This is continuation of my OFFICIAL REASONS TO LOVE KHRIS MIDDLETON POWER RANKINGS. We resume the list at reason #8.
8. 50/40/90 CLUB
Okay, so Middleton wasn’t quite in the 50/40/90 club (50% FG, 40% 3P, 90% FT), but he was literally as close to being in the club as it’s possible to get without actually being in it. He shot 49.9% from the field, making 424 shots on 850 attempts. Turning just one miss into a make gets him to 50% and exclusive membership in the club (his 41.8% from three and 90.8% from the line easily meet the requirements). If the NBA does indeed resume with a limited amount of regular season games, as has been rumored, then Middleton can get into the club for real and cement his status as one of the most underrated scorers of his era. Oh wait, that status has already been cemented. The 50/40/90 club would just be another jewel in his crown which is already jewel-encrusted (and soon to be ring-encrusted too).
9. LOOKS LIKE A PISSED OFF ANT
Ever since a commenter in one of my Khris Middleton highlight videos made the insightful observation that Khris Middleton “looks like a pissed off ant”, it’s become my favorite way to describe Middleton’s appearance. I think it’s his buggy eyes and his protuberant front teeth that kind of look like pincers. Do ants even have pincers?
10. HATES THE CELTICS
The Celtics only have a bazillion championships because they dominated a league that only had, like, five teams in it. One of those teams was the Fort Wayne Zephyrs. Another one of those teams was from a city in Wisconsin that you’ve never heard of, “Sheboygan”. The Sheboygan team only had three players on the roster. But Celtics fans will crow endlessly about how good Bill Russell was and how the Celtics are the most legendary franchise in NBA history and blah blah blah WHO CARES? Khris Middleton is tired of the Celtics’ misplaced bravado, so everytime he plays them, he completely destroys them. That buzzer-beating three-pointer to send a playoff game into overtime? I bought a cheap Android tablet that plays that video on repeat 24/7/365. It’s mounted on my wall. I’m watching it right now.
11. PROBABLY PHILANTHROPY
I have seen pictures of Khris Middleton at Milwaukee-area schools. I have also seen pictures of him at grocery stores. These are the kinds of philanthropic acts that separate the great NBA players from the great human beings. Khris Middleton is both.
12. ALL-STAR
When I’m formulating my ideas of how good a player’s career is, I NEVER penalize a player for not having appeared in an All-Star game. I simply don’t care about All-Star appearances. However, having All-Star appearances can never hurt, and now Middleton has one. The simpletons who incorporate All-Star appearances into their poorly-reasoned arguments can shut up now.
13. NOT ON ROIDS
Unlike somebody like Giannis, whose bowling-ball shoulders could only be gained through steroidal means, Khris Middleton is definitely not roiding. He’s too mushy to be roiding. If there was a type of roid that could turn somebody into a jumpshooting assassin, then I would suspect Middleton of roiding. Since there is no such roid on the market that I know of (and I would definitely know about it because I would be nonstop injecting it right into my eyeballs, if that was the required method of roid-delivery), I can state definitively: Khris Middleton does not use steroids.
14. CONTRACT
Khris Middleton is only getting paid 17 million dollars this season. That’s a huge bargain for a player of his caliber. His five-year deal does get more expensive with each subsequent year, but he’s still only getting paid 21 million dollars in the 2023-24 season. Don’t bother looking up his contract to verify these numbers. I already verified them by typing them. Do not look up Khris Middleton’s contract.
15. CHEMISTRY
Have you ever heard anybody say anything bad about Khris Middleton? No. You haven’t. All his teammates past and present love him. All his coaches have loved him. I love him too. If you made a “Last Dance”-style documentary about this Bucks team, it would suck because there would be no inter-player drama, only a big Larry O’Brien trophy and a crying LeBron and a Khris Middleton smiling that huge smile of his where it looks like he has five hundred teeth crammed into his mouth.
[POWER GAP]
9001. DEFENSE
DownToBuck does not care about defense. Middleton is a great defender, but that’s not one of the reasons why I love him.