Michael Carter-Williams has been a Herculean nightmare as the starting point guard for the Milwaukee Bucks this season, and nobody can deny it. Not even Carter-Williams himself.
After being benched by head coach Jason Kidd in favor of Jerryd Bayless for Sunday’s 87-82 loss to the Charlotte Hornets, the former Rookie of the Year surprisingly expressed his agreement with the decision.
“The past couple games my play has been down,” said Carter-Williams per Charles F. Gardner of the Journal Sentinel. “If I’m a coach, I wouldn’t start me either. Whatever minutes I get, I’m going to come in and try to help the team, cheer from the bench and try to cheer my teammates on.”
The 24-year-old is averaging career lows across the board this season with 10.5 points per game, 3.2 rebounds per game, and 4.8 assists per game. His shooting percentages aren’t much better as Carter-Williams is at 42.0 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from three-point range.
The elephant in the room for the Bucks has been that Carter-Williams simply does not look like an NBA player right now. His jumper is still atrocious and he’s only magnifying the issue with poor shot selection. The Syracuse product’s point guard skills are still suspect in his third NBA season as well, as Carter-Williams has flashed some seriously deficient floor vision and decision-making in the open floor for Milwaukee this season.
The problem is that none of Kidd’s guards have been performing well, and the offseason addition of Greg Monroe looks to have slowed down the team’s offensive attack to a plodding crawl (the Bucks are 29th in pace this season after ranking 12th last year, per ESPN). For a now 6-11 Bucks team in a surprisingly strong Eastern Conference, it certainly seems as though their problems run deeper than a simple benching of Carter-Williams can solve.
Image Credit: Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports
H/T NBA Reddit
