Season Review: Jabari Parker, Shabazz Muhammad, D.J. Wilson

After Mitchell Maurer bravely went through each player on the Bucks roster with this Three B’s series, we’re following it up with the rest of the staff’s thoughts on Milwaukee’s player performances this year. Each installment will include a trio of players with a synopsis of their season, the staff’s collective grades for their season and some follow-up thoughts. Yesterday went through the centers, today it’s their frontcourt partners, the forwards.

Milwaukee had three distinct tweener forwards this year, although Shabazz did moonlight in the shooting guard position at times. Today, we examine how the Bucks rookie, their once-prized draft pick and a guy off the scrap heap performed this year.

Jabari Parker

Synopsis

Jabari Parker is at a clear crossroads. With his riddled injury history and his restricted free agency looming, he saved some of his potential payday with a late surge in the Boston Celtics series after looking DOA for the first two games. Expectations were difficult to peg for Jabari, but let’s start with the positives. He shot a career-best from three (39.5%) on around 2.5 attempts per game. His effective field goal percentage of 52.9% was about on par with last year. He created on his own, with just 65% of his own shots being assisted and 3-pointers made up the highest diet of his shots ever at 22% per Cleaning the Glass. He remains a bowling ball on offense who can slash to the basket and does have a deft passing touch when he wants it. Other times, he seems to play so erratically that his teammates aren’t expecting him to casually dish an underhanded pass to him for an easy finish under the basket. He can clearly score buckets, but not to the point of masking all his deficiencies.

One stupendous half of defense in Boston aside, the Bucks defense was almost always worse with Jabari on the court. They allowed 4.0 points per possession more when he was out there, per Cleaning the Glass, and opponent’s corner three percentage went up by 7.7%. Admittedly, that’s a stat with plenty of noise, but it’s the second year opponents had a considerable percentage jump with him out there and anecdotally, he seems to miss plenty of corner rotations leaving shooters open in the corner before he feebly attempts to contest. His rebounding remains almost nonexistent for a man of his size, something Milwaukee needs to seriously consider given their other frontcourt player’s clear inabilities in that area of the game. Jabari showed flashes of what he could be capable of this season, a bunch scorer who can facilitate the offense and space the floor, but the issues may be too glaring to ignore. His contract will be discussed ad nauseum when the coaching search is finalized.

Staff Grades

Adam: Jabari is a mercurial player and personality. I don’t know if I trust him on the court enough to mesh properly with this team, particularly given he seems best suited for a sixth man role. At this point in his career, I doubt he’s ready to accept that. I’d probably cut bait with him this summer and try your best to recoup something in a sign and trade, but I’m not sure he’ll have many suitors either. His 3-point ability was a huge boon.

Kyle: No matter what the decision will be with Jabari this summer, there will be a portion of Bucks Twitter that will say this was a terrible move. It could have been argued that his offense could offset his defensive flaws, but that ship has sailed especially with the questionable effort we saw at times this year.

Greg: Parker is such a frustrating player and I think no one was more frustrated with Jabari than Jabari. The 22 year old showed negative body language at the hand he has been dealt throughout his four year career. I want to keep Jabari, but man, I just do not know if that is the right path for the franchise to go down. Once the coaching news subsides, we are all going to be neck deep in Jabari news, so strap in.

Shabazz Muhammad

Synopsis

Shabazz was Shabazz. He’s an okay isolation scorer, deathly afraid of shooting the long ball and unable to mark anyone on the defensive end. He did shoot far more effectively for Milwaukee than during his time in Minnesota this year, ending with an 57.5% effective field goal percentage, far eclipsing the 40.5% mark in the Twin Cities. He still doesn’t rebound competently nor get to the free throw line, despite his talents at weaseling his way to the bucket.

His hot-shooting spread in Milwaukee shouldn’t be enough for the Bucks to really consider him a part of their future though. Prunty seemed intent on slotting him in at shooting guard, when those are minutes I’d much rather see go to Sterling Brown. Brown is actually intrigued by the defensive end, and while Shabazz did record the same number of assists in Milwaukee as he did in Minnesota (7) in ⅓ the playing time (301 to 93), he’s still someone who’s mainly out for his. He filled a spot role and helped the Bucks to at least one to two regular season wins and provided a brief postseason scoring punch, which is about all you can ask for a midseason pick-up like him.

Staff Grades

Adam: Props to Shabazz for providing a scoring punch despite being entirely undesirable up in Minnesota. Whatever you want to say about the guy, he certainly seemed engaged while on the court. Sometimes to his own detriment. His first basket going in was often the worst thing that could’ve happened to Shabazz’s stints on the court.

Kyle: Honestly Shabazz was a positive in my eyes. He gave it his all when he was on the court, and was the guy Milwaukee needed to try and get buckets. It’s best if he isn’t used extensively, but for an “in case of emergency guy”, why not have him on the vet min.

Greg: Bazz provided two surprising moments for me throughout the season. The first being an aggregate of all those times he came off the bench and reached NBA Jam levels of on fire for a three minute stretch. The second surprise is that he would do that while having the voice of an accountant, which was revealed during a Telly Hughes interview. Like Kyle said, Muhammad’s role on this team, if he is brought back, should be as a break glass in case of emergency bench option.

D.J. Wilson

Synopsis

D.J. Wilson’s rookie campaign, much like his namesake’s trademark volleyball in Cast Away, felt lost at sea. The few spot minutes he even saw came basically during garbage time. With only 69 minutes this season, one can’t glean much from even the small flashes of play we saw from the 17th overall selection. Meanwhile, guys like John Collins and O.G. Anunoby, both selected after Wilson, were dunking on the Bucks choice to pass on them for the former Michigan Wolverine who garnered none of this coaching staff’s confidence.

Most of his playing time this year came when the Bucks were able to ship him to the Wisconsin Herd during home games. While the G-League is certainly a different game, Wilson should’ve been able to whip up on the inferior competition given the pedigree of a first round pick. He shot 34% on 5.3 3-point attempts per game, which is a serviceable figure if it translates at all. Beyond that though, he doesn’t appear to have any other positive attributes typically associated with being a large human being. His 9.2% rebounding rate in the G-League is abysmal, particularly given Milwaukee needs all the help they can in that department, and he had just a .071 free throw rate, meaning he clearly shys away from contact under the basket. He seemed to have difficulty finishing during summer league too. Wilson needs to show a mammoth, almost JOB-esque step up from inactive/inept to almost considered competent next year for Bucks’ fans to instill much faith in him to be anything more than a wasted selection going forward.

Staff Grades

Adam: This was essentially a lost season, made more frustrating by the emergence of rookies picked after him. Perhaps Wilson will be Horst’s Joe Alexander, but at least he wasn’t worth nearly that expensive of draft capital. Wilson looked like the NBA game was far too fast for him. If he can, at best, learn to shoot quicker and more potently from deep, I like him as a poor man’s Mirza Teletovic.

Kyle: Well his bench celebration was strong, but as Adam noted, seeing other rookies like Collins, and OG left a sour taste. There might be something there that can be translated to on court productivity, but that will be up to the next coach.

Greg: Wilson’s fart noise of a season was obvious from the jump. He played fourth fiddle on a middling Big Ten team that got hot in March which overshadowed just how meh he was in Ann Arbor. Wilson has looked lost since hearing his name called and seems destined to join the growing list of failed first round picks of the last decade.