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We’ve reached the portion of the exercise where we’re dealing with clear-cut, major minutes postseason players, and Pat Connaughton appears to be the first exile from the Milwaukee Bucks lot.
In my humble opinion, not only is this incorrect, but the gulf between Bobby Portis and Pat Connaughton seems kinda crazy. From a purely postseason perspective, I find Connaughton to be a much more integral piece to the Bucks championship hopes than Portis. During the Finals run, Pat played almost 200 more total minutes than Portis and also saw the court more than Bobby during last year’s briefer postseason. With teams like Brooklyn or Boston in Milwaukee’s way, the versatility of a guy who can switch capably against nimbler ballhandling wings and guards strikes me as more vital than what Portis brings.
Don’t get me wrong, Bobby was buckets aplenty during the Finals run, has improved considerably as a defender, provides a spark, and plays well off Giannis Antetokounmpo as a floor spacer. But also, here are the 3-point stats from the last two postseasons:
For a team that needs its role players to translate their regular season 3-point performance to the postseason in the worst way, no player has done that better over the past two years than Pat Connaughton. He’s also shown at least a small aptitude to occasionally drive past a defender and finish at a high level; same off cuts. He’s had the highest true shooting percentage in the postseason on the team the past two years (63.3% and 63.2% respectively).
One argument against him is that his on/off numbers aren’t as kind. Cleaning The Glass lists his on/off differential as -4.4 in 2020-21 and -1.8 in 2021-22 postseasons. Then again, Khris Middleton was at -4.0 during the title run, so take those team-based lineup numbers with some grains of salt. I think there’s even an argument to be made that Pat may actually be more important to the team’s postseason success this year than Brook Lopez given their potential necessity of going small. I would not personally make that argument, but I think for a team bereft of skilled wings who can pass, dribble, shoot (and actually make said shots), that after their big three, Connaughton is invaluable given the likely limitations of improving this roster.
His age may cause some concern, but he’s continued to add new skills just about every season (see: high catch-and-release shot). Perhaps I just hold him in higher esteem than the larger Brew Hoop community.
We’re down to the final five now, and I have a decent feeling I know who is next. The intrigue now comes down to Khris vs. Jrue for me, but what say you at number five?
