Giannis Antetokounmpo: Free-throw improvement critical this offseason

As obvious as it sounds, Giannis Antetokounmpo needs to improve his free-throw shooting this offseason after a career-worst showing in 2019-20.

Taking home both the MVP and Defensive Player of the Year awards this year, Giannis Antetokounmpo put together a historically great season with the Milwaukee Bucks. As fantastic as the Greek Freak was, his most significant flaw, his free-throw shooting, haunted him throughout the season.

Since his Most Improved Player campaign in 2016-17, the Greek Freak’s free-throw percentage has continued to spiral downward. Connecting on a career-high 77 percent that season, the percentages for the following three seasons are 76, 72.9, and a vile 63.3 this season. Of course, Antetokounmpo has shot a higher volume of free-throws with each passing year, but the plummeting percentages show cause for concern. One stat that stands out, in particular, is the historic drop-off in free throw percentage by Giannis in the last two seasons.

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After shooting 72.9 percent on 9.5 attempts per game from the charity stripe in 2018-19, Giannis fell to just 63.3 percent of his 10.0 attempts this year. That 9.6 percent differential puts him on the wrong side of history as the third-largest decrease in free-throw percentage from season to season ever for players with at least 600 attempts in both years. Provided by Yahoo! Sports and Stats Perform.

"“San Antonio Spurs great Tim Duncan tops the list with a difference of 14.3 per cent from 1999-2000 to 2000-01, ahead of Los Angeles Lakers star Shaquille O’Neal (13.2 per cent from 2002-03 to 2003-04).”"

A drop-off like this is close to unheard of, and as good as Giannis and the Milwaukee Bucks were this season, the MVP’s inability to capitalize at the charity stripe plagued them periodically. Milwaukee went an impressive 56-17 in the regular season, their 17 losses coming by a combined 157 points. Digging deep into the stat book, Antetokounmpo missed an astounding 231 free-throws during that 73 game span, potentially a number that left some wins on the table.

Heading into the postseason, these free-throw woes worsened for Antetokounmpo. In nine playoff games, the Greek Freak shot a vile 58.0 percent from the line on 9.0 attempts per game, proving to be his Achilles heel as the Bucks fell short in the postseason once again. Giannis’ free-throw troubles were not the sole fault of the Milwaukee Bucks throughout these playoffs, but they played a significant part in their downfall.

Milwaukee’s early exit made Antetokounmpo’s second consecutive MVP ceremony somewhat bittersweet, but the 25-year-old assured that he plans to continue getting better. Via ESPN’s Eric Woodyard:

"“Going into the next year, obviously, I want to be a better jump-shooter. Every year, I want to be a better jump-shooter,” Antetokounmpo said. “I want to be able to help my teammates better, know where they are at any time when I’m on the court. I want to be able to get lower, be able to guard, 1 through 5, but even better. There’s so many other things that I want to do better, and I’ve done it every single year and I’m going to do it again.”"

Hopefully, Antetokounmpo has improving his free-throw shooting near the top of his to-do list this offseason. Shooting remains No. 34’s most prominent flaw, and being able to take advantage of constant trips to the free-throw line would turn his game up another notch.

From a Most Improved Player winner three years ago to a now two-time MVP and one-time Defensive Player of the Year, Giannis knows a thing or two about improvement.