Thon Maker understands his new role with the Bucks as a defensive energy player

Thon Maker understands his new role with the Bucks and is making the most of it.

The Milwaukee Bucks raised a lot of eyebrows when they selected Thon Maker with the 10th overall pick in last year's draft, for the raw talent and the lack of experience he had playing college basketball. Now seeing action in the NBA playoffs, he is proving his worth and embracing his role with his team, and helping them get in position to possibly advance to the second round.

The 20-year-old Australian/Sudanese international has appeared in all four games for the Bucks in their first round matchup with the third-seeded Toronto Raptors, and in 20 minutes of playing time is showcasing his talents, especially on defense. He discussed, via Michael Grange of Sportsnet, how he understands his new role and admitted that he provides energy by making impact plays while playing defense.

“At this point it’s just being defensive-minded, coming in to bring energy to the guys especially at my position. Bringing energy, blocking shots. It starts at the defensive end. Offensively it’s spacing the floor and using my knowledge of the game at this point to make plays for others and myself, but at this point it’s mostly on the defensive end.”

Head coach Jason Kidd also talked about switching him from a stretch forward to a defensive-minded player, as the team did not want to send him off to the D-League to gain more experience.

“The idea [for starting Maker] was we don’t have a D-League team so we didn’t want it to be a wasted year and we didn’t want to ship him somewhere, so the options became slim. So, we needed to play him and after talking with the coaching staff we thought, ‘Let’s look at starting him and being able to benefit, using his energy but also an opportunity to play so it’s not a wasted season.'

“And that’s the way we approached it and we’ve gone with that for some time now and it’s given him the opportunity to play and not be a wasted season. And he’s grown with the starting and playing limited minutes and when he does play, he plays hard.”

Maker has been providing the Bucks with a spark off their bench, and despite his pedestrian average of 6.8 points, he also contributes 3.0 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.0 steals and 1.3 blocks per game. Should he continue to improve his game and provide quality minutes, he may earn the trust of Kidd and his staff to allow him to see more court action, which will help him play to his full potential in the future.