- 15 hours ago
Giannis Antetokounmpo is gone to Miami, and the once-champion Milwaukee Bucks are gonna suck this year. That's not so bad! They won an NBA title together. Giannis will have his number retired in Milwaukee. The hardware is hard, the legacy will survive, etc.
But still ... how did we get here? It's not that hard to imagine a world in which the Bucks won another title, or at least came close, and it's not hard at all to imagine a world in which Giannis stayed a Buck forever. So why not?
But still ... how did we get here? It's not that hard to imagine a world in which the Bucks won another title, or at least came close, and it's not hard at all to imagine a world in which Giannis stayed a Buck forever. So why not?
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00:00Luck is always a factor. Every single champion needs some luck to reach their trophy.
00:07The 2021 Milwaukee Bucks had in their favor opponent injuries, close calls, and upsets elsewhere in the playoff bracket.
00:16But of course they also had this, a glorious blend of superstar power, rotational support, and well-applied coaching.
00:25These Bucks were great and they were deserving.
00:29Giannis Adetokounmpo had the ultimate homegrown success story, a knobbly, mysterious draft pick, turned breakout star, turned generational beast, all
00:40with the team that drafted him.
00:42Giannis' 2021 season was just as excellent as either of the two preceding seasons that both won him MVP awards,
00:50and he saved his best performance for the biggest game of his life, Game 6 of the NBA Finals.
00:56These Bucks were what dorks might call a heliocentric team, and around Giannis' blazing star orbited a wonderful supporting cast.
01:06Chris Middleton, another Bucks success story. A trade throw-in developed into a deadly but unassuming all-star caliber bucket
01:15artist. Perfect secondary scorer guy.
01:17Brooke Lopez, once himself a legit star, now content to be large, protect basket, shoot threes, ride haunted mansion.
01:25Past that, it was true, career-long role players. We're talking Dante DiVincenzo, PJ Tucker, Bobby Portis.
01:34This was not a stacked team, so to speak, but it was a roster that beautifully complemented its celestial centerpiece.
01:42And then things really came together when Drew Holiday arrived.
01:47One of the league's ultimate glue guys seemed bound to help someone win a title someday, and that's exactly what
01:54Drew did when he brought his world-beating defense and opportunistic scoring prowess to Milwaukee.
01:59Once Drew arrived, coach Mike Budenholzer had everything he needed to turn Giannis and company into a fast-paced, two
02:07-way force.
02:08The Bucks coalesced in season, peaked at the right time, and, yes, got a healthy serving of luck to win
02:15it all for the first time in 50 years.
02:18Giannis was still in his 20s. The core would remain intact well into the decade.
02:23There was no reason the Bucks couldn't do it again. Except luck. The luck turned, and then everything else turned
02:31with it.
02:33We begin with an excuse. 2021 was a weird year to win an NBA championship.
02:39Not as weird as the 2020 bubble season, but still weird.
02:43The calendar got shifted because of COVID, which meant a late start, which meant that the NBA Finals ended on
02:49July 20th, over a month later than normal.
02:53Beginning the following season, 21-22, the NBA reset to its normal October-June calendar.
03:00So the victorious Bucks had about eight weeks between trophy hoisting and training camp.
03:07And two crucial Bucks, Chris Middleton and Drew Holiday, spent a chunk of that brief summer playing in the Tokyo
03:14Olympics.
03:14So this is an extreme dearth of post-championship rest.
03:19And maybe this is all a coincidence, but with the exception of Bobby Portis having a breakout year,
03:26no Buck played more than 67 of the 82 games.
03:30Brooke Lopez barely participated at all in the regular season because of a back injury that required surgery.
03:36And in December, Chris Middleton suffered a knee injury against the Celtics that, while minor, presaged something worse.
03:44Milwaukee entered the postseason more or less on their feet, but in Game 2 of Milwaukee's first-round victory over
03:51the Bulls,
03:52Middleton hit the slip-and-slide.
03:54Just a bad beat here.
