There’s a lot of noise about just what exactly went wrong in the Mike Budenholzer era for the Milwaukee Bucks.
Some say it was the head coach’s inability to make in-game adjustments, while others point to his ineffective rotations and lack of tangible player development. There are also those who blame his poor defensive schemes or lack of creativity on offense.
After winning the NBA championship in 2021, the Bucks were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs in 2022 — marking the second time in three years that the Bucks had been eliminated before the Eastern Conference Finals. Whatever the reason, it’s clear that the Bucks needed a change at head coach to reach their full potential.
But the truth has been staring us in the face for quite some time now, and the statistics prove it. From the Raptors’ backdoor sweep to the Bucks in 2019 to Milwaukee’s humiliating defeat at the hands of the Miami Heat a year later, it’s been a lot of the same reasons behind the Bucks faltering even with the best player in the world.
Here’s what the stats have said about the last year of the Budenholzer era.
The Milwaukee Bucks “played random,” and they were not a good offensive team because of it.
It’s tough to say that about a unit starred by Giannis Antetokounmpo, considering his immeasurable impact on the offensive end.
Playtype stats on NBA.com/stats paint a picture of an offensive unit that didn’t know what it wanted to be. Even the roster construction gives this away somewhat since they had no true three-level scorers outside of Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday. There’s a lot to be said about the struggles those two faced in the playoffs, but perhaps the problems were more systemic.
It’s not that they were incompetent on that end — that’s simply not something you can be when you have the architect of the Beautiful Game Spurs at the helm. It’s that they struggled to find a stable and consistent identity outside of Giannis Antetokounmpo, and that made them impotent when faced with defenses that could evolve with them.
Think about the great offensive teams of the past decade. Every team they faced knew what they were going for on offense, and they still scored with ease anyway. The Golden State Warriors are known for their high-powered offense that is predicated on ball movement, three-point shooting, and rim pressure. The Houston Rockets, for a time, were known for their “Moreyball” style of offense, which emphasizes three-point shooting and layups. The “Beautiful Game” San Antonio Spurs were known for their balanced, European-centric offense that features a mix of inside-outside scoring and ball movement.
It’s hard to say just what system the Bucks were running. Here’s where the stats placed Milwaukee in 2022-23:
- 7th in points per possession as PnR roll man (that’s 79th percentile)
- 8th in PPP in spot-up — 75th percentile among NBA teams
- 10th in PPP in posting up
- 18th in PPP in cutting plays (1.30 points per possession) and 26th in frequency (5.7 percent)
- 23rd in PPP in handoffs despite being closer to 15th in frequency
- 29th in the league in isolation scoring
- 31st percentile in pace
- 58th percentile in scoring as PnR ball handlers
It’s quite telling that the Bucks’ highest marks were in spot-up shooting and rolling off picks. Their offensive game plan has always revolved around Giannis Antetokounmpo’s inward gravity to generate good looks for his teammates. But that their supposed main strengths were not even top five in the league should tell you all you need to know about their potential as a contender under Budenholzer.
One reading of these statistics is that they were never really truly excellent in any one area of scoring, not even their strengths. That made them predictable and easy to defend, especially when their outside shots weren’t falling.
The Bucks’ lack of an offensive identity outside of Antetokounmpo driving and kicking is precisely what hurt them in the Mike Budenholzer era. The Bucks’ offensive system is not necessarily designed to create open looks for shooters. Instead, is predicated on Giannis Antetokounmpo driving to the basket and creating for others only as a byproduct of doing so. But how often do Bucks fans see handoffs, inverted pick and rolls, and off-ball movement run with the sole purpose of getting guys like Grayson Allen open? They’re there, but not as much as plays focused on Antetokounmpo.
Budenholzer has been criticized for struggling to make proper in-game adjustments on the fly. This was particularly evident in the Bucks’ 2023 playoff loss to the Boston Celtics. In Games 4 and 5, the Bucks blew double-digit leads in each game. Budenholzer appeared frozen on the sidelines, unable to do anything to stop the Celtics’ comebacks.
