Eric Bledsoe showed why the Bucks traded for him in his debut win over the Spurs

With 1:40 left in the fourth quarter, barely hanging onto a two-point lead, the Milwaukee Bucks were searching for a bucket. They had led by nine points early in the quarter, looking like a blowout might be imminent, but Giannis Antetokounmpo can’t do everything — only four of his 28 points came in the final frame.

But the Milwaukee Bucks had a reason for trading for Eric Bledsoe, though. He’s a buckets-getter, and he did that — he splashed this stepback easily, and that was the cushion Milwaukee needed. San Antonio didn’t score again.

Bledsoe finished with 13 points on 6-of-15 shooting, a plus-10 for a team that badly needs more positive players. Eventually, Jabari Parker will bring another such player to the rotation, but Bledsoe was a chance to jumpstart the (now) 5-6 Bucks.

Milwaukee has a legitimate game-changing player, a sensational whirlwind of limbs that will destroy you no matter how you play defense on him — and we have can prove it. For Bledsoe, it took him no time at all to figure that part of his new job out.

But the Bucks need more than just him, even as Antetokounmpo starts to bring together advisers and to collect preliminary data for a potential MVP campaign. Coming into Friday’s game, the team only had five players at or near a positive net rating — Antetokounmpo, John Henson, Khris Middleton, Tony Snell, and Malcolm Brogdon.

Net rating data is contextual, but it’s not too hard to determine what this means. The Bucks, essentially, have five plus players. That’s not to totally disparage their bench, which has useful players and budding prospects, but maybe not in the role that they’ve been used in.

Milwaukee now can add Bledsoe to that mix, who averaged over 20 points and six assists the last two seasons in Phoenix. Granted, the Suns weren’t exactly impressive those two seasons — Bledsoe was putting up a lot of empty statistics on a team going nowhere. But you still have to put up those numbers, and Bledsoe has proven himself on teams that mattered, too. He’s good. He’s still only 28, and he’ll be great in Milwaukee.

Bledsoe should push Middleton back into a 2B scoring role, or maybe even turn him into a tertiary option. Middleton is solid, but he might be slightly oversold as a true second option, even if Antetokounmpo is the one. Middleton’s efficiency through 10 games is at a career low, just 51.3 percent True Shooting Percentage. That should improve with another player who can create shots, and less pressure on Middleton alone to do that when Antetokounmpo sits or needs a breather.

There will be another adjustment phase once Parker returns, and he will need to be used correctly due to a game that doesn’t totally correlate with the modern one. Still, Parker certainly has value — it’s just a matter of putting him in a position where he can use it.

Bledsoe shouldn’t have nearly this problem. He’ll fit right in, running pick-and-rolls with Antetokounmpo (or vice versa, even), as players like Middleton, Snell, and Brogdon space the floor during crunch time lineups. You can fit Parker in that lineup, too, or Henson against bigger teams. It’s possible DeAndre Liggins even makes it in there if the team needs a shutdown defender.

Those are all questions that head coach Jason Kidd will need to figure out. But Bledsoe gives him one more piece to the puzzle, and that only makes his life easier. After Milwaukee’s slow start, that’s a good thing.