The theme of the summer for the Milwaukee Bucks has been accepting their fate. From coming to grips with the fact that it was time to trade Giannis Antetokounmpo, to the bill coming due on Gary Trent Jr., letting go of Andre Jackson Jr., and doing what they could to recoup draft assets, every move the Bucks made this offseason was part of reckoning with what came before.
And considering those circumstances, they did a darned good job. Resetting is one of the hardest things for a team to do, and the Bucks managed to cobble together an exciting young core from an 11-seed roster in an Eastern Conference going through a major transition. That made the B grade given to them in Bleacher Report's post-LeBron offseason grades more than understandable.
As written by B/R's Andy Bailey: "...there's no use in Milwaukee trying to change the past. Given the circumstance it was in, it got a solid trade package that includes young (and young-ish) players, three first-round picks, a first-round pick swap and a second-round pick...
Perhaps more important than all of that, though, is the fact that Dallas opting for size in the draft meant Milwaukee got in on the point guard sweepstakes from its top 10. And if summer league was any indication, they got a good one."
It feels like a fair assessment of where Milwaukee started and where it wound up, despite many Bucks fans entering the summer with optimism that the team would be able to pull a rabbit out of its hat and retool around Giannis on the fly. Heck, I was in that same camp, up until we reached the point of no return. But with most of the big storylines out of the way, barring a rumored sign-and-trade for Denver's Peyton Watson, it's time to come to terms with the truth of the situation.
The Milwaukee Bucks fell from the mountaintop back to square one, and that's not such a bad thing.
Not so long ago, the Bucks were projected to be a perennial title contender in the East. After reaching the pinnacle of basketball with their 2021 title, it felt like Milwaukee would be in the mix for a title every year they had Giannis on the roster. But what we failed to recognize both in the moment and for years to come was that what happened in 2021 was the outlier, not the expectation.
We haven't seen a back-to-back champion in the NBA since the Golden State Warriors in 2017 & 2018. Since that moment, we've seen eight different champions for eight straight seasons, signalling an unprecedented time of parity in the league and hardship in maintaining a contender. Some of that stems from the daunting Second Apron era, but much of it comes from the willpower of the players and coaches themselves who've brought us here.
So the Bucks' likelihood of winning another title during this window was slim when they had all of their guys. The championship roster eroded quickly, and the Damian Lillard era, so full of promise, was cut short by injuries and other factors beyond the Bucks' control. With that being the case, and the flood of lower-body injuries plaguing Giannis as he exits what would historically be considered his prime years, Milwaukee got out at the right time, both in their star player's lifecycle and this period of the NBA.
While the rest of the East scraps and claws for a Conference Finals appearance, the Milwaukee Bucks and their B-Grade offseason additions will be slowly but surely building toward whatever the next great iteration of this team will be. Given the moves they made this offseason, they have the bones for it. Now it's about executing on the player development and roster management that Milwaukee has preached over the years — the same philosophy that brought them the title in 2021.
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