How Milwaukee can tap into Giannis Antetokounmpo’s playmaking: Bucks mailbag, Part III

As we continue to work our way through this mailbag, the Indiana Pacers continue to win games. The team that eliminated the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the playoffs in consecutive seasons is now two wins away from winning their first NBA title. By the time we finish up this mailbag next week, they could be NBA champions.

Such is life in this new NBA that has deemphasized dynasties and strived for greater parity.

Rather than trying to decide if the Bucks should feel better or worse about losing to the Pacers in five games, let’s get to some more questions.

Note: Questions have been lightly edited for clarity and grammar.

Do you think LeBron James’ longevity as a high-caliber player influences star players such as Giannis Antetokounmpo? If so, can it make them reconsider the traditional notions of what age-based decline must look like (and influence their career decisions)? — Adam R.

Absolutely.

Antetokounmpo has always laid out his vision for a 20-year NBA career. Early in his career, he talked about players such as Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan in laying out that vision, and I think that was because of their careers as one-team superstars.

In recent years, he has mentioned LeBron James with more regularity. He just tweeted about James the other day:

If they’re people out there that believe that one of the greatest players to ever be on earth has no bag… Man i’ve seen it all 💯🤦🏽‍♂️

— Giannis Antetokounmpo (@Giannis_An34) June 9, 2025

James was just named to the Second Team All-NBA at 40. So was Steph Curry at 37. Kevin Durant was named Second Team All-NBA last season at 35. Elite players aren’t just putting together long careers; they’re making All-NBA teams after they’ve been in the league for 15-plus years. Those guys are developing a new blueprint for superstars in real time, so it would be crazy to believe that Antetokounmpo is thinking his career will go any other way.

Do you think Giannis’ “point forward” comments indicate the style/coaching he wants to play or what skills he wants to improve on to elongate his career? — Ryan G.

For those unfamiliar, here is what Antetokounmpo said after the Bucks’ Game 5 loss in Indiana about playing “point forward” at the end of the season as the Bucks were  without Damian Lillard:

“I always believe there’s phases, and I always thought that would be my last phase as a guy that can play-make and set up the team and be a legit point forward out there,” Antetokounmpo said. “At times, I’ve showed that I can do it. At times, when I have a great point guard next to me, I just let the guy do his job and I do my job, but I believe — obviously, one of the greatest players, LeBron James being the best at it — you see a lot of people playing like that right now.

“From (Pascal) Siakam to Pablo (Banchero), Scottie Barnes, you see a lot of people that can handle the ball and put their teammates in the right place and play-make and make the team better. It’s something I enjoy to do. If I have the opportunity to come back next year and do that, I would love it.”

Antetokounmpo’s priority will always be winning at the highest level. That priority will always supersede any preferences he may have about play style or his potential role. He will always do what the team needs, and he will always try to execute whatever his idealized role for that specific team might be at its absolute zenith.

But while that is true and — I don’t see that ever not being true — Antetokounmpo did seem to enjoy getting the opportunity to serve more as a “point forward” or whatever you might want to call his role at the end of the season. He explained why he believed it was happening with a “cookie jar” analogy late in the season, but I think one of the most impressive aspects of his shift into the “point forward” role was his ability to increase his assists while also decreasing his turnovers.

Before Lillard went out with deep vein thrombosis on March 20, Antetokounmpo recorded 338 assists and 182 turnovers. In the 11 games after Lillard’s diagnosis, the two-time MVP dished out 95 assists while only committing 24 turnovers. That means he decreased his turnovers per game from 3.25 to 2.18 and increased his assist-to-turnover ratio from 1.86 to 3.96. It’s a major role change and a comparison between a large sample and a small sample, but the ability to rack up assists and limit turnovers makes this path forward all the more intriguing.

Regarding the second question, I thought we saw some of that on display in the 2024-25 season. In my last mailbag, I talked about the changes in Antetokounmpo’s shot diet and I would reiterate that I believe it is a big part of elongating his career, so I wanted to instead look at something else that plays into a potential “point forward” change and that is Antetokounmpo’s ability and comfort to throw different passes from different places on the floor.

Under former coach Mike Budenholzer, Antetokounmpo grew accustomed to throwing a lot of the same passes. With five-out spacing, Antetokounmpo focused on getting downhill and then throwing passes to the boxes that Budenholzer trained players to fill around the floor. At the end of Budenholzer’s time in Milwaukee, the degree of difficulty changed slightly as Antetokounmpo needed to start throwing passes to the dunker, but overall, the expectations remained the same.

This past season, the diversity of passes Antetokounmpo was expected to throw changed.

Despite playing in six fewer games, per data from Sportradar, Antetokounmpo threw considerably more assists to teammates in the paint this season:

With different responsibilities and more touches in the post and on the elbows this past season, Antetokounmpo needed to throw different passes. He needed to get far more comfortable in finding his teammates in tight spaces in the paint, as he did on this assist to Kyle Kuzma:

That might not have been a no-look, over-the-head pass from a post-up, but it was a play that Antetokounmpo made on what was an aborted drive off an inverted pick-and-roll with Pat Connaughton. Rather than barreling through traffic, the Bucks’ superstar forward saw the traffic, slowed himself down, dribbled into a brief post-up, saw the help defenders and used his height and skill to make the right pass.

As he gets older, those are the plays he will need to make more often. And as a bonus, that type of playmaking requires far less stress on his body and can help mitigate the risk of a potential injury from getting up in the air or tripping over a defender trying to take a charge.

Using tracking data from Sportradar, you can see how Antetokounmpo started to implement a different style of playmaking this past season and how that play style may help him age more gracefully.