03:55And the resulting knee injury forced Middleton to depart the game, the series, and it turned out the whole postseason.
04:03In the second round, Milwaukee faced the two-seed Celtics and put up a remarkable fight without their second scorer.
04:10They came back and actually took a 3-2 series lead after a Game 5 comeback.
04:14Then Jason Tatum almost single-handedly thwarted another comeback attempt in Milwaukee.
04:20And after stealing Game 6, the Celtics slammed the door in Boston, thanks to an obscene outside shooting margin in
04:27Game 7.
04:28Milwaukee hung tough for a while, but got smoked in the end.
04:32This was, in my estimation, an understandable way to fail a title defense.
04:37A veteran roster on short rests just ran out of gas.
04:41Slippery court, bad timing, bad luck, etc.
04:44You could kind of throw out 21-22 as a gap year.
04:4822-23 had all the makings of the real title defense.
04:52The Bucs had time to work in some new role players.
04:55They hit a new level of regular season excellence, even while Middleton was off the floor recovering.
05:00Milwaukee returned to the top of the league standings, largely thanks to a revamped defense and, you know, Giannis.
05:07This was still very, very much a Giannis-oriented team.
05:12Extremely good, but not very deep.
05:14If anything, some misfires around the margins left the 23 Bucs with a thinner solar system orbiting Giannis than they
05:23had had back in 2021.
05:24And when you're built like that, the one thing that can't happen is the sun burning out.
05:30Giannis had been playing through and around some knee issues all season, but this was something else.
05:37Mere minutes into the 2023 playoffs, Undead and Kumbo drove to the rim, jumped high, and came down very hard,
05:44right on his back.
05:45He tried to play through it, but it did not work.
05:48Without their star, the Bucs blew game one at home to the Miami Heat, and though they managed to survive
05:54game two,
05:55the series was already in jeopardy when Giannis returned for game four.
05:59We see you, Jake Crowder. Hi.
06:02Down 2-1, Milwaukee actually looked like they might win in Miami and restore home court advantage,
06:08and then something came over Jimmy Butler.
06:11If you have lost track of where the playoff Jimmy concept came from,
06:15I will direct you back to the ends of game four and five of this Bucs Heat series.
06:21Milwaukee guarded Butler with a couple of the best wing defenders alive, and Jim did not care.
06:27Milwaukee could have avoided this upset.
06:30It was a closer series than it appears, despite Giannis missing most of the first three games.
06:36But Jimmy Butler made sure the upset happened.
06:39I don't know if this was some sort of karmic recoil from the luck of Kevin Durant's toe being on
06:45the line in 2021,
06:46but Milwaukee went down in a flurry of running, off-balance Jimmy Butler jumpers.
06:52The best team in the league lost to a play-in eight-seat.
06:56Following that disaster, eyes turned to coach Mike Budenholzer.
07:01Yes, he had taken Milwaukee to a title in 21 and the league's best record in 23,
07:06but he had also frustrated observers and Giannis by failing to adjust to the Jimmy Buckets onslaught
07:12and by eating some timeouts late in close losses.
07:16News soon broke that Budenholzer had lost his brother quite suddenly in the middle of the series,
07:21so some perspective is necessary.
07:24But nevertheless, the Bucs found their scapegoat and fired him.
07:29A move like that comes off as a bit panicky, as if a team is trying to appease a flight
07:35-risk superstar.
07:36There wasn't much suggestion, though, that Giannis had any major issues with Budenholzer,
07:42nor did he sound like a flight-risk.
07:44In a much-discussed press conference before the firing,
07:48Adetokumbo presented the defeat not as failure, but as a step towards success.
07:52He had been a Buc, the Buc, for 10 years, and even after such a collapse,
07:58he came nowhere near raising a flag that he might want to play somewhere else or for another coach.
08:04Still, out went Budenholzer.
08:07Later that month, the Bucs included Adetokumbo in their process for hiring a new coach.
