There were lofty expectations placed on Thon Maker when he was drafted tenth overall by the Bucks in 2016. Prioritising length and athleticism in their team-building, Milwaukee banked on Maker’s ability to develop into a modern-day NBA big that could hit the three and switch on D.

Standing 7’1, and with guard-like skills, Maker seemed like a dream fit. He even had handles , apparently – which you could still ask Chris Anderson about – and with his slight frame, the young Australian immediately drew Kevin Garnett comparisons.

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And yet, after averaging only 4.8 points and three rebounds per game in his second season, there are questions beginning to circle Bucks nation about Maker’s development . Many of the concerns about Maker’s game stem from his defensive inconsistencies, his basketball IQ, and the fact that he shot worse in his sophomore season than in his first (29.8% from three compared to 37.8% the year before, 41% from the field compared to 46%). We seem to have forgotten that, again just like KG, Maker was drafted straight out of high-school, that Maker was the first and only to have done so since the latest collective bargaining agreement.

The kid has come a long way since picking up a ball seven years ago, and still, some of us are comparing his high-school mixtape to his NBA averages as if Maker is a walking, talking expectations vs. reality meme .

With the Bucks signing Brook Lopez and Ersan Ilyasova (and drafting rookie gunner Donte DiVincenzo) over the summer, the offensive game-plan under new coach Mike Budenholzer is clear: spacing, spacing, spacing. Or, in other words, get the ball to Giannis, get the hell out of the way, and then get prepared to catch and shoot. Which is something that Thon can ostensibly do, and what he is theoretically out there for (although 30% from three isn’t necessarily something to write home about). But the questions on the other side of the court remain, who can Maker guard? Is he big enough to be a 5, is he quick enough to be a 4? And, who, on the Bucks, can Maker guard with?

Last season, with Giannis Antetokounmpo often taking opposing power forwards on defence, Maker repeatedly got bullied down low. Take Game 7 of the playoffs with Boston for example, Al Horford having his way with the twenty-one-year-old:

Even with the small-ball evolution of the NBA, with so much of the scoring and playmaking duties in Giannis’ gargantuan hands, it’d be a tall order to ask the Greek Freak to body up opposing centers every night of the schedule. On the other, ahem, smaller hand, pairing Maker and Brook Lopez (a notoriously poor rebounder) is likewise problematic. Having two big men who averaged less than 10 boards a game combined to share the front-court isn’t going to get it done for a squad that was ranked dead-last­ in rebounds last year (39.8 per game). Similarly, if Ilyasova and Maker were to share the paint, teams would stare at them as if they were straw scarecrows. Ditto if it’s John Henson out there.

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The difficulty of the center position in the NBA is not one to be taken lightly, and the required versatility of the position is expanding exponentially. So often, the 5 man on a squad is asked to be both the fulcrum and the mouthpiece of the defensive unit, recognising and communicating opposing playsets to the rest of the team.

However, it’s not as if Maker is a defensive sieve – in the first round of last year’s playoffs, he had multiple games with five blocks:

So what’s the problem here? Maker has shown the lateral quickness to both contain guards, rocking Jaylen Brown's shot out of the sky in the clip above, and the timing and length to catch big guys like Greg Monroe off-guard at the rim. Well, the answer may have something to do with Jason Kidd, ex-coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, and his defensive schemes.

Under Kidd, Milwaukee played an aggressive trapping style defence, often asking their big men to trap and contain the ball-handler in a pick and roll scenario. In this clip against Toronto, you can see how this technique can be suffocating, Maker quelling DeMar DeRozan’s foray to the rim:

Nevertheless, Milwaukee’s defensive sets often took Thon out of position to be helpful – opposing teams regularly taking advantage of Milwaukee’s hard and fast defensive schemes.

Take the clip below. Per the Bucks’ scheme, if Kyrie Irving were to use the Tatum screen, both Malcolm Brogdon and Khris Middleton would try to trap the ball-handler uncompromisingly, relying on the help behind them to contain the roll man. The trickle-down effect of this trap is that DeAndre Liggins has to pull early and hard (off Jaylen Brown in the corner) to offer help in the paint.

Boston is aware of this, and simply uses the side pick and roll as misdirection – Kyrie doesn’t even use the screen, rather he simply whips the ball back to Horford, who, after waiting for Daniel Theis to set a downpick, scoots the ball over to Brown for a wide-open three. Here, both the length and switchability of Milwaukee’s entire scheme is neutralised, both Maker and Giannis taken out of the play (even if Brown attacks Liggins’ close-out, Maker is caught beyond the arc defending Horford). More than that, Maker is so high up the court, defending up above the three-point line, that he can’t see the play behind him developing nor communicate with the rest of the team.

Here is Boston scoring on Milwaukee in exactly the same fashion on the other side of the floor:

Back to the playoffs then. Back to the Tatum block. The difference here is that Milwaukee switched up its game-plan, literally, and instead of trying to trap Boston, asked its big men to switch everything on D. Notice how, after Monroe sets the pick, Maker simply leaves his man to guard Tatum one-on-one. In a wide defensive stance, he channels Tatum left, and then uses his length and athleticism to time his block to perfection. In games 1 and 2, Milwaukee trapped, Maker had one block in limited minutes, and the Bucks dropped two in a row.

In games 3 and 4 – with the Bucks switching on defence – Maker had ten blocks combined, and Milwaukee evened the series.

There is a general air of optimism surrounding Milwaukee’s coaching change, and this relatively simple defensive adjustment will surely be one that Budenholzer will implement. But will it unlock the potential Thon showed in the playoffs across a full season?

In his first season in Atlanta, Budenholzer took a 38-win team to 60 wins, the number one seed in the East, and a place in the conference final – all without a true superstar. Thon Maker isn’t a star, nor is he even guaranteed a starting spot on the new look Bucks – but he’s shown the potential to fit the required mold for the modern-day NBA big. In some ways, Maker’s flashes of potential have put Milwaukee in a bind. In drafting Maker, Milwaukee gambled not only on the potential of Maker as a player, but on the idea of Maker as a particular player-type that will become more and more valuable in a league that continues to search out long-limbed athletes who can both shoot and defend.

To an extent, Maker’s potential (and future place in Milwaukee’s squad) is governed by the growing narrative of what the future of NBA basketball will be, rather than his own body of work. The question for Mike Budenholzer however, is what can Maker do for him now?