Milwaukee Bucks: 50/40/90 Club Well Within Reach for Khris Middleton

Eight regular-season games remain in the 2019-2020 NBA season, and Khris Middleton of the Milwaukee Bucks has the opportunity to join the 50/40/90 club.

As the 2019-2020 NBA season inches closer to restarting, of course, the Milwaukee Bucks ultimate goal is to win the championship. But before they can get to that point, they’ll have to make their way through eight regular-season games first.

And when it comes to these remaining regular-season games, fortunately for the Bucks, they won’t be fighting for playoff position like most. Instead, they pretty much have the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed all but locked up.

Milwaukee will enter the restart at 53-12 with a 6.5 game lead over the Toronto Raptors. To lose their top spot, it would take the Raptors winning out and Milwaukee winning just one game or fewer. While rust is certainly a possibility – as it is for every team – the Bucks aren’t going 1-7.

This means they’ll have more of an opportunity to work on regaining some of that chemistry that has been lost with the three-month layoff, along with some potential postseason rotations, and anything else that Coach Mike Budenholzer deems necessary.

However, as Milwaukee prepares for postseason play, something else to be keeping your eyes on during these final regular-season games is that Khris Middleton is well within reach of the 50/40/90 club.

The 50/40/90 club is for players who, for an entire season, shot at least 50 percent from the field, 40 percent from 3, and 90 percent from the free-throw line. Since the three-point line was implemented back in the 1979-1980 NBA season, there have been just eight NBA players who have accomplished this feat.

And it’s a pretty impressive list as you’d imagine, including Larry Bird, who did it twice, Steve Nash who did it four times. As well as Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Mark Price, Reggie Miller, Dirk Nowitzki, and as I’m sure everyone remembers, Malcolm Brogdon joined the club during the 2018-2019 season with the Milwaukee Bucks.

Well, now Middleton finds himself on the verge of this elite company as he will begin play shooting 49.9 percent from the field, 41.8 percent from 3, and 90.8 percent from the line according to Basketball-Reference.

Considering that players are coming off a three-month break, it’s difficult to know how many attempts per game in each category Middleton is going to make. But if we look at his season averages, he is taking 15.5 shots per game, which over eight games is 124 total shots.

So in order to get his field goal percentage to the 50 percent mark, he is going to have to hit 63 shots in these final games if he maintains the same pace that he has for the entire season.

When it comes to Middleton’s 3-point percentage, he enters play above the 40 percent mark. And once again, using his season averages as the benchmark, Middleton will take around 46 threes over the final eight games, and he will need to hit only 13 of them to maintain at least 40 percent for the season.

Lastly is Middleton’s free throw percentage, and this could be the trickiest just given that there is less room for error even though it should be the easiest shot to make of the three. Middleton has averaged 3.6 free-throw attempts per game this season, which equals out to about 29 for eight games. And of those 29 attempts, he will have to hit 25 of them to stay above 90 percent.

But perhaps the most challenging aspect for Middleton is going to be the unique circumstances that the NBA – and every sport – is in at the moment. There’s basically been an entire offseason between when play ended and when it will resume, not to mention that everyone will be living in “the bubble” down in Orlando, Florida.

We just don’t know how quickly he – or anyone for that matter – will return to form. However, with that said, if I were a betting man, I’m putting my money on Middleton to be the ninth NBA member of this club. He’s just been too good this season for me to think otherwise.

In the grand scheme of what the Milwaukee Bucks are trying to achieve, this individual accomplishment likely isn’t very high on their to-do list. But for Khris Middleton, the 50/40/90 club is certainly well within reach, and it provides him the opportunity to join elite company in what has already been an excellent season for him.