The Milwaukee Bucks Are Betting on Déjà Vu
The Bucks have won an NBA title (in 2002), but they failed to reach the Eastern Conference finals the last two years. What’s wrong with them?
If you’re the type of fan who believes that the NBA is the most basketball-oriented league in the world, you can probably identify with the feelings of the Milwaukee Bucks.
The Bucks haven’t had a regular season title since 2002, when they won the title after defeating James.
The team hasn’t won the last two Eastern Conference finals, losing to the Cavaliers and to the Knicks in the regular season. In those games, the Bucks lost by a combined 60 points, which is more than twice as many as the Cavaliers and over four times as many as the Knicks. So, if you’re hoping to see this team make the NBA Finals again, you may want to give it up now.
I’m going to use the same logic that allowed me to have expectations of the Bucks being good the past two years. I know that teams don’t always win the playoffs every season; teams win the playoffs once or twice per decade. And there have been many times in the history of basketball when a team has won the NBA title, but then lost in consecutive years (see: the Detroit Pistons, the Phoenix Suns, and the Boston Celtics of the 1990s).
I realize that it’s easier to accept a trend when you’re not invested in the teams of the past, but the reality is that there’s a chance that the Bucks could make it up. And when I say “it’s possible,” I mean, not just possible, but pretty damn likely.
You could look at the schedule for each season, and argue that the Bucks are a strong favorite to win the 2016-17 season. I’ll admit that this looks like a lot of fun, but I could argue that the Eastern Conference is
