With Giannis Antetokounmpo now on the shelf, how will the Bucks survive?

Let the wider world of basketball discussion focus its collective attention on what the Milwaukee Bucks’ future looks like without Giannis Antetokounmpo. Dr. Rivers and his colleagues faced a more pressing problem: figuring out how to better navigate the world. exhibit without him.

Hours after a new (or at least renewed) report began circulating that Antetokounmpo and his agent had “begun conversations” about whether his “best option would be to stay or go elsewhere” as to whether his “best option would be to stay or go elsewhere,” the two-time NBA MVP collapsed to the floor three minutes into Wednesday’s game against the Eastern Conference-leading Detroit Pistons, where he remained. After tiptoeing off the court and back to the locker room, Antetokounmpo never returned.

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Given the nature of this non-contact injury, many NBA fans who have witnessed too many superstars suffer catastrophic calf injuries have recently begun to fear the worst. Thankfully, a follow-up MRI ruled out the possibility: Antetokounmpo suffered a strained right calf, and while the Bucks have yet to provide a timetable for his expected return, ESPN’s Shams Charania reports that he’s “expected to miss approximately two to four weeks.”

Compared to the worst-case scenarios considered in the initial heartbreaking moments after Antetokounmpo went down, the diagnosis seemed cause for celebration. Still, it’s not shocking that Milwaukee is taking a cautious approach in getting Giannis back on the floor, given how dangerous it is to return too early from a strained Mavericks, and the fact that his absence will lead to a longer end of the expected window.

With the Bucks’ schedule centered around the upcoming Emirates NBA Cup knockout round, Antetokounmpo will only have to play five games in two weeks. Four weeks would cost him 12 games – since Antetokounmpo has already missed six games this season, it means he cannot meet the 65-game minimum threshold to retain eligibility for year-end individual awards such as Most Valuable Player and Defensive Player of the Year, as well as being selected to the NBA’s All-NBA and All-Defensive teams. His exclusion would be huge and rare: Antetokounmpo has finished in the top four in MVP voting each of the past seven seasons and has been named to an All-NBA team every year since 2017, including seven straight first-team selections.

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In the first few weeks of the 2025-26 NBA season, Antetokounmpo is once again solidifying himself at or near the top of these votes, arguably the best start to his Hall of Fame career. In Wednesday’s game, Giannis ranked fourth in the league in scoring, averaging 30.8 minutes per game, scoring 30.6 points and shooting 63.9% from the field; ranking ninth in rebounding, grabbing 10.7 rebounds per night; ranking 24th in assists, averaging 6.4 assists per game, second only to reigning MVP point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

As the Milwaukee Bucks’ main ball handler and half-court initiator, Antetokounmpo provided 41.6% of assists to his teammates while on the court, which is the highest assist rate of his career so far. The high-usage, high-assist, low-turnover style he plays belongs to elite offensive engines such as LeBron James, Luka Doncic, and Trae Young, as well as the peak versions of Dwyane Wade, Russell Westbrook, and Ja Morant.

Add to that his customary devastating inside scoring — he leads the NBA with 338 points in 495 minutes; the next four players have all shot over 700 — and the tremendous value he adds as a deterrent in the paint, holding opponents to 47.6 percent shooting at the rim when he’s the closest defender (120th at least 50%). 4th among players who have shot from close range), you have an incredibly valuable player. Depending on how you define the term, maybe most Bonus points: The Bucks outscore opponents by 8.5 points per 100 possessions with Antetokounmpo on the floor, according to Cleaning the Glass, and Been there When he’s off the court, the scoring is 10.4 points higher per 100 points. The 18.9-points-per-100 margin is the third-best margin in the NBA among players with at least 400 minutes, behind only Nikola Jokic and Pascal Siakam, who are doing their jobs for the injury-plagued Pacers.

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The Bucks’ point differential equals the difference between a team that won 60 games with Antetokounmpo on the floor and a team that won 18 games without him; the team is 8-7 in games he finished, 1-1 in games he left early due to injury, and 1-5 in games he missed. They can’t just replace him. so what able Do they do it?

Well, for starters, they can try to copy the formula they discovered on Wednesday — which, by the way, they actually won Game — by focusing more on shot creation by the guards and finding out how much workload the combination of rising playmaker Ryan Rollins and the newly returned Kevin Porter Jr. can handle.

The backcourt tandem of Rollins and Porter finished with 48 points and 15 assists in a win over Detroit, a strong performance for a duo that was really just getting started with Porter sidelined for more than a month with a sprained left ankle. Rollins and Porter played together for 58 minutes. The Bucks beat their opponents by 24 points, scored efficiently, and distributed the ball well.

