Milwaukee Bucks news: Updates on Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and more

While weather delays have wreaked havoc on their schedule, Milwaukee has one thing going in their favor. Miami Heat wing Jimmy Butler won’t join his colleagues for their trip to South Beach. Milwaukee and Butler have a contentious history with one another. 

The Heat eliminated the Bucks en route to both of their Butler-led NBA Finals appearances including their most recent trip in 2023 when they humiliated the top-seeded Bucks and slammed the door shut on the Mike Budenholzer-era. That background has possibly contributed to Butler privately indicating he has no interest in a trade to Milwaukee. 

Conversely, it’s been a positive week for Cream City’s hardwood representatives amid a rough season. Khris Middleton is thriving off the bench since being moved there by Doc Rivers nearly two weeks ago. Unfortunately, Antetokounmpo’s free throw shooting is “Under Construction” again.

Good news: Khris Middleton is thriving on the second unit

Khris Middleton’s new bench residency has been a resounding success in a limited sample size. Since Jan. 10, he's thrived with the second unit, shooting 20-for-26 inside the arc. Outside the arc, he's been somewhat below average shooting 7-for-21 behind the arc, but the new role has allowed him to explore his mid-range proficiency.

His 67.4 percent effective field goal percentage in the past five games is a sharp increase from his first 13 games (51.8 percent). More importantly, the Bucks have been in a groove. Their 120 points per 100 possessions are fourth-best in the league over that span and seven points better than their season average. 

Playing on two surgically repaired ankles, Middleton’s decline has been a source of frustration for a player who has given his all to the franchise. Unfortunately, they’re also a roster with a diminishing title window, a 34-year-old All-Star at point guard and a 30-year-old MVP who’s not afraid to put pressure on the front office to put him in position to compete for a title.

It’s a dog-eat-dog league. In a league where the top teams in each conference are three or four All-Stars deep, Middleton needs to at least serve as a microwave scorer and playmaker off the bench or show enough life to improve his trade stock.

Bad news: Giannis free throw shooting is “Under Construction” again

Midway through their season, Milwaukee is still a work in progress. While Khris Middleton’s bench role is a positive development. A critical aspect holding back the Bucks offensively is their free throw shooting, still the league’s second-worst behind a surprisingly poor shooting Golden State team. It goes without saying that in tight contests heading down to the wire, their inability to knock down freebies is the type of defect that could be deleterious to their championship aspirations. Two years ago, his 45 percent shooting against Miami cost them in that series.

Their collapsed free throw percentage is a result of Antetokounmpo's dead weight crashing in on their team’s efficiency. While he's had a Shaq-like impact in the paint and discovered  his mid-range game, he's also shooting a career-low 58 percent from the field on nearly 11 attempts per night.  

Aneteokounmpo’s free throw shooting has gotten so shaky, he’s in his own head about it. His painstakingly long routine often ran afoul of the NBA’s rarely called 10-second free-throw statute and has made him a target of opposing fans. Over the years, Antetokounmp has tinkered with a series of free-throw routines to varying results. This week, Antetokounmpo was back in the lab debuting another new free throw routine.

The last time a franchise cornerstone was struggling this dramatically at the line was a quarter-century ago when prime Shaq was tossing bricks at the rim at a sub-60 percent rate. Like Shaq, Antetokounmpo shoots better from the line than he does from the field. What should give Antetokounmpo-sympathizers some solace is that O'Neal won three titles at the height of the Hack-A-Shaq era, and a fourth title in Miami shooting a sub-50 percent clip at the charity stripe. For all three Kobe-Shaq title teams, the Lakers were worst or second-to-last in free throw shooting percentage. Unlike those dynastic Lakers, the margins are too slim for Milwaukee in the modern efficiency-era NBA.

Early in his career, Antetokounmpo knocked down his free throws a few ticks above 70-percent until his accuracy fell off a cliff at the beginning of the 2019 season. Since then, it’s only gotten worse. Rather than fixating on trying to extend his range, Antetokounmpo would have been better off maintaining his free shooting efficacy. He answered the call in Game 6 of the 2021 NBA Finals, knocking down 17-of-19 freebies to clinch his only title. It’s all mental and the Bucks need that version of Antetokounmpo to lock in and rediscover his rhythm from the charity stripe during the second half of this season.