NBA 6MOY Power Rankings: Jordan Clarkson is setting the league on fire

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NBA Philadelphia 76ers Shake Milton (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images) /

NBA 6MOY Power Rankings, No. 4: Shake Milton – 14.1 PPG, 3.0 APG, 45% FG

Shake Milton certainly isn’t a guy I anticipated as a big-impact bench guy, but his play has been a fun development for this rejuvenated Philadelphia 76ers team. In only his third year in the league, Milton has really stepped up his play – averaging 14 points a game in under 25 minutes a night. He’s basically become an upgraded version of what Alec Burks was for the Sixers last year.

Milton shares the court a ton with the second unit of Matisse Thybulle, Furkan Korkmaz, Tyrese Maxey, and Dwight Howard, serving as the primary scorer for Philadelphia when the starters need a breather. He’s also played and thrived in those crunch-time minutes he’s shared thus far with MVP candidate Joel Embiid, Tobias Harris, and Ben Simmons. Some of his highlights this year were a 31-point game against the Heat and a 28-point game on the road against the Grizzlies.

He’s certainly not a sniper shooter, but what Milton does best is score around the basket. Shake Milton shoots about 57 percent at the rim and 55 percent between 3-to-10 feet, which is impressive considering he’s only 6 foot 5 and not an elite ballhandler. Milton is somewhat of a streaky player, but a player that is really on when he’s on.

Despite these impressive numbers, Milton needs to improve on his shot profile – he takes a ton of long 2’s that are primarily contested and inefficient. Additionally, Milton hasn’t been much of a factor from deep, having only taken ten corner threes all season and shooting an unpleasant 29 percent from the above the break 3.

What’s strange, when you dive into his numbers, is that he’s nowhere near as efficient as he was in his limited role last year. During the 2020 season, Milton was a 59 percent EFG shooter and shot the 3-ball at 43 percent – He’s only shooting 50 percent (EFG) and shooting 31 percent from 3 this year. This could be either a good sign that he can improve back to his last season averages or a bad sign in that he is naturally an inefficient player – depends if you’re a glass-half-empty or half-full type of person.

It’ll be interesting to see how Milton performs throughout the year in this feature bench scorer role. If he can have gradual improvement on his shot profile and at the same time pick up his effective shooting percentages a tad, Milton will be in the mix for the award the entire year.