Is This The Milwaukee Bucks Last Best Chance At A Championship?

Winning championships are hard. They aren’t just hard to win, they’re hard. That may be obvious to many, but we don’t understand how hard it is to win the NBA Finals (or any championship), especially for a team like the Milwaukee Bucks.

Two years ago, the Bucks changed the entire narrative of the franchise.

Heading into the 2021 postseason, they were branded as a great regular season team who couldn’t get it done in the playoffs. They blew a 2-0 lead in the 2019 Eastern Conference Finals and were bounced in just the semi-finals as the top seed in the 2020 bubble playoffs.

They were called chokers who couldn’t finish the job. Giannis Antetokounmpo’s game was labeled as one not set up for the postseason grind. Mike Budenholzer couldn’t make the proper adjustments other top coaches in the playoffs could. The loudest critics claimed Antetokounmpo would never win a championship in Milwaukee.

Then, everything changed.

Suddenly, Milwaukee could finish the job. Antetokounmpo’s game could translate. Budenholzer could scheme advantages for his team. And the Bucks could (and did) win a championship with this core.

Milwaukee’s title defense was incomplete last year due to a Khris Middleton injury that prevented them from running it back. He slipped in the first round against the Chicago Bulls, spraining his knee and failing to return in a seven-game semi-finals matchup with the Boston Celtics. In that one slip, the Bucks were again reminded just how hard it is to win a championship.

Milwaukee has been searching for the health that cost them a chance to run it back all year. We have yet to see if they can find it when they need it most.

The Bucks have struggled with injuries since training camp and they’ve begun to pile up again. Health may be the biggest impediment to another Finals victory. Milwaukee is 15-6 when Antetokounmpo, Middleton and Jrue Holiday start and finish a playoff game without an injury. That’s good enough to win a championship any season.

Unfortunately, the trio has only started and finished a playoff game 21 out of 35 games. Antetokounmpo’s knee injury in the 2021 Eastern Conference Finals and Middleton’s knee injury last year are the two that have cost them.

Milwaukee doesn’t have much time to turn it around, either. The Bucks are getting old. Fast.

Of their primary rotation players, Pat Connaughton (30), Holiday (32), Jae Crowder (32), Middleton (31), Brook Lopez (35), Joe Ingles (35), and Wesley Matthews (36) are all on the wrong side of 30. That leaves just Jevon Carter (27), Grayson Allen (27), Bobby Portis (28), and Antetokounmpo (28) still in their primes.

Age affects each player differently. The Bucks can’t expect all their 30-some-year-old players to continue playing impactful basketball every year.

Money is another real factor. As much as we want billionaire owners to pay whatever it takes to win a championship every year, they aren’t all willing to take a financial loss.

Middleton has a $40.4 million player option for 2023-24 that he must decide on this summer. He currently has three options: to accept the option, decline it and re-sign with the Bucks before free agency begins (if he does this, he can’t re-sign for less than the $40.4 million he would have otherwise received), or decline it and open up his recruitment as an unrestricted free agent. If he chooses the latter route, he could still return to the Bucks, even at a salary point lower than his player option (the timing is key).

Middleton’s status alone would be cause for concern. Unfortunately, the Bucks have several other players set to hit free agency. Lopez, Ingles, Matthews, Crowder, Thanasis Antetokounmpo, Goran Dragic and Meyers Leonard are all unrestricted free agents.

Jevon Carter also has a player option for $2.23 million. He can decline that and sign a deal worth up to $11.34 million in 2023-24 as long as it’s for at least two years.

All of these moves come with the Bucks deep in the luxury tax. This season, they’ll have a tax payment of at least $83 million. That number would skyrocket even higher if they re-sign all the aforementioned players.

The Bucks are entering year five as a legit championship contender. How much longer can that window stay open? The Golden State Warriors were championship contenders for just five years before undergoing a two-year re-load and winning another Finals last year. The LeBron James Miami Heat had four years. Kevin Garnett’s Celtics had five years.

It takes a special talent to keep that window open for over half a decade. Hopefully, Antetokounmpo falls into that category.

Whenever you have Giannis, you have a chance. He’s only 28 and has a couple of more years of his prime. That should will the Bucks to at least a few more championship opportunities, as they transition into their next phase of the Antetokounmpo Bucks.

However, with all of the changes on the horizon, it’s fair to wonder whether this is the Bucks’ last-best chance to win the NBA Finals. Who knows what will happen this offseason with Middleton, Lopez and others. Who knows if Lopez will ever be this good on both ends of the court again. Who knows if ownership will pay to keep this team together.

After years of fighting for the final spot in the playoffs, the Bucks enter the 2023 postseason as one of the favorites to win it all. I never thought I’d hear that in my lifetime.

Whether this is their last best chance or not, I’m going to sit back and enjoy every damn second of this ride. We are in the glory days of Bucks’ basketball.