Milwaukee Bucks: 3 goals for Khris Middleton in 2020-21 season
Coming off a career year last season, we outline three goals for Khris Middleton to achieve with the Milwaukee Bucks for the 2020-21 campaign.
Entering his eighth season with the Milwaukee Bucks, Khris Middleton and the rest of his teammates are ready to meet up against championship-level expectations once again.
If his career year last season was any indication, Middleton seems more than ready for the challenge. After all, Middleton earned his second straight All-Star appearance and averaged a career-high 20.9 points per game while shooting .497/.415/.916 shooting splits, along with 6.2 rebounds and 4.3 assists.
More from Bucks News
- Bucks 2023-24 player profile: Can MarJon Beauchamp take a leap?
- Piecing together the Milwaukee Bucks’ dream starting 5 in 5 years
- Predicting Thanasis Antetokounmpo’s 2023-24 stats for the Bucks
- Grade the trade: Bucks land reputable backup guard in swap with Pacers
- New workout video should have Milwaukee Bucks fans excited
For all of that to come after signing a massive, five-year, $177.5 million contract in the summer of 2019, Middleton certainly showed off his value to the Bucks. That could be best seen in Middleton ranking 19th in Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) and having a career-high 21.1 PER rating per Basketball-Reference.com.
After such a high mark of an individual campaign, Middleton has quite the act to follow going into his ninth NBA season. So with that in mind, let’s dive in and hand out three goals for Khris Middleton to achieve over the 2020-21 season for the Milwaukee Bucks.
Goal no. 1 – Maintain blistering shooting efficiency
After flirting with entering the 50-40-90 club until the very bitter end in the bubble, Middleton set quite the standard for him to top or reach from here on out in what remains in his career.
Middleton’s polished scoring never looked better from all three levels of the floor and he certainly asserted himself as one of the mid-range marksmen in the league. Per NBA.com/stats, Middleton made the fourth-most mid-range shots last season and hit such looks at an astonishing 52.7 percent clip.
Still, Middleton is prone to the bad shooting nights like all NBA players go through. Last year, Middleton had 15 contests in which he shot below 40 percent from the field and the Bucks went 7-8 during those games.
Just as has been the case throughout his career, Middleton’s value to the Bucks is more than just being an efficient shooter. The variety of ways he can hit shots both on and off the ball and attack mismatches at will gives the Bucks the go-to scorer, especially when the walls are constantly being built around Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Middleton may be the most important Bucks player in terms of their ability to score in halfcourt situations and if he plays anywhere less than the level he played at last season, it could make for quite an adjustment to the Bucks’ offensive firepower.