Milwaukee Bucks: 3 goals for Giannis Antetokounmpo for 2021-22 season
What do you get the man who already has everything imaginable? Specifically, what can you tell Giannis Antetokounmpo to work on or that he has to accomplish after having one of the greatest playoff runs in NBA history for the Milwaukee Bucks?
He has basically every award you could ask from him with two League MVPs, First Team All-NBA selections, Defensive Player of the Year, First Team All-Defense, All-Star Game captain, All-Star Game MVP, Most Improved Player, NBA Champion, and Finals MVP. He even got a video shoutout from his childhood idol, Thierry Henry!
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Antetokounmpo has done everything you could possibly do at this point in a career, but we all know his driven mindset and mentality. This won’t be enough for him, and he’ll want to keep continuing to get better. While we handed out a couple of goals that were more award/recognition based for Khris Middleton, Giannis’ goals are more from a developmental aspect. Because, as I just listed, the man has all the awards and accolades already.
He’s also still only 26 (turning 27 in December), so he can still make incremental developments in his game as opposed to a 30-year-old Middleton who has developed about as much as we could expect him to at this point. Antetokounmpo has reached the mountain peak but will continue to search for a higher one because he’s an insane worker.
These won’t be drastic changes or developments — I won’t be challenging him to shoot 40 percent from deep on five attempts per game — but reasonable things that the Bucks could expect from the reigning Finals MVP this coming season.
Giannis Antetokounmpo can work on his free throw shooting next season for the Milwaukee Bucks
I think this is the most obvious one, and I don’t want to belabor this point too much, but it’s a goal that Antetokounmpo is more than capable of achieving.
The past two seasons, Antetokounmpo has shot 65.8 percent on his free throws while getting to the line for almost 10 attempts per game. In his six seasons prior to that, Giannis shot 74.2 percent on his free throws on 6.2 attempts per game, good for a 71.7 percent career mark at the charity stripe.
The playoffs are obviously a whole different story, where Antetokounmpo shoots 61.3 percent at the line (9.0 attempts per game) in 64 career playoff games. His routine became a meme around social media, and opposing fans made it a point to count every time he shot a free throw to try and get the Greek Freak to earn a few 10-second violations. Indeed, he did get hit with a couple of these violations throughout the playoffs.
The overall goal should be to get the regular season percentage to at or above his career average (70-75 percent) and then bring the playoff percentage to a consistent 65-70 percent mark. Maybe it’s simply a hurdle Antetokounmpo will always have in his career, but we’ve seen him have full years where he can make free throws at those rates. Hopefully his championship-clinching free throw performance — 17-of-19 from the line in Game 6 — will be what he needs to clear this mental hurdle.