Marques Johnson wants Milwaukee Bucks fans to put the bitterness aside and pull for Giannis Antetokounmpo now that the superstar is in Miami.
Johnson, one of the most celebrated players in Bucks history, said on Gil’s Arena, the podcast hosted by former NBA player Gilbert Arenas, that he had “got into it” with fans online who don’t want Antetokounmpo to thrive with his new team. His message was simple: root for him.
Antetokounmpo’s run in Milwaukee gave the franchise plenty to cherish. Johnson pointed to who he is as a person, along with the 2021 title and the two most valuable player awards he collected during his time with the Bucks. That kind of production and impact is hard to dismiss, and it’s a big reason Johnson believes the reaction should be gratitude, not resentment.
The bigger truth is that NBA eras rarely last forever. Fans would love for a star to stay in one place the way Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant and Dirk Nowitzki did, but that’s not how most careers go.
Players change, teams change, and in many cases the break comes long before everyone is ready for it. Antetokounmpo should not be blamed harshly for wanting something different, even if the timing and the way it unfolded left plenty of frustration behind.
Even so, Johnson’s point is hard to ignore: the good Antetokounmpo did in Milwaukee far outweighs the bad, and the Bucks were not going to be relevant next season if he had stayed. He would have been, but the team around him was heading in another direction.
The stretch between Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 1975 trade to Los Angeles and Antetokounmpo’s arrival in 2013 tells its own story. In that span, Milwaukee reached the Eastern Conference Finals four times. The Bucks had strong players along the way - Johnson, Sidney Moncrief, Ricky Pierce and Ray Allen among them - but never enough to get over the top.
If there’s anger to direct anywhere, Johnson’s view is that it should land on management. The turning point came when the front office reshaped a team that had gone 58-24 in 2022-23.
Milwaukee lost in the first round to the Miami Heat, though that result was hardly shocking with Antetokounmpo available for only 38 percent of the series minutes. The trade that followed changed the makeup of the roster, and the Bucks paid for it with an unprotected first-round pick in 2029 and unprotected swaps in 2028 and 2030.
The aftermath was disappointing, but Milwaukee has already moved into a new phase. Antetokounmpo is set to chase more big moments in Miami and could add another championship to his résumé.
None of that erases what he left behind in Milwaukee. Johnson, who has seen plenty across his time in the game, thinks the best way forward for Bucks fans is to take the lesson and move on.
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