Does Giannis Antetokounmpo have enough help for the Bucks to level-up?

The single most valuable commodity an NBA team can have is a superstar on a below-market contract. Collectively-bargained caps on player salaries (as well as the recent cap spike) ensure that there are a number of players around the league that fit that description: Kevin Durant ($25 million), Anthony Davis ($23.8 million), Jimmy Butler ($19.3 million), Kawhi Leonard ($18.9 million), and more provide a ton of value to their teams just based on their on-court impact; but they provide even more value by being “worth” a lot more than their contracts pay them, thus allowing their teams to buy even more talent with the money that’s “left over.”

Last season, the Milwaukee Bucks joined the list of teams lucky enough to have one of these players, as Giannis Antetokounmpo leveled-up from “intriguing young player with all-world potential” to flat-out superstar and arguably the second-best player in the Eastern Conference. Giannis finished the season averaging 22.9 points, 8.8 rebounds, 5.5 assists, 1.9 blocks, and 1.6 steals per game — at 22 years old. (In doing so, he became the only player in NBA history to average 22-8-5-1.5-1.5, per Basketball-Reference.) He also shot 52 percent from the field and made nearly eight trips to the free throw line a night.

He finished eighth in Box Plus-Minus and fourth in Value Over Replacement Player; and he did it all while still in the final season of his rookie contract. His near-max extension kicks in during the 2017-18 season, but if his production even remotely resembles what he did last year, his on-court value will blow his $22,471,911 salary (31st in the NBA) out of the water.

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With a win being estimated by ESPN’s Kevin Pelton as being worth approximately 3.5 percent of the salary cap on the open market, and with Antetokounmpo being worth approximately 13 wins last season, a similar season would be “worth” $45,087,315 next year. That’s more than double Giannis’ actual salary.

In theory, this should leave the Bucks with a bunch of excess money lying around that they can spend to build a true contender. That’s the entire benefit of having a player whose production far outweighs his salary.

But we know the Bucks are not even really expected to be among the inner circle of contenders for the Eastern Conference title this coming season, let alone the NBA title. Why? Well, there’s just too much negative salary detritus elsewhere on the roster. The Bucks essentially give all the surplus value that Giannis generates back in their payments to just four players, if we go by last season’s production. Matthew Dellavedova, Mirza Teletovic, John Henson, and Spencer Hawes collectively produced on-court value that fell short of their combined salaries by $24,545,255. Other players produce adequate and even surplus value over their contracts, but the massive boon they get from Giannis could likely be far better spent.

Is there enough help for him elsewhere on the roster for the Bucks to emerge as a fringe contender in the East? Milwaukee finished 42-40 last season despite the fact that they employed Miles Plumlee for half the season, that Khris Middleton was out with a torn hamstring until just prior to the All-Star break, that Jabari Parker went down for the season with a torn ACL in Middleton’s return game, that Greg Monroe was benched early in the season, that Malcolm Brogdon bounced in and out of the starting lineup, that Tony Snell only arrived in camp two weeks before the start of the season, and that Thon Maker didn’t become a real part of the rotation until the last month or so of the year.

Middleton will be healthy out of the gate this year, and his presence should be huge for Milwaukee. He’s actually the quintessential Buck — a long, two-way wing that spaces the floor on one end and can guard two or three positions on the other. He also gives the Bucks another perimeter scorer capable of working on or off the ball. Parker won’t be back at the start of the season, but when he returns it might be in the better-fitting (on this team) role of primary offensive option off the bench. He’ll be free to attack full-bore at all times and have the luxury of working against weaker defenders when he plays with the subs. He’s already shown that he can come back from a torn ACL and still be a strong, powerful off-the-dribble weapon once fully-recovered. He can get back to being that player again.

Monroe should be a rotation fixture from the jump, with no weird four-game stretch where he barely plays. Jason Kidd figured out last season that he could anchor the second unit offense, move well enough to not be a disaster defensively, play a bunch of minutes with the starters, and even close some games. Brogdon should have Kidd’s full trust at this point, and start over Dellavedova. His mix of skills allows him to work both on and off the ball, giving Kidd the freedom to put the ball in Giannis’ hands as much as he wants. Brogdon may never be an above-average starter at point guard, but he was already an above-average overall player at the position as a rookie and should still have room to grow even though he came into the league at 24 years old.

Snell’s back, and though he’s on a bigger contract, he should fit in just as well as he did last season. Spending more time next to Brogdon and Middleton should provide him even more room for those jumpers he started knocking down more consistently in Milwaukee than he ever did in Chicago; and those three plus Antetokounmpo form a long, rangy perimeter quarter that should help enact the scramble-happy defense the Bucks love to run. They can even dial things back a bit now that everyone should be more familiar with things, which should cut down on the super-easy baskets they gave up too often a year ago.

There’s also a whole lot of room for upside with Maker. He played only 562 regular season minutes as a rookie, and while he didn’t produce like a star early on, the flashes of his crazy upside shone through far more often once he moved into the starting lineup full-time late in the year. He’s still a 20-year old 7-foot-1 big man with the potential to be a floor-spacing rim-protector, one of the most valuable player archetypes in the NBA. He already has terrific timing in the paint on both sides of the floor; he just has to master the nuances of the game. Sure, that takes a while, but every season should bring some progress with it and his second year in the NBA will be no different.

That group of players forms a solid group of secondary contributors around the Bucks’ star. There’s a whole lot of length and athleticism there, and a decent dose of shooting as well. The other players on the roster (Dellavedova, Henson, Teletovic, Hawes, Rashad Vaughn, rookies D.J. Wilson and Sterling Brown) all bring specific skills as well, and they can be variably helpful in certain contexts if used correctly.

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Is that enough to push the Bucks into the upper half of the East? Probably not yet — not unless another of Milwaukee’s young guns takes a major leap. But there’s intrigue and upside here, and a whole lot of room to grow. The Bucks may not level-up this season, but they’re pretty well-positioned to do it once some of their bad money starts coming off the books a year or two down the line.