Milwaukee Bucks: Evaluating the young players after preseason

After a couple of long weeks, we’ve concluded the 2021 preseason and that couldn’t have come sooner for the Milwaukee Bucks who went 1-4 in their preseason campaign. Despite the record, it was a positive overall preseason for the defending champs as they accomplished what they were likely looking to do, which is get everyone ramped up for the regular season and play the young players to get a sense of where they’re at.

For the Bucks’ three primary young players and draft picks, they each had a very different preseason with a different set of expectations. Jordan Nwora came in with the expectation that he had an outside shot at a rotation spot if a few things broke right for him and he could show he was a more well-rounded player.

The rookies, Sandro Mamukelashvili and Georgios Kalaitzakis had to prove different things as well. Despite having a standard contract, Kalaitzakis needed to show how ready he is for professional basketball in North America, which is a different style of play than in Greece. Mamukelashvili, on the other hand, had to show how ready he could be if called upon.

For the latter, he may have gotten more minutes than anticipated this preseason, but that came due to extenuating circumstances that necessitated the rookie stepping in to play more. But with each set of differing expectations came differing results and we likely won’t get to see a lot of the rookies much during the regular season and Nwora’s playing time is up in the air so let’s evaluate them on their preseason minutes where they had the chance to play!

Evaluating the Milwaukee Bucks young players after the preseason: Georgios Kalaitzakis isn’t quite ready, but there were flashes

When I checked in on the 60th overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft after two preseason games, I was encouraged by what Georgios Kalaitzakis had flashed in an extremely limited sample. He was aggressive in looking for his shot but his primary skills on offense at the moment are his passing feel and court vision.

It’s clear that Kalaitzakis is a bit of a work in progress as a scorer and that’s ok! He will have a lot of time to develop those skills in the G League this season since he won’t be asked to do much of anything in the regular season for the Bucks.

Overall, it was a solid preseason campaign even if the stats don’t blow you away immediately. In five preseason contests, Kalaitzakis averaged 15 minutes a night, 2.4 points, 2.2 rebounds, and 1.0 assists. He didn’t play a ton once the starters began playing, so he got most of his minutes from the first couple of games where it was a lot of the deep rotation guys playing heavy minutes.

Someone who has also been encouraged by the limited minutes that Kalaitzakis has gotten is his head coach, Mike Budenholzer, who had some nice things to say about him after the final preseason game. “Georgios coming over and getting accustomed to playing here,” Budenholzer told reporters. “When he drives and attacks, good things happen.” He also mentioned that his length on defense is a strength, which has been a lot of the reviews around Kalaitzakis so far, that he’s a very energetic defender and takes pride in his game at that end of the floor.

We may not see much of Kalaitzakis during the regular season, so it will be very important for him to take advantage of his reps with the Herd this season.