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Both Rollins (team-high 12.5 drives per game) and Porter (11.3) can get downhill and put pressure on the rim, which could be valuable to the Bucks, who, even with Giannis’ rhythmic plundering, rank just 14th in percentage of shots in the paint — as you’d expect without him on the floor, a percentage that drops to near the bottom of the league. Even better if those attacks on the paint can provide kickoff passes to waiting shooters: No player assists on more three-pointers per 100 possessions than Antetokounmpo, according to PBP statistics, and a shooter like AJ Green (who shoots 49.7 percent from three on just under seven attempts per game, with most of those assists coming from Giannis) will need others to set them up so they can knock them down.

Creating as many of these sets as possible in Antetokounmpo’s absence is critical to Milwaukee’s chances of keeping the offense alive. Against the Detroit Bucks on Wednesday, the Bucks made just 13 3-pointers, but they made 44, tied for third-highest of the season. Their second-highest total, 46 points, came against the Warriors on Oct. 30 — Giannis missed another game and Rollins had a breakout performance against his old team in a 120-110 win.

Without an offensive center like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Rivers’ best option may be to encourage Rollins, Porter, Green and Gary Trent Jr., as well as pick-and-roll targets Myles Turner and Bobby Portis, to fire as early as possible. Increasing the number of 3-pointers and the offensive differential in the game could improve the chances of the Bucks, who have allowed 118.6 points per 100 points this season without Antetokounmpo on the court — that number even rises to 120 points per 100 points when Giannis is on the court and Kyle Kuzma is on the court. (A defensive rating of 120 would tie the Bucks with the 6-16 Charlotte Hornets for 20th in the NBA all season.)

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Kuzma has started the last five games the big man has missed. (The five-man quintet of Turner, Kuzma, Green, Porter and Rollins has played just two minutes together this season.) Still, he’s looked more comfortable and efficient off the bench. With Taurean Prince out after surgery for a herniated disc in his neck, and extending Portis’ minutes unlikely to be Milwaukee’s savior on both ends, you wonder if Rivers will decide to stick with Wednesday’s job and take a longer-term look at little-used backup big man Jericho Sims Sims, who seized his opportunity after Giannis Antetokounmpo’s unexpected exit, scoring an impressive 15 points and grabbing 14 rebounds in 30 minutes on the bench.

Sims, an ultra-athletic runner who drives to the rim on the offensive glass, has had his minutes and opportunities hit and miss under Tom Thibodeau in New York, and he would provide a different element for Milwaukee, which tends to use the stretch five and eschew offensive rebounds in favor of countering in transition defense (long a staple of Rivers’ teams). He may not provide enough polish and versatility on both ends of the floor to solidify himself as a rotation piece for a Bucks team aiming to compete for a championship… but for a team looking to hold on and weather the storm without its superstar, every option with potential upside is worth a shot.

However faint, it was a ray of hope amid the gray cloud hanging over the Bucks on Wednesday, first with renewed reports of Giannis potentially exiting and then with his more concrete form. actual Left due to injury. Rivers, general manager Jon Horst, the rest of the Milwaukee brain trust and the rest of the Bucks locker room now have a few weeks to re-explore what they can do without Antetokounmpo. Look at how much Porter Jr. and Rollins can control the offense, and how effectively they can do it; could someone like Green, Kuzma or even Sims easily step into a larger role? Rivers, who has been criticized after a lackluster start to the season, will be able to push the right buttons to stabilize the team in Antetokounmpo’s absence.

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“The reason why I say this [reporting on Antetokounmpo’s future] We got out because we didn’t play well,” Rivers told reporters before Wednesday’s game. “So, let’s be honest. We didn’t play well. We lost miserably the other night, so now that’s the theme. We feel good about this team, but we have to play better. We have to win the game. It’s all going to be here until we start winning games. We cut off 10 in a row, [and] I guess this will magically disappear. “

The Bucks’ next 10 games include home games against the 76ers, Celtics and Raptors, visits to Detroit and Brooklyn, and a five-game road trip from Minnesota to Indiana, Memphis and Chicago, ending in Charlotte. This isn’t the most unforgiving slate you’ve ever seen; it’s the most unforgiving slate you’ve ever seen. It also includes many teams that have played better than the Bucks recently, especially without Antetokounmpo in the lineup.

In the coming weeks, Rollins and/or Porter Jr. show enough shot-creation/playmaking upside to potentially land a second breakout star on the roster, and perhaps the looming “solution” will lean toward the warm, familiar embrace of inertia: Antetokounmpo thinks this is a team worth staying on, especially if the Bucks are willing to pay a four-year, $275 million max extension. Next October. When he was sidelined with an adductor strain, as they did during their four-game losing streak, it prompted all those pesky “is that it?” actually Is there a transaction request? ” Small talk — maybe Antetokounmpo found himself actually reading those supposed ominous words aloud.

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“We’re going to rally behind him and he’s going to rally for us,” Green told reporters after Wednesday’s win. “Just stay healthy and keep it under control for as long as possible.”