Milwaukee Bucks Could Be In Line For Multiple Individual Awards

The Milwaukee Bucks are experiencing a tremendous amount of team success. They have the highest win percentage in the NBA and are just off the pace of a 60-win team. Not bad for a team who doesn’t prioritize winning regular season games.

That team success is on the verge of resulting in individual accolades and awards. An even lower priority for this iteration of the Bucks.

Milwaukee preaches building good habits. Day in and day out, they focus on playing the right way and getting one percent better. Everything they do is to help them win from April to June. But, hey, if it results in some individual success and recognition along the way, so be it.

Giannis Antetokounmpo is in the midst of another amazing campaign. He’s one of the MVP favorites—he finished second to Jayson Tatum in ESPN’s MVP straw poll—despite spending a good portion of the season messing around with his jumper. He’s taken head coach Mike Budenholzer’s constant improvement to heart and often treats regular season games as his personal playground. He works on his mid-range and pull-up jumpers, tools he knows he needs as the season and his career progress. It has resulted in his lowest shooting efficiency since the 2017-18 season.

The rest of his game is flat-out dominant. He faces more double teams than anyone in the NBA and has mastered that defensive coverage. He also continues to play elite defense and is in the running for the Defensive Player of the Year race.

Speaking of the DPOY, that is Brook Lopez’s to lose at this point (back off, Giannis). Lopez returned from a major back injury that cost him most of last season and is better than ever. We could write a whole column about his offense and three-point shooting, however, we’ll keep the focus on his defense.

Of 345 players to appear in at least 15 games this season, he’s one of only two players who averages more blocks than fouls per 100 possessions. That’s especially amazing considering he leads the NBA in total blocks and total shots defended. It’s unheard of for a shot-blocker of any magnitude to also avoid fouling. Especially a top-notch shot-swatter.

Bobby Portis is also on the shortlist for a major award—the Sixth Man of the Year. Whether it be in the starting lineup or off the bench, he continues to produce for the Bucks. He’s averaging a double-double—14.4 points and 10.3 rebounds—despite struggling with his three-point shot. It’s a testament to his mindset that he hasn’t let his outside shooting struggles affect him.

Portis brings energy and passion to the court every single night. He’ll likely need to maintain his double-double averages to have any real shot at winning an award that typically goes to a microwave guard scorer.

It would be nothing short of amazing if the Bucks capture three of the major awards at the end of the season. Carried by Antetokounmpo, the supporting cast sometimes goes unnoticed or underappreciated. They’ve never had more than two All-Stars during Antetokounmpo’s reign.

The players will never admit it, but they’d like to get more recognition.

Voters have reached LeBron-Level fatigue when it comes to voting for Antetokounmpo for the MVP (the league missed a monumental opportunity to properly promote Antetokounmpo as the new face of the NBA, but we’ll save that for another day). The Bucks have reached Spurs-level boringness with NBA media and recognizing their achievements. Milwaukee will always be at the top of the standings and it doesn’t generate interest to continue to talk about it.

At the end of the day, the Bucks don’t care about any of that. Nor should they. They’re here to win championships and championships only. However, Antetokounmpo, Lopez and Portis have a real chance to capture individual awards in their respective categories, and they wouldn’t mind if they did (although, they’ll never admit it).