The Milwaukee Bucks officially moved from Damien Lillard and added Miles Turner in the hopes of winning the championship, but Giannis Antetocompo will be required to continue expanding key parts of his game.
The short-lived Milwaukee Bucks basketball era is over. The team abandoned superstar point guard Damian Lillard a few weeks after suffering from Achilles torn in the playoffs.
The Bucks made Lillard an expensive move to make room for free agent center Miles Turner. Miles Turner is expected to be the perfect Brook Lopez alternative next to Giannis Antetocompo.
Like Lopez, Turner has limited rebounders, but Giannis is more than capable of crashing the board.
With Lillard gone, the Bucks need the best players to continue honing key areas of the offensive game to compete for the championship.
Before he could descend on a torn Achilles, Lillard missed the final 14 games of the regular season with a blood clot.
The illness didn’t stop the Bucks from missing out on the playoffs. In fact, they went 11-3 in the game he missed, but mostly because Giannis plays a more fully offensive role.
Once Lillard went outside, the Greek freaks continued their normal scoring and defensive dominance, but he scored 8.6 assists per game.
With Lillard gone, Kevin Porter Jr. and Gary Trent are expected to close the backcourt for the starting unit. Although both are capable facilitators, they are primarily shooters and score first guards, and the attacks are carried out via Antetokounmpo.
Bucks had success with a similar offensive system in the 2021 title run, when Jrue Holiday was a paper “point guard,” but most of the play was launched and ended by Antetokounmpo.
Antetokounmpo is one of the league’s best goals scorers and defenders, a threat to new elite passing, but he is not a shooter. In his career, he has only won 28.4% of shots from the deep in just 2.2 attempts per game.
For him to realize his potential for passing, the Bucks must have a viable shooting threat around him. Turner, Trent Jr. and Porter Jr. all shot around 40% from Deep last season, but the Bucks added Trigger Happy Kyle Kuzma through trades last season, with solid shooters Bobby Portis, Taurian Prince and Aji Green coming out of the bench.
In the East, the Bucks have the best players easily at Antetokounmpo, but boast one of the best filming lineups. After losing Lillard, Milwaukee was expected to take a clear step, but if there is, they should enter the postseason with the best odds after hiring Doc Rivers.