Milwaukee Bucks: Why Bryn Forbes should start over Donte DiVincenzo

This article will take a look at why Bryn Forbes is better suited to start in the Milwaukee Bucks’ offense over Donte DiVincenzo.

There is a perception around the league that the Milwaukee Bucks signed Bryn Forbes to be a part of their second unit. Matt Velazquez of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel speculated last week that the team signed Forbes along with Torrey Craig, D.J. Augustin and Bobby Portis to strengthen their bench around their newly-formed trio of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday.

But is being a reserve the right role for Forbes? No, he should be in the starting lineup because Forbes has excelled as a spot-up shooter throughout his career. He has converted 41.7 percent of catch and shoot threes on 2.9 attempts per game.

The field goal percentage helped him generate an average of 3.6 points per game for the San Antonio Spurs over the past four seasons, which comes out to 40.4 percent of his scoring output.

Catch-and-shoot field goal attempts accounted for 70.7 percent of Forbes’ 3-pointers as he has a career shooting percentage of 40.0 percent from behind the arc on 4.1 attempts per game. Forbes produced 4.8 points per game from his 3-point attempts, 53.9 percent of his offensive production, as he has averaged 8.9 points per game during his career.

Forbes’ shooting ability makes him an ideal candidate for the team’s starting lineup as Antetokounmpo’s supporting cast spends a significant amount of time in the role as a floor spacer. For example, Middleton and Eric Bledsoe have averaged 4.3 and 6.0 threes per game, respectively, over the last two seasons, more than 30 percent of their field goal attempts. At least 45.3 percent of those 3-point attempts are via the catch and shoot variety.

Forbes is also better suited to thrive in the role than Donte DiVincenzo, who is currently projected to start according to ESPN. DiVincenzo has only made 32.1 percent of his catch-and-shoot threes on 2.6 attempts per game over his first two seasons. He only generated 2.5 points per game on catch and shoot threes for Milwaukee.

DiVincenzo’s inability to make catch-and-shoot field goals hindered his ability to thrive from behind the arc as it accounted for 75.7 percent of his threes. Consequently, DiVincenzo has only made 31.8 percent of his threes throughout his career on 3.5 attempts per game.

More importantly, DiVincenzo’s offensive production is dependent on how much time he spends as a ballhandler. For example, DiVincenzo averaged a career-high 48 touches per game from March 4 to the 8.

The touches helped him attack the basket a career-high 5.0 times per game. He shot 70.0 percent from the field on 3.3 attempts creating 5.3 points per game. That came out to 30.6 percent of his scoring output as he averaged 17.3 drives per game.

Unfortunately, DiVincenzo is unlikely to spend a significant amount of time in the role of ballhandler as a starter. This is because Antetokounmpo has been the team’s primary ballhandler over the past four-plus seasons, averaging 84.4 touches per game. Not to mention the presence of Middleton and Holiday.

Consequently, DiVincenzo would spend a substantial portion of his playing time as a floor spacer leading defenders to ignore him due to his shooting track record. Therefore, Antetokounmpo would be dealing with a help defender every time he shares the court with DiVincenzo.

For example, defenders left DiVincenzo open on 91.9 percent of the time as he took 3.4 uncontested attempts last season. Therefore, DiVincenzo would be better served coming off the bench as he can get more opportunities to be a ballhandler, making him a more productive and effective player while allowing Giannis and Co. to benefit from Forbes’ shooting abilities.