Landon Buford
Khris Middleton has had a career this season, averaging 20.4 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 5.4 assists per game in 68 games. Middleton is averaging 22.4 points, 7.06 rebounds, and 5.56 assists. While in the Finals, he is averaging 25.4 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 5.4 through five games.
Middleton was a guest on ESPN’s The Jump on Monday afternoon and was asked to critics this postseason.
“I don’t really worry about them too much. I feel like I have been doing great things for a long time. Everybody goes through failures and whatnot, and I have gone through my share of them. I feel like, for the most part, I have had a successful career. Now, this year I am trying to put a stamp on everything. I knew we had a great chance coming in this season to be in this position. So, it has been all in for me and all in for everybody. No matter how I perform it’s all about trying to win,” says Middleton.
Middleton has definitely grown as a player over the last couple of seasons. A couple of seasons ago for NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas shared that Middleton was an All-Star after recognizing he wasn’t one.
Middleton averaged three fewer points this year, his field goal percentage is worse, his three-point is worse, his free-throw rate was worse, but he makes the All-Star team? Huh…How? You can’t evaluate things off team success if the individual is not playing that great. Okay, Milwaukee is number one, so we will pick the two best players on the team to be in the All-Star game.
That is not how things are supposed to work. The second-best player’s year is worse than the year before. So if someone looked at the stats, they would say, how do we have an All-star this year because everything is down across the board,” Arenas told me.
Arenas added, “With that being said, he deserves an All-Star for understanding he wasn’t one. You see how that works, knowing that he personally didn’t deserve it because he was having a bad year. He knew it, so he gave credit to his teammates. If it wasn’t for them winning, he wouldn’t have made it. Now to me, he is an All-Star for understanding that.”
When I had an opportunity to speak with Middleton back in 2019 about Arenas’ comments, he elected to decline.
The Milwaukee Bucks are one win away from winning their second title in franchise history and the first time in 50 years.
