Nothing in the NBA preseason matters quite like the gap between expectation and reality. Every fall, teams get sorted into neat little boxes - contenders, playoff hopefuls, rebuilds - and every year a few of them blow right past the label they were handed. The Milwaukee Bucks are trying to be one of those teams.
That sounds unlikely on paper. Milwaukee sent Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis to the Miami Heat in a deal that brought back four players and future draft picks, a massive swing that signaled just how much the franchise had changed course. The Bucks had already been sliding with Antetokounmpo, losing in the first round of the playoffs and then going 32-50 while he played only 36 games.
Take away a player who won two MVPs and nearly averaged 30 points per game over six seasons, and most people would assume the floor has dropped out. That’s why plenty of outlets have pegged Milwaukee near the bottom of the league. Still, the Bucks believe there’s a path to proving that forecast wrong.
That kind of jump is not fantasy. The league has seen it before.
The Detroit Pistons are the cleanest recent example. They came off a franchise-low 14 wins and the NBA’s worst record, then entered the 2024-25 season with a new coach in J.B.
Bickerstaff and additions like Tobias Harris, Malik Beasley, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Dennis Schröder. ESPN still projected them around 29 wins, ranked them as t and gave them a 2.1% chance to make the playoffs.
NBA.com writer Shaun Powell put it bluntly: "Teams that win less than 20 games don’t make strong playoff pushes the very next year. This likely means a tough season ahead and another trip to the Draft lottery (in what’s projected as a solid 2025 draft)."
Detroit ignored that script and finished 44-38, good for the No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference.
Sacramento pulled off something similar a little earlier. The Kings entered the 2022-23 season after a 30-52 finish and a 16-year playoff drought, with ESPN projecting them around 33-34 wins and another year on the outside looking in. Instead, after hiring Mike Brown and adding Keegan Murray, Malik Monk and Kevin Huerter, Sacramento won 48 games, made the playoffs and grabbed a top-3 seed.
Charlotte offered another reminder that projections can miss badly. The Hornets had won 19 games in the 2024-25 season and finished with the third worst record in the NBA, yet ESPN still had them around 29 wins after they added Collin Sexton, Kon Knueppel, Liam McNeeley, Sion James and Ryan Kalkbrenner.
Zach Roberts of Hornets ONSI went even further, saying Charlotte would miss the play-in and land at 34 wins.
"34 wins is probably what the Hornets will end up with, and that's not enough even for the play-in," Roberts said. "The play-in game has lately been between teams around .500, and the Hornets won't be quite that good, although this is still a huge improvement."
Instead, Charlotte cleared that mark by 10 wins, finished as the No. 9 seed and came one game short of a playoff berth.
Milwaukee is staring at a tougher path than most. The Eastern Conference is loaded, and the roster on paper does not jump off the page the way some of its rivals do.
But the Bucks are operating in a new era now. They got younger, added depth and brought in Taylor Jenkins as head coach.
They also spent the summer building chemistry together.
So maybe it’s too early to bury them before the season even tips in October. The NBA has a habit of humbling forecasts, and every year there’s at least one team that turns the projections into noise. The Bucks are hoping they’re next.
In Other News...
Bucks Fans Already Have An Awkward Jaime Jaquez Jr. Debate
Jaime Jaquez Jr.s arrival in Milwaukee has already produced an off-court wrinkle that Bucks fans are still trying to make sense of. The recently traded wing reportedly was asked to leave a Milwaukee restaurant after bringing his 90-pound dog, Percy, inside, and a viral video quickly turned the scene into a social media talking point. From the looks of it, the establishment was not dog-friendly, which only added to the confusion around a situation that had nothing to do with basketball.
The reaction online has been split, with some fans siding with the restaurant and others more amused than bothered by the whole episode. For Milwaukee, it is a reminder that a players first days in a new city can come with more attention than anyone expects, especially when a big dog and a crowded dining room are involved. [Read more 🡒]
Bucks Just Opened A New Backcourt Chance Fans Should Watch
Mark Sears path through the Bucks system took another turn this week, as the G League rights to the rookie guard were moved from the Wisconsin Herd to the Rip City Remix in a five-team trade. Sears had spent his first pro season with Milwaukees affiliate, and he also got a brief look with the Bucks themselves before being waived, making him one of the more familiar developmental names in the organizations backcourt picture.
For the Herd, the deal brings Cameron Parker and a first-round pick in the G League draft, giving Wisconsin another chance to reshape its guard rotation and add future flexibility. For Milwaukee fans, the bigger takeaway is the backcourt opening the move creates around the edges of the system, especially with Sears no longer tied to the Bucks developmental pipeline in the same way. [Read more 🡒]
Giannis Trade May Have Finally Fixed The Bucks Biggest Problem
The Bucks spent years paying for the kind of aggressive all-in moves that come with a title chase, and the cost showed up most clearly in the draft cupboard. Deals for players like Jrue Holiday and Damian Lillard left Milwaukee light on its own future first-rounders, which made it harder to keep one eye on the present and another on what comes next. In a franchise built around Giannis Antetokounmpo, that kind of asset drain was always going to matter eventually.
Now Milwaukee has three unprotected first-round picks from Miami in the Giannis trade, with selections coming in 2026, 2031 and 2033. The appeal is obvious: even as Antetokounmpo's career arc moves forward, those picks could carry real long-term value if the Heat's roster construction goes sideways. For a Bucks team that had been boxed in by its own win-now choices, the return may have finally given the front office a way to think beyond the immediate chase. [Read more 🡒]