Milwaukee Bucks: Another twist in a truly unique and eventful season

With news of the team’s practice facility shutting down after COVID-19 testing, the Milwaukee Bucks’ 2019-20 season only grows more unique and strange.

Milwaukee Bucks fans may not have a whole lot of experience when it comes to competing for NBA championships in recent years, but that doesn’t mean that they need to be told twice that their team’s current pursuit is increasingly unlike any other in history.

Of course, the Bucks’ season has long looked like it was shaping up to be historic. Just not like this.

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From conversations of lengthy winning streaks to point differentials, and extending from win totals to a potential MVP and Defensive Player of the Year double, discussion of this Milwaukee campaign has frequently touched on the possibility of records being broken and long lasting legacies being forged.

As the year has progressed, though, it’s become increasingly apparent that the ultimate history that will endure from this season will begin and end with the extraordinary circumstances that saw the coronavirus pandemic bring the season to a stop, and the subsequent restart efforts that we’re now seeing evolve on a daily basis.

No matter what the Bucks do from here, I’m not sure that they’ll be most readily associated with the status of an all-time great team, like they were certainly tracking to deserve. Instead, their achievements or shortcomings will likely be paired with the truly unique and unwanted element that has accompanied the season.

If that wasn’t already the case for Milwaukee, it was hard not to feel it become a lot more pressing on Sunday night when news emerged that the Bucks’ facility had been shut down following the results of the organization’s most recent round of COVID-19 testing.

At this time of writing, it’s unclear as to whether a player, coach, or staff member tested positive, or whether it was one individual or many. But just like the Denver Nuggets, Miami Heat, and LA Clippers before them, at the absolute minimum, the Bucks preparations before setting off for Orlando have just been dealt a further notable disruption.

The truth is that given how many people have lost their life to COVID-19 in the US and around the world, and just how serious the pandemic continues to be, it only makes basketball, and the idea of a restarted season, seem all the more trivial.

Under normal circumstances, triviality is part of the appeal of sport. It’s something that can be made out to be all important, something where it’s safe to invest so much time and emotion, essentially because the stakes are comparatively low to the events that many encounter and are forced to deal with in their very real every day lives. After all, sports isn’t life or death, until this kind of incredibly rare situation where it could be. And then, the dynamic starts to take on a very different quality. Sport isn’t built for those stakes.

There’s currently no knowing how the NBA’s planned restart will pan out, or if it will even happen at all. There’s no knowing just who or how many people within the Bucks organization have been infected, and what the knock-on effects of that could be in both the short and long term. On that front, it goes without saying that everyone has their fingers crossed for the very best outcome possible.

What I do know is that none of this is fun, though. This isn’t how it was supposed to be. There isn’t a single person alive who imagined this being how the Bucks’ greatest season since 1971 may ultimately have unfolded. Even the most curmudgeonly Bucks fan will have been caught off guard by just how insane the events that may end up derailing their fantastic season could prove to be.

Thanks to a variety of factors ranging from the investment of the current ownership, the stellar management from the front office, the transcendent brilliance of Giannis Antetokounmpo, and the tactical guile of head coach Mike Budenholzer, the once typical pessimistic Bucks fan who had been worn down by years of pain had largely been forced into either changing their tune or taking the last two years off.

Now, I’d be shocked if those once familiar sentiments and refrains don’t come to the fore again, though. Sure, there’s a scenario where this season can still end in glory, and with a title that Giannis Antetokounmpo’s believes will be the “toughest championship you could ever win.” It’s also possible that these unbelievable circumstances ultimately play a factor in what seals Giannis’ signature on a long-term super-max extension.

But the last few months haven’t made optimism easy, generally. Let alone in the context of what at least was shaping up to be the most joyous Bucks season in a generation, if not two.

Part of me wants to believe that this strange and utterly one of a kind season will end with the greatest achievement in the history of Milwaukee basketball, but there’s another part telling me that fate could be conspiring to bring about the greatest Bucks disappointment yet.

Next. Bucks reportedly shut down practice facility after round of testing. dark

Let’s just hope that the health of the Bucks, and the rest of the teams around the league, ultimately afford us the opportunity to get a resolution on the court starting from the end of this month.

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