08:12Long-time assistant Adrian Griffin got his first head coaching job after, among other things,
08:18Giannis met with him and gave the team a thumbs up.
08:20But then he gave an interview to the New York Times that put the whole organization on high alert.
08:26His commitment to the Bucs sounded conditional.
08:29He was not enthusiastic about the prospect of a rebuild.
08:32The Bucs had to be contenders to keep him happy.
08:36Giannis was eligible for an extension that very offseason, but said he wouldn't sign it yet.
08:41Suddenly, that was pretty worrisome.
08:43Perhaps related, late in that offseason, the Bucs remade themselves to be less dependent on Giannis
08:49and steered themselves far, far away from anything resembling a rebuild.
08:54In came an established, score-first superstar.
08:58A guy who had demanded a trade from his long-time team and got it.
09:03Damian Lillard.
09:0533 years old, recently slowed by injuries,
09:08but still, by far, the most acclaimed scorer to ever join Giannis in Milwaukee.
09:13And out went Drew Holiday, the ultimate glue guy.
09:18The Bucs didn't consult Giannis on that trade,
09:21but he sounded pleased afterward with Milwaukee's commitment to winning another title.
09:26Pleased enough that he did exactly what he said he wasn't ready to do,
09:30signing a three-year extension to remain a Milwaukee Buc.
09:34Great.
09:34He said he wanted to be with the Bucs forever.
09:37Love to hear that.
09:38As long as they kept winning.
09:40Which they did.
09:41Wait, what the hell?
09:43So, yes, the Bucs rolled into late January 2024
09:46with a very good record, on pace to win 57 games.
09:50But if you looked under the hood, or even just, like, near the hood,
09:54that record belied real problems under coach Adrian Griffin.
09:58After Griffin took the Bucs job,
10:00Milwaukee made two moves he might not have expected.
10:03First, they hired Terry Stotts,
10:05a much more experienced coach, to be his lead assistant.
10:08Then they traded away Drew Holiday, one of the best defenders on earth.
10:12Off the bat, Stotts and Griffin did not fit together.
10:15Stotts quit abruptly right before the season began.
10:19And then Griffin tried to install a new, aggressive defensive scheme
10:22that might have worked if Drew was still around,
10:25but without him, it was toothless.
10:27Players complained and sort of gestured at mutiny
10:30until Griffin changed things up.
10:32In the NBA Cup or in-season tournament or whatever they were calling it that year,
10:37Milwaukee started solid and then kind of ate shit against an inferior Pacers team.
10:42Not a good sign for their playoff viability.
10:45More on the Pacers later.
10:47Still, all of the above said,
10:49firing Griffin was a huge shock.
10:5230-13 is just short of a 70% win rate.
10:56But management didn't care about the wins.
10:58They saw the defense,
11:00the infighting, and the discouraging performances
11:03and decided that for a team with championship aspirations,
11:06with a superstar whose commitment depended on winning,
11:09they had to make a move.
11:11The Bucs felt they could not wait.
11:13Milwaukee hired Doc Rivers.
11:15Doc didn't exactly fix the defense,
11:18but he did coach the Bucs to a 17-19 record the rest of the way,
11:22which, hold on now, that's a lot worse.
11:25So, I don't know,
11:26maybe the Bucs were going to be a regular season stinker
11:28that turned it on in the playoffs,
11:30but they never got to find out.
11:32Just a few days before the postseason,
11:34Giannis messed up his calf,
11:35and he did not come back for the playoffs.
11:38Bad luck.
11:39The Pacers pulled off an easy upset.
11:41So, kind of another gap year there.
11:4424-25 then.
11:45Gotta contend.
11:46Dame has been worked into the system.
11:48Doc's got a full training camp.
11:50Giannis is back healthy.
11:51Obviously, the 2-8 start was a bad sign,
11:54but Milwaukee found their footing entering December,
11:56and they won the cup.
11:58Still, Milwaukee felt pressure to improve,
12:00even if it hurt.
12:01By 2025, Chris Middleton was not the same player he once was.
