during last year’s FIBA World Cup in China, going 3-for-19 from the shortened 3-point line across his 66 minutes in the tournament.

Lopez’s misfiring from beyond the arc has largely informed him averaging a career-low 11 points per game and assuming a career-worst 53.7 true shooting percentage this season.

The Bucks and Budenholzer have sought ways to help Lopez rejuvenate his prolonged slump, which has helped the Stanford product return back to his roots as a reliable scoring source on the block and with his back to the basket.

When the game eventually slows down and the Bucks will have to play more within halfcourt situations, that will be especially useful. But knocking down shots from distance is not only necessary to Lopez’s role, but also maximizing the Bucks’ offensive firepower going into the restart.

Hopefully the time away from the court has helped Lopez recalibrate and find his infectious shooting touch again going into Orlando and some Disney magic can go his way starting in the next couple of weeks.