LAS VEGAS- Here at the Hard Rock Hotel, the Milwaukee Bucks are 250-1 to win next year’s NBA title, the longest odds in the league. They even surpass the tank-to-the-bank Philadelphia 76ers, whose top draft pick may sit out the entire regular season for the second consecutive year.
But for people not named Jason Kidd, the Bucks aren’t playing for next season. With a pair of 19-year-old kids oozing with potential, showing their natural abilities on the UNLV campus, it’s easy to look ahead and envision one of the league’s best tandems down the road.
Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jabari Parker, Milwaukee first rounders in the last two NBA Drafts, make up an extremely promising young core that showed dazzling flashes in Las Vegas.
Antetokounmpo is approaching seven-feet tall and is still growing. He can quickly dribble the length of the floor, hit pull-up threes from the top of the key, swat shots and deflect passes with arms longer than helicopter propellers and even handle the ball as a point forward. And it seems like he hasn’t even scratched the surface of his abilities.
“I’m just getting my confidence,” Antetokounmpo said. “I need to handle the ball a little bit because I need to get better. I didn’t do it last year and I want to do it this year.”
Bucks point guard Nate Wolters realizes that having Antetokounmpo handle the ball will be good for the team in the long run.
“He could play point guard if he wanted to,” Wolters said. “He’s really talented, so we just gotta get the ball in his hands a lot and good things will happen.”
Good things were mainly happening Monday night at the Thomas & Mack Center with Antetokounmpo running the point against the Jazz. He wasn’t really running any set plays and looked out of control at times, but his agility, length and quickness allowed him to get into the lane nearly at will, which led to layups or trips to the line.
Antetokounmpo ended with 15 points and a team-high five assists on 6-of-16 shooting. It was far from efficient, but the raw body control, athleticism and dexterity in the lane was evident.
Defensively, Wolters sees someone who will surely be a difference maker as he learns the game.
“He’s so long that he could cover a lot of ground,” Wolters said. “He’s really good at transition blocks. He could be a really good defender in the future. He already is right now.”
With Antetokounmpo, Larry Sanders and John Henson in the frontcourt, their length allows guards like Wolters to play more aggressively on defensive end.
“Just putting those three out there allows us guards to get beat off the dribble and gamble a little bit,” Wolters said. “You know they’re behind us, so that helps.”
Like his Greek teammate, Parker hasn’t been the most efficient Summer Leaguer either, averaging 14 points per game on 37.5 shooting from the field after three contests, but he’s averaged over seven boards per game, showing the ability to not only score in a variety of ways but also contributing a little defensively as well.
“When he picks and pops, he’s a pretty good target,” Wolters said of Parker. “It’s fun to play with him, that’s for sure.”
Parker said he’s working on his game, working with new teammates and a new style of play with Milwaukee. He also said he doesn’t know whether he’ll play the three or the four in Jason Kidd’s starting lineup, but said it doesn’t matter.
“I really don’t know where I’m going to play yet on the floor, I just need to find the open areas and look for where I can be more effective,” Parker said.
Parker also admitted that he needs to work on learning from game film, game awareness and finding openings on the floor.
“That awareness [on the court] will take time, like the 3-second rule on both offense and defense,” Parker said.” I just need to find different ways to get myself going and not forcing it.”
What cannot be forced is chemistry, and having Antetokounmpo and Parker grow together on the court is invaluable for two teenagers who could not have had more different backgrounds off of it.
“We have a long way to go, but it’s really nice,” Antetokounmpo said. “We’re playing with each other and helping each other all week and we’re just going to keep getting better. I can create shots for him, he’s a smart player with a good basketball IQ and he can find me and all the players, too. That’s what we’re going to try to do.”
Wolters knows that this tandem can really be something special in the future.
“They definitely have a lot of potential, they’re both really young. I forget they’re only 19 years old sometimes,” Wolters said. “It’s really fun to play with them because they’re willing passers and really unselfish guys.”
Fans in Milwaukee know that they’re in for a long few winters as Antetokounmpo and Parker develop, and Parker knows that the mounting losses will require a great deal of patience.
“You just need a short term memory and prepare for tomorrow,” Parker said.
So as the big board at the Hard Rock predicts championship odds longer than Antetokoumpo’s arms, the team realizes that their tandem could end up shining brighter and hotter than the searing, scorching Las Vegas sun.
Shlomo Sprung is a national columnist for SheridanHoops who loves advanced statistics and the way they explain what happens on the court. He is also the web editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. A 2011 graduate of Columbia University’s Journalism School, he has previously worked for the New York Knicks, The Sporting News, Business Insider and other publications. You should follow him on Twitter.
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