NBA.com's John Schuhmann gets you ready for the 2017-18 season with a key stat for each team in the league and shows you why it matters. Today, we look at the Milwaukee Bucks, who lived in the paint more than any other team.

THE STAT

The Milwaukee Bucks took only 47 percent of their shots from outside the paint last season.



THE CONTEXT

That was the lowest rate in a league that took 54 percent of its shots from outside the paint on average.

The Bucks weren't a terrible shooting team from the outside. They ranked 10th in 3-point percentage and only the Celtics made a bigger improvement from the season before in effective field goal percentage from outside the paint. After ranking 28th at 44.1 percent in 2015-16, the Bucks ranked 12th at 49.1 percent in '16-17.

They traded a lot of mid-range shots for threes, registering the the league's second biggest increase in the percentage of their shots that came from beyond the arc. But they still ranked in the bottom 10 in that regard. They were one of *four teams that ranked in the top 10 in 3-point percentage (10th) and in the bottom 10 in the percentage of their shots that came from 3-point range (21st).

* The others: Indiana (4th and 26th), San Antonio (1st and 24th) and Washington (8th and 23rd).

Because they weren't a high-volume jump-shooting team, the Bucks' offense still depended on their ability to get to the basket. They were 27-15 when they scored 50 or more points in the paint and 15-25 when they didn't. If you got back in transition and walled off the paint, you were in good shape against the Bucks.

Giannis Antetokounmpo ranked second in the league (behind LeBron James) with 456 baskets in the restricted area and third with 13.1 points in the paint per game. But he shot just 33 percent from mid-range, the worst mark among 70 players who took at least 200 mid-range shots.

Still, thanks to the reduction in mid-range shots and a reduction in turnovers, the Bucks ranked 13th in offensive efficiency, their highest rank in the last 10 seasons.

A full season of Khris Middleton and Thon Maker in the starting lineup will help the Bucks' spacing. They took 35.3 percent of their shots from 3-point range in 234 total minutes with Tony Snell, Antetokounmpo, Middleton and Maker on the floor with either Malcolm Brogdon or Matthew Dellavedova at point guard. All other Milwaukee lineups took just 28.6 percent of their shots from 3-point range.

In games Middleton started (after making his season debut in late February), the Bucks went 17-6. The offense took a step backward, but Milwaukee did rank second in 3-point percentage in the playoffs.

With improved spacing and a more balanced offense in regard to their shot locations, the Bucks have the potential to be a better-than-average team on both ends of the floor for the first time in 27 years and a top-four seed in the Eastern Conference for the first time since 2001.