Khris Middleton - Super Scorer 17/18

Khris Middleton was the 39th overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft. In December of his rookie year, he was sent down to the D-League (now G-League). The following season he was thrown in to a trade that sent him to Milwaukee and it was there that he started to shine. Once referred to as a poor man’s Klay Thompson, because of his ability to defend multiple positions, be a secondary playmaker, and space the floor with him shooting, the Bucks were a great fit. This past season, he proved how vital he was to the team, finishing tied for 4th in the league in minutes per game (alongside the likes of reigning MVP Russell Westbrook, and top 3 in MVP voting Anthony Davis). Giannis is obviously the star in Milwaukee, but Khris was second on the team in scoring, steals, free throws attempted, third in terms of assists, rebounds, all the while playing all 82 games and shooting a top 10 in the league percentage from the foul line. All that is a way of saying that he’s a very versatile basketball player, but today, we focus on his scoring. Khris has got to have one of the sweetest strokes in the league, but he doesn’t really on just his jumpers. He recognizes that being a 6’8” wing means that he has to have a skillset that can punish mismatches on the perimeter and in the post. Accounting for Toronto getting bullied out of the playoffs by LeBron again, the Boston Celtics were looked at as the biggest surprise in the Eastern conference playoffs last year, but they very nearly lost to a team that was largely Giannis and Middleton carrying the entire offensive load in that seven game series. Khris careened off of screens, isolated when necessary, and butchered the Celtics’ defense in some soft spots. That being said, that Bucks team was not a team that was maximizing its potential under Jason Kidd (which is why he was let go), and their interim coach was put in a tough position, so it’s not as if he was able to really put his squad in the best spot to shine. You see this season, under Mike Budenholzer, that Milwaukee is a team with spacing and flow, and while he isn’t the sexiest pick for an All-Star berth, Khris Middleton is mightily deserving of one in the 2018-19 season. Oh, and THAT shot from game 1 against the C’s closes out the video.