But one reason behind that was the Bucks never had a system that was adaptable to begin with. Year after year, they stuck with their guns and hung their hats on defense. For one brilliant championship run, that was enough. But Budenholzer’s offense was often predictable and stagnant. He relied too heavily on Giannis Antetokounmpo to create offense, and the Bucks struggled to score when Antetokounmpo was off the court.
When a team has a clear offensive identity, it can execute its game plan more effectively and efficiently. This is because the players know what they are supposed to do, and they are more likely to make the right decisions with the ball.
Having limited offensive options also meant that Budenholzer’s rotations were often ineffective since they relied heavily on their three stars. Bud often failed to find the right lineups to match up against the league’s best defenders when one of their starters was locked up.
This is what shone through in those five years. The Bucks won their chip almost solely because of their defense. They won despite Bud’s “play random” offense, not because of it. Even after winning the chip, their offensive rating was 11th out of the 16 playoff teams that year.
The Milwaukee Bucks ran a system based on shooting, but without any elite shooters.
This might read like a continuation of the last few points, but the dissonance deserves its own subhead.
The aforecited teams all had different offensive identities, but they all also had one thing in common: they knew what they wanted to do on offense, and they had the personnel to execute their game plan.
In the regular season, the Bucks were fourth in 3-point attempts per game after they hoisted over 40 treys a night. But they were only tenth in percentage after converting on just 36.8 percent of those attempts.
Their shooting dashboard on NBA.com/stats backs this up. The Bucks were fifth in the league in terms of frequency of shots that were classified as “open.” But of their shots that were taken with the closest defender being anywhere from four to six feet away, they only made 34.3 percent of them — which is good for 18th in the league.
The truth has been staring us in the face for a while now.
Good shooters make wide-open shots, but great shooters make contested ones. Milwaukee’s roster is chock full of good shooters — but no great ones. Giannis Antetokounmpo’s all-world inward gravity won’t always generate wide-open shots, especially in the playoffs, where defenders close out to the perimeter with more determination.
By now, fans are used to the Bucks’ scorching hot shooting suddenly running dry in the playoffs. There’s a reason for that.
If the blueprint was to surround Giannis Antetokounmpo with shooters, the truth is that he’s been surrounded by guys who just happen to be able to make threes. But throughout Giannis’ tenure, there’s an argument to be made that perhaps the only elite or pure shooter he’s been able to play next to is Bryn Forbes. And whether the failure is on Jon Horst or Mike Budenholzer, the truth is this contradiction may have cost the Bucks some championships.
The Bucks need to find a way to add some elite shooters to their team if they want to be a championship contender. That’s on top of developing their current shooters and decisively running plays for them on offense. If they can do that, they will be a very difficult team to beat.
Perhaps there is much more riding on the development of A.J. Green than the Bucks faithful had initially realized.
The Bucks’ bench ranked 17th in the NBA in points per game in 2022-23. They averaged just 34.3 points per game off the bench. In the advanced stats, the Bucks’ bench also ranked 15th in the NBA in net rating in 2022-23, getting outscored by opponents by -0.3 points per 100 possessions. They were also 21st in offensive rating, pouring in just 54.3 points per 100.
This is all just to call attention to the fact that the Bucks have not had much success developing their young players in recent years. In the past five years, only one Bucks player drafted outside of the lottery has become a regular starter in the NBA in Donte DiVincenzo.
There are other statistics that point to Milwaukee’s lack of development, and the overall top-heaviness of this team. For instance, they were 17th in rookie minutes per game, and 17th in bench points per game.
There’s a palpable lack of urgency in investing in this team’s future. While they’re certainly in win-now mode, the Bucks are also getting farther away from their sole championship season with this top-heavy core, and they are not getting any younger. As it currently stands, Giannis Antetokounmpo is 28 years old, Khris Middleton is 31, and Jrue Holiday is 32. If the Bucks want to stay competitive in the Eastern Conference, they need to find ways to replace the production of their aging stars. Developing rookies is one way to do this.
These stats only prove that it was truly the right time to move on from Mike Budenholzer. The system he put in place was great for winning regular-season games, but it had its clear deficiencies come playoff time. The Bucks had underachieved in the playoffs in recent years, and the reasons why are clear.
Stay tuned for more Milwaukee Bucks analysis.