The graphic above, assembled by the amazing Todd Whitehead, shows all of Antetokounmpo’s kick-out assists made for 3-points over the last two seasons (excluding swing passes and handoffs) using these definitions:

• The peach arrows are passes made “downhill” from the area around the elbows to the corners. You can see they tend to point toward the baseline (from the top of the floor to the bottom). Each of these passes started at least 10 feet away from the baseline.
• The green-blue arrows are all the other kick-out assists he made to 3-pointers. These arrows tend to point toward midcourt (from the bottom of the floor to the top).
• It’s important to note that teal arrows can start within 10 feet of the baseline if they end above the break (because that implies the pass is not going downhill).

While it doesn’t happen exactly like this because of the amazing ways in which Antetokounmpo can contort his body while still making on-target passes, it is safe to say that a majority of the peach arrows represent passes where he was going downhill and faced up to the basket. On the other hand, the green-blue arrows represent passes where Antetokounmpo likely had his back to the basket and pitched the ball out for a 3-point shooter.

The increase in those green-blue arrows shows that the 2024-25 season represented real change in the way that Antetokounmpo played and how he created shots for his teammates in a less dangerous way. Antetokounmpo can be devastating getting downhill off the dribble or posting up at the elbows faced up to the basket and throwing those passes represented by peach arrows, but aging gracefully may require more possessions represented by the green-blue arrows where he is a threat with his back to the basket.

What was the rationale behind extending Jon Horst? — Elwood B.

The Bucks chose not to put out a news release announcing the general manager’s extension, so there was no official statement from ownership. The team’s ownership group was not made available to discuss their decision to extend Horst, so unfortunately, there is no official word from the team on their rationale.

Here’s what I think was the basic logic behind the Bucks’ decision.

While they have not found high levels of postseason success since winning a championship in 2021, Horst still has a championship ring. No matter who wins the NBA Finals, we will not see a repeat this season, and seven different teams will have won the last seven titles. The Bucks are one of those seven teams.

Looking at the regular season, the Bucks have been one of the NBA’s most successful franchises during Horst’s tenure. Since he took over in the summer of 2017, the team has compiled a 412-225 regular-season record, which gives them the second-best winning percentage during that time. Shrink that period to the last four seasons since winning the title, and the winning percentage only drops to fourth. The last three seasons? Fifth. Even over the last two seasons, Milwaukee still has the 10th-best regular-season winning percentage. So, while things haven’t gone as well as the organization would have liked recently, the Bucks have still been a strong team, and injuries have played a major role in their lack of postseason success.

On top of the organization’s success during his tenure, Horst has convinced Antetokounmpo to sign two contract extensions. While some may argue that it was not a tough task or that it happened simply because Antetokounmpo wanted to stay with the Bucks, it still happened, and keeping Antetokounmpo in Milwaukee is among the top priorities for any decision maker for this franchise. For eight seasons, Horst has done that successfully.

Finally, as the Bucks approached an offseason that was going to potentially feature a lot of conversation about Antetokounmpo and his future, the organization wanted to have stability at the top.

In your opinion, are the most talented rosters making the final four playoff teams since the salary cap and aprons took effect, or are the most cohesive and deep teams the ones winning in the playoffs? — Evan M.

That’s an interesting question, and it’s a little difficult to fully answer because of how people define the term “most talented.” I’ll try to tackle that in a second, but I think there has been a fundamental change in the general rules of playoff basketball.

For many years, I subscribed to the notion that as long as the top eight players on both teams were relatively close, the team with the best player in the series would win that series. As teams have become better at attacking the weakest links and using certain players off the floor, we are seeing fewer situations in which the best player in a series can carry a team to a win. Maybe the Bucks just haven’t had enough talent on the rest of the roster, but Antetokounmpo was the best player in the series against the Boston Celtics in 2022, again this season against the Pacers and Milwaukee came out on the losing end of each series.

The new CBA took effect in 2023, so that means these are the eight rosters we’d be dissecting regarding Evan’s initial question:

With their collection of All-NBA talent and defensive skill across the board, I think it is reasonable to say that last year’s Celtics team was the most talented roster in the NBA. With this year’s MVP and a Third Team All-NBA player, plus an amazing collection of defensive talent, I think it would be reasonable to say that this year’s Thunder team is the most talented roster in the NBA.

So, I don’t think we’ve reached a point where the teams with the most talented rosters in the NBA are struggling to get to the NBA Finals. That is still working, and those teams are being rewarded.

The Pacers are the strongest evidence for the argument of the value of depth over top-end talent. Haliburton is their best player, and the highest honor he has earned is All-NBA Third Team, something he’s done the last two seasons. The other teams in the final four had a player most people see as one of the five best in the NBA (Luka Dončić, Jalen Brunson, Anthony Edwards) surrounded by talented ensembles.

Overall, the greater point is that there are fewer truly stacked rosters. Each conference had one (Oklahoma City, Boston) heading into the playoffs, and an injury to Jayson Tatum threw the Celtics’ immediate future into question. Outside of the Thunder, there are not many teams that have a future that seems likely to feature both amazing top-end talent and a strong top eight.

Ultimately, I think the greater point here is that every team, including the Bucks, must think about getting more versatile and skilled players into their top eight.

For the Bucks specifically, that means this summer needs to be about finding greater depth in their top eight. No matter whose opinion you may value, it is a consensus opinion that Antetokounmpo is one of the three best players on the planet. Now they need to find a way to build a more complete roster around him.

(Photo of Giannis Antetokounmpo: Jeff Haynes / NBAE via Getty Images)