Milwaukee Bucks: Imagining a documentary on the early 2010s Bucks

Why it would make for a great documentary

With a humiliating loss and an endless list of pending free agents, the 2012-13 season proved to be the end of the line for Milwaukee’s long run on the treadmill of mediocrity.

By the time the 2013-14 season got underway, only Ilyasova, Sanders, John Henson, and Ekpe Udoh remained from the previous year’s roster. The Bucks didn’t necessarily commit to tanking, or whatever word Kohl would have preferred to use, still voicing optimism that their young roster would remain highly competitive.

In reality, though, the 2013-14 Bucks compiled the worst season in franchise history winning a meager 15 games, and landing the second overall pick in the following year’s draft.

Jennings was moved to Detroit as part of a sign-and-trade deal that, along with Brandon Knight, notably yielded a throw-in recent second rounder by the name of Khris Middleton. Giannis Antetokounmpo was drafted with 2013’s 15th overall pick, which was earned from the previous year’s eighth seed heroics. And by the final days of the 2013-14 season, Kohl had agreed to sell the team to Marc Lasry and Wes Edens.

In hindsight, it was a stroke of luck that the Bucks’ attempts at remaining competitive finally fell to pieces when they did. The low of the 2013-14 season is the obvious starting point, but if the Bucks had performed just a little better in 2012-13, Jennings could have found himself back on a lucrative new deal. That would mean no Middleton for the Bucks, and who knows how many other elements would have changed for the worse too.

In that context, the 2012-13 season offers up a true tipping point for the franchise, and the kind of revolving doors moment that is packed with the kind of drama befitting of a documentary.

Beyond that, though, this is a season where cameras having an all-access look could have delivered all kinds of truly explosive footage.

Between Skiles’ increasingly irritable demeanor as his tenure wound down, the active hand of Kohl in basketball decisions, Hammond trying to build a team without any security for his own future, the disgruntled players with frequently changing roles, and the fascinating, larger than life personalites as varied as Jennings, Ellis, and Sanders, this season has more than enough gripping drama in its own right, before also factoring in the context of what preceded and followed it.

This may not be a time that’s fondly remembered in Bucks history, but having come out the other side of it in great shape, it’s one that certainly couldn’t have been described as uneventful.