Milwaukee Bucks: 60-win Hawks live on with Mike Budenholzer in Milwaukee

Ahead of Mike Budenholzer’s first game coaching against his former team, the magic of the 60-win Atlanta Hawks lives on with the Milwaukee Bucks.

As Mike Budenholzer prepares to face the Atlanta Hawks for the first time in his career as a head coach, it’s fitting that a win would bring his Milwaukee Bucks team on pace for a win total that has a special significance in his career.

A win over the Hawks on Friday night would move the Bucks to 27-10 on the season to date, leaving them on pace for 59.8 wins, which for the sake of this piece we’ll round up to 60 wins.

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That number is something of a gold standard for excellence in the NBA, and a rarely achieved feat for most franchises. For the Hawks, it’s only been achieved on one occasion, which of course was under the guidance of Budenholzer in 2014-15.

At this juncture of the season, it’s difficult not to look at the Bucks and see similarities to that particular Hawks team. The Hawks built one of the league’s best records in that year thanks to elite play on both ends of the floor (sixth in offense, fifth in defense) and the Bucks are currently on track to be even better in both areas this season (second in offense, third in defense).

The Hawks entered 2014-15 as an established playoff team, but one that consistently failed to get beyond the second round, even on the rare occasions they were lucky enough to get out of the first round.

Mediocrity was a term that abounded in conversation of those Hawks, something which the Bucks can certainly associate with considering their failure to advance beyond the first round since 2001, and what’s often felt like the endless pull back toward a .500-ish record.

For the 2014-15 Hawks, an exceptional buy-in from the players to a team-first style of play transformed Atlanta’s fortunes at a rate nobody predicted. The result was a magical season that feels like little more than a fever dream upon reflection, but one that at the time energized a city and a fanbase that had often proved difficult to get onside.

Throughout that season, there was a sense of something special happening right up until the moment when ultimately there wasn’t. The Hawks made it to the Conference Finals for the first time since that structure took shape in the NBA, and then they ran into a buzzsaw in the form of LeBron James and his Cleveland Cavaliers.

In essence, that was it. DeMarre Carroll left for a big pay day in Toronto as he hit free agency in that summer, and although the Hawks remained highly competitive for another couple of seasons, they never really got to build on the heady heights they reached in that 2014-15 season.

As the Bucks currently boast the NBA’s best record ahead of a summer when four of their five starters will enter free agency, there’s a cautionary tale that needs to be paid attention to here. When opportunities come along in the NBA, they must be seized. The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and NBA general managers and coaches certainly don’t stand as an exception to that.

Yet in comparing what are almost certainly Budenholzer’s best teams, two important details stand out in favor of this iteration of Milwaukee, and what they can go on to achieve.

Firstly, if there was one thing the 2014-15 Hawks lacked, it was a transcendent superstar like Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Bucks have a player who can put his team on his back, overwhelm opponents, and will his way to victory. In terms of a plan B, if the team-centric primary strategy fails, contingencies don’t get much better than that.

Secondly, the spectre of LeBron James that loomed over any potential Eastern Conference challenger is gone. All the good of 82 games and two playoff rounds can’t simply be undone by coming up against what may be the greatest player of all-time. If anything, if a LeBron-like figure now exists and is set to emerge in the East, who’s to say it isn’t Antetokounmpo as this year’s MVP frontrunner?

With all of this history to draw from in examining Budenholzer’s place with his current Bucks team, it’s all the more appropriate that he faces up with his old team for the first time in the month of January.

We’re four years removed from Budenholzer’s greatest stretch as head coach, and one of the more remarkable and under-discussed streaks in recent NBA history. The 2014-15 Hawks went 17-0 for the month of January, sweeping aside all-comers for a win streak that ultimately concluded after 19 games.

The run resulted in all five Hawks starters being named as Eastern Conference Player of the Month, four Hawks making the All-Star Game the following month, and the team generally being injected with a sense of confidence that there was no reason why it couldn’t be their year.

That Atlanta run started in Milwaukee with a December 27 win over the Bucks. Currently on a four-game winning streak of their own dating back to Christmas Day, the Bucks can’t be expected to win 19 in a row. But there can be no disputing this would be a perfect time to hit the front and really cement their credentials.

This Bucks season may well end in an unceremonious and grounding fashion, just as it did for the Hawks in 2014-15, but Milwaukee is rapidly approaching a position that Budenholzer tasted on that occasion too. It may not be spoken aloud within the confines of Fiserv Forum, but a sense of “why can’t this be our year” must be developing in the minds of Milwaukee’s players.

The reality is it could be the Bucks’ year. They have a coach who’s been in this spot before, yet now he gets to go through that process again with the benefit of lessons learned, a true superstar now on his side, and a distinct lack of intimidating foes lying in wait.

The path to The Finals and fans’ wildest dreams is there for Milwaukee to take, now it’s up to the team to seize their chance and never look back.