Behind the Bucks Pass
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Milwaukee Bucks: 3 biggest ‘what ifs’ during the Bucks’ 1970s run

By Jordan Treske

SANTA MONICA, CA - JUNE 25: Honoree Oscar Robertson accepts the Lifetime Achievement Award onstage at the 2018 NBA Awards at Barkar Hangar on June 25, 2018 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Turner Sports)
SANTA MONICA, CA - JUNE 25: Honoree Oscar Robertson accepts the Lifetime Achievement Award onstage at the 2018 NBA Awards at Barkar Hangar on June 25, 2018 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Turner Sports) /
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BUFFALO, NY – FEBRUARY 19: (Photo by George Gojkovich/Getty Images) /

The injury of Lucius Allen

Starting us off, it’s been well-documented just how Lucius Allen‘s knee injury went on to doom the Bucks during their run to the 1974 NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics.

Allen had been a valuable rotation piece for the Bucks and head coach Larry Costello throughout their run in the early ’70s and was a part of the title-winning team in 1970-71.

But it was the UCLA product’s emergence in the 1973-74 season that was crucial to the Bucks’ run as he was able to give the Bucks a dynamic, speedy attacker that was necessary to alleviate the load off of the aging Robertson, and to play off of Abdul-Jabbar, whom Allen had built a bond with since their college days.

Of course, Allen’s breakout campaign was cut short when he suffered a bizarre knee injury when he slipped on a warmup jacket during a mid-March tilt against the Detroit Pistons.

Milwaukee was able to soldier on to finish out the regular season with a league-leading 59 wins and roll on to the Finals without their starting 2-guard, but Allen’s absence in Milwaukee’s clash against the Celtics can be directly tied to the bitter way their season and their overall run ended.

As Allen said himself in On Milwaukee’s retrospective on the 40th Anniversary of that Finals loss back in June of 2014, the swift dissolution of the team’s foundation made it a tougher pill to swallow, which included Allen being dealt to the Los Angeles Lakers the following season:

"“I look back at that time, and I look at (how) Oscar Robertson aged. I looked at the components of our team. I was hurt. I was an unproven commodity at that time. Oscar was hurt. The only skill players that were there were Bob Dandridge and Abdul-Jabbar. They needed guard play. I believe it was Wayne Embry at the time who was our general manager, I think they decided that was the time to start to break that team up because we had failed three straight years to win that championship. It was time to break that time up and when they traded me (on Nov. 8, 1974) that signaled the start of the breaking up of that Milwaukee Buck team.”"

Had Allen not gotten hurt, especially in the manner that he did, one can only wonder how the scope of the franchise could have changed.

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