With media day in Milwaukee on Sept. 30, the Bucks are 10 days away from starting the 2024-25 season.

In his first full season as Bucks head coach, Doc Rivers will attempt to get the team back into the championship picture after first-round exits in its last two postseasons. One of Rivers’ tasks will be developing a rotation that features multiple lineups that can provide different looks for opponents and maximize the skills of his best players.

As we wait for some of those lineups to reveal themselves in the preseason, here are five ideas for unique bench units that could help get the Bucks through the regular season and, in some cases, prepare them for the postseason.

Lineup No. 1: Small-ball unit

Players: Delon Wright, Gary Trent Jr., Khris Middleton, Taurean Prince, Giannis Antetokounmpo

It should come as no surprise this is the first lineup that intrigues me heading into the season.

The Bucks will never play Antetokounmpo at center full-time. It is far too grating on his body and a poor allocation of the Bucks’ talent on a nightly basis across 82 games, but small-ball lineups with Antetokounmpo at center will always be something the team should think about during the regular season to ensure those looks can be weaponized in the postseason.

As discussed in our first September mailbag story, the Los Angeles Lakers’ small-ball lineups with Prince and Anthony Davis were successful last season. The Bucks would be wise to try capturing that same magic this season by playing Prince at power forward alongside Antetokounmpo at center. Antetokounmpo and Davis are not the same players, but they are similar in some ways, and there is a possibility the Bucks can find similar success as the Lakers with this small-ball alignment.

This lineup has no negative defenders, as well as the size, length and athleticism to think about switching across multiple positions and actions to cause problems for opposing offenses. Offensively, there are capable shooters to space the floor around Antetokounmpo and an on-ball creator in Middleton to help if the offense gets bogged down.

Again, this lineup is not something the Bucks should use for large stretches of time, but it is a good place to start as they attempt to figure out how they will create small-ball advantages this season.

Lineup No. 2: Dunker spot Giannis

Players: Damian Lillard, Wright, Middleton, Antetokounmpo, Brook Lopez

Admittedly, this is an excuse for me to talk about an offensive concept, but it’s interesting enough for the lineup to be intriguing.

The lineup may not seem all that exciting as I’ve merely switched in Wright for Trent, but the Lillard-Wright pairing is something I find fascinating because, as Jon Horst told The Athletic in July, Wright was one of the Bucks’ main targets entering the offseason, and that would suggest that the organization believes Lillard and Wright can share the floor together.

While watching pick-and-rolls involving Lillard and Antetokounmpo, I found myself wondering how the Bucks could get Antetokounmpo easy alley-oop finishes with Lillard handling the ball. Because of the quick-hitting nature of Lillard’s offensive game, it didn’t seem like something that could be accomplished with Antetokounmpo serving as the screener in the pick-and-roll. So, I started watching Lillard work in the pick-and-roll with Lopez.

That brought me to this play in the Bucks’ first-round series against the Indiana Pacers:

All season, Lillard and Lopez had a strong connection in the pick-and-roll, so it was no surprise to see the Bucks lean on their connection with Antetokounmpo on the sidelines.

As Bucks fans will remember, it led to issues in transition defense at times against the Pacers because it put Lopez in precarious positions around the basket and put him behind the play. That isn’t what I’m focusing on here. Instead, I wondered what would happen if you ran this play with Antetokounmpo in the lineup for Bobby Portis and stationed him in the dunker instead of the weak-side corner:

While it might feel like a bad idea to put the weak-side defender in a better help position by stationing Antetokounmpo in the dunker, it is worth noting that Antetokounmpo could, you know, dunk on a quick alley-oop. For example, look at this broken play from the Bucks game against the New Orleans Pelicans on March 28:

Look at the difficult decision presented to Larry Nance Jr. Also, look at what Lopez and Antetokounmpo were able to do freelancing in a situation they were not expecting. Lopez’s slow roll to the basket and catch on a jump stop allowed him to easily control his footwork and avoid a travel to toss a pass to Antetokounmpo with Nance caught in no man’s land standing flat-footed between two 7-footers.

The Bucks shouldn’t make their entire offense out of sticking Antetokounmpo in the dunker, but after years of avoiding putting him in that position, what if the Bucks opted to lean into Lillard-Lopez pick-and-rolls with Antetokounmpo waiting for lobs in the dunker for two minutes each night at the end of the first quarter or the start of the second?