Pt. 2: Pat Connaughton Showcases Winning Mentality In NBA
After announcing an indefinite suspension, it's unclear when the NBA will resume play, and it could take a while. Shams Charania of The Athletic announced on Wednesday night that the Toronto Raptors asked their player to self-quarantine for the next 14 days due to the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19).
The Raptors faced center Rudy Gobert and the Utah Jazz on Monday, March 9. Gobert tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday.
But as it stands right now, the Milwaukee Bucks, led by reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, are the prohibitive favorite to earn the top overall seed in the Eastern Conference Playoffs and make the NBA Finals.
With 17 games left to play this season, the Bucks are already a lock for the playoff, which means that Pat Connaughton will play in the post-season for the fifth time in his five-year NBA career.
While he only has nine career starts under his belt, Connaughton is known as a winning player, a reputation he established during his last season at Notre Dame when he led the Fighting Irish men's basketball team to its first Elite Eight appearance in more than 30 years.
This season, he's averaging 5.1 points per game, which is slightly down compared to his first year with the Bucks in 2018-19 when Connaughton averaged 6.9 points per contest, but he's still a critical piece to the Bucks' success this season.
"I want to help my team win," Connaughton said. "It's not just about dunks and that goes for stats, too. I'm sure there are plenty of people that will look at my stats, whether it be from this year, last year, et cetera, and say he's average or he's not doing that much. His points per game or shots per game are low.
"At the end of the day, that's not what I pride myself on. I try to be someone that can come in and make plays, have an impact on the game and help my team win."
Assuming the NBA does host the playoffs for the 2019-20 season, Connaughton could have a chance to prove himself on one of basketball's biggest stages and show the doubters, once again, that he's more than just someone with a high vertical leap.
Still, thus far in his NBA career, most would say the former Notre Dame shooting guard has overachieved.
Most assumed that his Notre Dame classmate Jerian Grant, a first-round selection with the No. 19 overall pick in the 2015 NBA Draft by the Washington Wizards, would be much more successful than Connaughton, who was taken in the middle of the second round.
Instead, Connaughton is contributing to the best team in the Eastern Conference and Grant is now with the Capital City Go-Go (the Wizard's G-League Affiliate), a team that initially waived him before the 2019-20 season. But just because Connaughton has overachieved based on past perceptions doesn't mean he doesn't think he can take his play to another level.
"Moving forward for the remainder of this year, going into next year and years to come, I've shown flashes of being a very good NBA player, a very good role player on a, hopefully, championship-caliber team," Connaughton said. "How do you do that consistently night in and night out over a nine-month season?"
Perhaps one of the biggest improvements Connaughton could make in his game is to become a more consistent three-point shooter. Over his career, he's shooting 34.3 percent from beyond the arch, but his numbers have dipped progressively over each of the last four seasons.
This season, he's making just 32.1 percent of three-pointers. This is below the current league average of 35.7 percent and Connaughton's worst percentage since his rookie season when he played in just 34 games and averaged 4.2 minutes per contest.
The best way to improve upon his numbers and his overall play? Consistency.
"You're going to have good games, you're going to have bad games," Connaughton said. "That's inevitable. But how do you limit the bad games? How do you still have a positive effect on the games? You're not shooting it well. You're not playing the way you want to play. That comes down to mental focus, mental strength, toughness, etc. as much as it is physical."
With the rest of the NBA season in doubt due to the spread of COVID-19, it's unclear if Connaughton will have a chance to improve upon his play for 2019-20, especially as the virus spreads to other notable players.
But if the season does resume, it's guaranteed that Connaughton will put winning and his team first, just like he always has.
The average NBA watcher may not see the value of that, but the people that matter will.
"People who aren't fair-weather fans who are avid fans, teams, management ownership, I think they see the value that I bring here," Connaughton said. "The track record of what my teams have been able to do that I'm a part of. I've been in the playoffs every single year I've been in the NBA. Hopefully, that can continue to happen, and we go further in the playoffs this year that we had last year and the year before."
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