Milwaukee Bucks: Sterling Brown is playing a key role in recent games

Milwaukee Bucks rookie Sterling Brown has seen inconsistent minutes this year, but in recent games is finding his place in the rotation.

The Milwaukee Bucks recently fired head coach Jason Kidd after three and a half seasons at the helm. Interim coach Joe Prunty took over the team for the last four games, a 4-0 stretch where the Bucks have dominated the competition.

Over that same span, Sterling Brown, a rookie second round pick out of SMU, has put up his best numbers of the season. Is his improved play a result of the coaching change, or is something else propelling him to success?

With just four games under the new leadership, it’s impossible to assign complete cause-and-effect, especially since Brown played a career-high 39 minutes in the team’s final game before Kidd’s firing, a 116-94 blowout loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.

Brown saw an increased role due to the absence of Malcolm Brogdon, who has been in and out of the lineup nursing a calf injury. Then he stayed on the court as part of the garbage time unit Kidd sent out when the game was out of reach.

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The rookie swingman did not have a good game that night, similar to the entire team, overwhelming without Brogdon and, more importantly, Giannis Antetokounmpo. But in a game where his team lost by 22 points, Brown was just -6, meaning the team was outscored by 16 points in the nine minutes he sat. The coaches — specifically Joe Prunty, as Kidd was not to coach another game — saw something worth rewarding with rotation minutes.

Over the last four games Brown has averaged 25.3 minutes per game, never dipping below 20 in any of the four wins. In each of the last three games he has ended with a positive plus/minus, one indicator of the positive contributions he is making.

In no four-game stretch this season has Brown averaged more than 15 minutes per game. Rather than step in as the fifth guard, Brown has led the bench in minutes three of the past four games. In a win over the Nets, Brown collected nine rebounds, and the next game he had six against the Bulls.

Although projected to play the 2 in the NBA, Brown has played most of his minutes at the 3 for the Bucks this season, including starting at small forward for the Bucks against the Philadelphia 76ers and Phoenix Suns in place of Antetokounmpo. Once the team’s star returned, Brown has kept his spot in the rotation by being the team’s best option at the 3.

Earlier in the season the reserve small forward spot was filled by DeAndre Liggins and occasionally Rashad Vaughn, but neither was an option to rely on. Liggins has since been waived, and Vaughn has been effectively ostracized from the rotation.

Jason Kidd took to starting Malcolm Brogdon in place of Tony Snell to give the bench some size, with Snell backing up the 2 and the 3. While a capable player, the best units for Milwaukee have Snell starting. For those lineups to be possible, the Bucks need another option at backup small forward — and Brown has stepped up.

For a team with other ball-handlers and creators, the Bucks primarily need Brown to fill the role of a 3-and-D wing. He certainly has the “3” part down, connecting from long range to the tune of 44 percent this season, putting up 4.1 3-pointers per 36 minutes. In January he upped those numbers to 46.7 percent and 4.5 3-point attempts per 36 minutes.

Defensively Brown still has room to grow, as he is a rookie second-rounder with just 316 career minutes, but the early returns are promising. He has quick hands, a near must-have for the Bucks’ rotation, and is snagging 1.8 steals per 36 minutes. His steal rate of 2.4 percent — that is, the percentage of team plays where Brown got a steal — is in the 97th percentile among wings, per Cleaning the Glass.

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Where Brown struggles is in fouling opponents, which is in some ways a problem of the system Milwaukee ran for most of the season (the Bucks are in the bottom-third of the league in free throw rate), but also an area of improvement for the young wing.

Overall Brown has been solid defensively, which is shown in his 99.1 defensive rating, which individually is better than Boston’s top-ranked defense. He ranks first on the team in that rating among rotation players, and fourth in overall net rating (+3.5) behind John Henson, Eric Bledsoe and Antetokounmpo.

In a nutshell, then, Brown has been the quintessential 3-and-D wing the Bucks were hoping to have when they drafted him. One year after striking gold with Malcolm Brogdon, another four-year second-round guard, Brown has been playing his best basketball as the Bucks begin to shore things up for the stretch run.

With Brogdon cleared to return fully healthy, and Jabari Parker set to make his season debut, minutes may begin to become scarce for the bench. Hopefully for both Brown and the Bucks that doesn’t mean a reduction in role, as he has been a solid piece for a team looking for such pieces this season and beyond.

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Sterling Brown is not a household name, and almost certainly never will be. But when a team picks in the back half of the second round they are looking for players who can stick in the league and provide value. If his last few games are any indication, Brown is exactly that.

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