12:06Giannis' longtime co-star was 33,
12:09coming off ankle surgery,
12:11and producing way less than before.
12:13It made sense for a trophy-hungry team
12:16to move on from Middleton,
12:18however cold it felt to deal away
12:20a beloved, championship-winning rock
12:23of 10-plus years.
12:25But if you believe it all in vibes,
12:27if you share the gut feeling
12:29that there are certain moves you just shouldn't make,
12:32I think we can agree that this is one of those.
12:34At the 2025 trade deadline,
12:37the Bucks unceremoniously dealt Middleton
12:39for Kyle Kuzma,
12:41who was younger and healthier,
12:42but not especially good,
12:43and Kevin Porter Jr.,
12:45who brought with him a history of grim
12:48and revolting alleged behavior,
12:50basketball stuff,
12:51and real-life stuff.
12:52It was a cynical trade,
12:54and it didn't even work.
12:55Once again,
12:56the Bucks faced Indiana
12:58in the first round of the playoffs,
12:59and once again,
13:00they got smoked.
13:01There was some bad luck again.
13:03Damian Lillard fully blew a tire
13:04during that series,
13:05but things were headed the wrong way
13:07no matter what.
13:08The Pacers just got him again.
13:10Time to panic.
13:12When the Bucks found out
13:14Lillard would be out a long time,
13:15they waived him
13:16and made a financially cumbersome trade
13:18to bring in Miles Turner.
13:20Out went Brooke Lopez,
13:21the 2021 Bucks supporting cast
13:24had very gradually eroded,
13:26leaving only Giannis
13:27and a new supporting cast
13:29that just hadn't found
13:30the same juice
13:31nor the same luck.
13:33Meanwhile,
13:34the star was beginning to burst.
13:37Giannis did not demand a trade,
13:39but he entertained the idea.
13:41He talked about it
13:42with people who mattered.
13:44His loyalty was always contingent on winning,
13:46and he didn't see any winning.
13:49During that 2025 offseason,
13:50the world heard of real trade conversations
13:54based on real private conversations
13:56based on a real preference
13:57to go to the Knicks.
13:59The talks didn't go anywhere,
14:01but the stink was in the air,
14:03and Giannis chose to just ignore it
14:05rather than overpower it.
14:07The stink persisted well into the 25-26 season,
14:10which immediately became
14:11the most high-stakes campaign
14:13since the title.
14:14Win or he's gone.
14:16Milwaukee simply had to get good,
14:18get lucky,
14:19and get back to,
14:20oh, goddammit, dude.
14:22One thing,
14:23and then another thing,
14:24and that was it.
14:26After enough Giannis absences
14:28and enough losses,
14:2925-26 stopped being a basketball season.
14:32It was just a daily game of,
14:33did they do it yet?
14:34The Bucks did not find a trade
14:36before the deadline,
14:37but they got it done
14:38right before the draft.
14:39And then,
14:40there were none.
14:41Giannis and Adekunpo's time
14:43as a Buck was a success,
14:45without question.
14:45They won an NBA championship together.
14:47But remembering the years
14:49that followed
14:50will never feel satisfying.
14:52The Bucks sometimes looked built
14:54to do it again,
14:55then got unlucky.
14:56Other times,
14:57they seemed to make missteps,
14:59perhaps a firing,
15:00perhaps a trade,
15:01that may or may not
15:02have brought them closer
15:03to a second championship,
15:05but we'll never know
15:05because they got unlucky again.
15:08So it goes,
15:09but none of that will change 2021.
15:11When Milwaukee had their guy,
15:13had their squad around him,
15:15had a lot of talent and success
15:17and brilliance and glory.
15:19And yeah,
15:19don't forget,
15:20not a small amount of luck.
15:29Thank you so much for watching.
15:30We got plenty more stuff over here
15:32and plenty more stuff
15:34that you won't find on YouTube
15:35if you subscribe to Secret Base on Patreon,
15:37like all those other people
15:39you just saw in the credits.
15:40Okay, bye.