Milwaukee Bucks: Unpacking Andrew Bogut’s bittersweet legacy

The Milwaukee Bucks made history by selecting Andrew Bogut with the first overall pick in the 2005 NBA Draft. Now, 15 years later, the Australian big man has retired.

A former Milwaukee Bucks great has now called it a day with his basketball career.

In the first episode of his new podcast, “Rogue Bogues,” former NBA center Andrew Bogut has officially retired after a 15-year professional career that certainly spans the globe. Bogut had last played in Australia the last couple of years with the NBL’s Sydney Kings, but had recently returned to Golden State Warriors near the tail end of the 2018-19 season.

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Last we heard from Bogut was that he was mulling his retirement earlier in the year, but he held out of hope of playing for Australian national team in the 2021 Tokyo Olympic games. Now, the 36-year-old has completely shut the door on another run with the Boomers and has closed the chapter on his basketball career.

With that ends a 15-year pro career and with half of Bogut’s 14 years in the NBA coming in Milwaukee after they made history by selecting him with the first overall pick in the 2005 NBA Draft, making him the first Australian player to be selected first overall.

From that moment on, Bogut blazed a trail for his fellow Aussies to follow down and brought a new level of exposure to the Bucks with the horde of fans celebrating Bogut and the Bucks from down under. And considering the Bucks had a 6.3 percent chance of landing the top pick in that year’s draft, the Bucks had quite the stroke of luck in bringing someone of Bogut’s caliber.

Andrew Bogut’s seven-year stint with the Milwaukee Bucks came with plenty of fleeting highs and crashing lows.

If the Bucks had luck on their side to first come away Bogut, that luck increasingly ran out over Bogut’s time in Milwaukee.

For all of the promise, size and complementary skills that Bogut excelled in showing throughout his career, it was in Milwaukee were those qualities were hindered by a litany of injuries that Bogut suffered with the Bucks.

All Bucks fans know exactly where they were upon seeing Bogut horrifically shatter his right in three different places after a hard fall in a late season game against the Phoenix Suns during the 2009-10 campaign. In a season that had looked to be a resurgence for the Bucks that also doubled as Bogut’s career year, there was more that shattered for the Bucks than just seeing Bogut fall down in a heap on that night.

Bogut’s quick recovery and sudden return after suffering such a grave injury played a significant part in altering the trajectory of his NBA career as he remarked to the Pick and Roll in December of 2019:

"“I probably rushed back from it to be honest,” Bogut admitted. “I came back way too soon. It was essentially a 6 to 9 month injury, but I was back in four months…“Every fifth shot I’d feel like someone stabbed me in the elbow. I knew something was wrong and in that offseason, I went and got a scope/clean out on it. I had surgery again on it and there was a massive chunk of bone just floating around in my elbow joint. Playing through that for a whole season was [tough].”"

For all those reasons and the Bucks’ general mediocrity during that era, that injury and his subsequent troubles in recapturing his All-NBA form cast a pall on his time in Milwaukee. Nothing went to plan for both the Bucks and Bogut as their great Australian hope had to land in the Bay Area with the Golden State Warriors to enjoy the high level of success that he had aspired to achieve while in Milwaukee.

Of all players in Bucks history, no one player conjures up the number of “What if?” questions that had circulated around Bogut, most of which went beyond his control.

It wasn’t Bogut’s fault that the Bucks tabbed him with the first overall pick instead of selecting a future Hall of Famer Chris Paul. It wasn’t Bogut’s fault that the Bucks overspent in free agency that summer they drafted Bogut and ultimately capped a ceiling on their ability to compete. And it wasn’t Bogut’s fault that the numerous injuries he experienced overshadowed his career during and after his time in Milwaukee.

But that all made for a perfect storm for Bogut that proved to be too much in the end when his Bucks departure came in a trade deadline deal during the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season.

As all Bucks fans wish for Bogut to enjoy a happy retirement, we’re all left with knowing that the veteran center could have been a franchise catalyst in any other scenario. And it speaks to his ability to fight through the many adversities he encountered over his NBA career that he was ultimately able to overcome those hurdles outside of Milwaukee.