Milwaukee Bucks: Giannis Making Huge Strides with 3 Point Shot

Milwaukee Bucks’ star Giannis Antetokounmpo has developed all aspects of his game but perhaps none more so than his 3 point shot, which is paying off this season.

When the Milwaukee Bucks drafted Giannis Antetokounmpo back in 2013 at the young age of just 18-years-old, it certainly didn’t take long to realize that there was a lot of talent and potential to work with. But like any NBA rookie – especially at 18 – time and development was needed.

Now in his seventh NBA season, as we look back over Giannis’ career up to this point he has turned into what many would consider the most dominant player in the NBA, led the Milwaukee Bucks to the Eastern Conference finals and won his first league MVP last season.

While he’s a dominant defender and nearly unstoppable in the paint, many around basketball always brought up the question, what if Giannis developed a consistent 3 point shot? Well, through the 36 games that he has played this season, he isn’t too far off from answering that question.

As expected, through his first three NBA seasons, the 3 point shot wasn’t a huge part of Giannis’ game. In fact, from 2013 through the 2015-16 season he averaged just over one 3 point attempt per game and hit 28 percent of those. But from that point, he slowly began taking more shots from deep.

During the two-year stretch that would follow from 2016 to 2018, Giannis averaged 2.1 attempts per game, making roughly the same amount as he did in previous seasons at 28.8 percent. Certainly not a game-changer by any means. However, it was progress.

Then the 2018-19 season rolled around and Mike Budenholzer took over as the head coach with his ‘let it fly’ mentality, and yes, that included more shots Giannis as well. Last year he would attempt a career high 2.8 three point attempts per game and although he would hit just 25.6 percent of them, his confidence and willingness to shoot was growing.

In each of his first six seasons, we saw him taking small steps forward in the 3 point shooting department, but this year, Giannis has taken a fairly big step and what was once a small aspect of his game, is now becoming a weapon.

His attempts per game have nearly doubled from last season to 5.2, not to mention that he is knocking down 31.9 percent of them. And although that is still below the league average of 35.5 percent, teams are having to think twice about how they guard Giannis because he has shown that he can get hot from deep over multiple games.

Back in November over the span of five games, Giannis took 27 three point attempts and hit 44.4 percent of them. Then in December against New York and Detroit, he’d take 12 attempts, knocking down 58.3 percent of them. Most recently when facing Minnesota and San Antonio in back-to-back games, Giannis was 42.9 percent from 3 on 14 shots.

Currently, 4.3 of Giannis’ 5.2 three point attempts are considered wide-open (6 or more feet to shoot) since teams don’t fully respect his ability from 3. However, even if Giannis goes cold, under coach Bud he isn’t going to be discouraged from shooting.

On the flip side, when he’s hot – which as I pointed out, we’ve seen numerous times –  or continues to see his number improve, opposing teams will eventually have to start guarding him closer and this is going to create more space for Giannis’ teammates to operate, while also creating drive opportunities for him.

Like Giannis has done for every aspect of his game, he’s worked incredibly hard at his 3 point shooting and now we are beginning to see those efforts paying off. His form has improved, his numbers are up, and given how far he has come, there’s no reason to think that he won’t get even better from deep.