Milwaukee Bucks: Donte DiVincenzo must polish up this area of his game

By all accounts, Donte DiVincenzo had a successful 2020-21 season with the Milwaukee Bucks.

The third-year guard found himself as a full-time start for the first time in his career, and he made good with th opportunity by improving in practically every statistical category. Over 67 games, he averaged 10.4 points on .420/.379/.718 shooting splits, 5.8 rebounds, and 3.1 assists per game. Things were going great for the guard before he unfortunately went down with an injury against the Miami Heat in the first round of the 2021 NBA Playoffs.

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As DiVincenzo prepares for a bounce-back season with the defending champions in 2021-22, he understands the severity of his upcoming campaign. Not only does he have a contract year coming up, but the team could have very well traded for his potential replacement this offseason in Grayson Allen.

With the most important year of his young career approaching, the one thing that the guard could do to make an impression is work on his finishing offensively.

Improving his finishing around the basket could help Donte DiVincenzo take another leap with the Milwaukee Bucks

Despite his career year scoring the basketball, the one thing that held him back tremendously was converting at the hoop. According to NBA.com/stats, DiVincenzo shot 95-of-175 (54.3 percent) in the restricted area this past season. Things got even worse in the paint (non-restricted area) as the guard would shoot an abysmal 13-of-47 (27.7 percent) from that area, simply struggling to get anything to fall with consistency.

DiVincenzo already averaged a career-high 10.4 points last season, but that numbers could have been far greater if he was a better finisher. There were several instances last season where the 24-year-old would blow routine shots or just simply miss an open opportunity at the hoop, which was often frustrating to watch as he left many unscored points on the board.

In previous seasons, the guard was 26-of-33 (78.8 percent) from the restricted area in 2018-19 and 118-of-189 (62.4 percent) during the 2019-20. His percentage plummeted significantly last season for whatever reason, but he must leave that in the past and and focus on bumping it up a few ticks next season. The guard has shown untapped potential as a solid scorer, and tuning up his finishing would only help him improve this game further.

Of course, this is certainly something he can fix. After shooting a vile 31.8 percent from 3-point range on 3.5 attempts per game over his first two seasons, the guard was determined to improve. After working on it over the offseason, he had his best shooting season from the outside by far by shooting 37.9 percent on 5.2 attempts a night. That shooting was previously the biggest hole in his game, but with that seemingly patched up, he must now aim to work on his finishing. With his determined work ethic, the guard has likely spent time working on it this offseason.

While the Bucks will continue to utilize DiVincenzo as a floor spacer and he will need to continue knocking down those shots, it goes without saying that he must make the closer shots as well. Hopefully it was just a one-year thing and the guard can bounce-back next season. Due to his prolific offensive rebounding ability, he will get no shortage of second-chance shots, and he could shatter his career-high in points if he can score on those opportunities.

DiVincenzo seems poised for big things with the Bucks next season, and fixing this flaw would be a step in the right direction.