Milwaukee Bucks: Why 2020-21 is a championship-or-bust season

With so much riding on the 2020-21 season for the Milwaukee Bucks, falling short of winning an NBA title may have franchise-altering effects on their future.

Now 10 days out until the start of their 2020-21 campaign, optimism is starting roll on around the Milwaukee Bucks.

Determined to put their last two consecutive playoff collapses behind them, the Bucks are fresh off an eventful offseason that left them with no choice to run it back. As messy as some of their dealings wound up being, the Bucks came away with a two-way menace in Jrue Holiday and an almost complete overhaul of their bench unit.

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Now with training camp done and the first of their three preseason games in the books, Milwaukee is well on their way into entering a massive season on multiple fronts. All while the biggest question facing the franchise fuels much of that pressure.

The talk of this season being something of a championship-or-bust season has lurked in the background since the start of camp. Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer broached the topic during his first media availability earlier this month and gave a lengthy answer on the success the Bucks aspire to achieve this season can’t simply be measured by winning a title:

"“We feel like we have the roster, the players that are incredibly talented on both ends of the court and we’re in the mix to be the last team standing. But there’s a process that every team’s got go through to get there. I think the goal is real, the opportunity is real and if you’re an organization or a team that doesn’t embrace that, you’re in the wrong business.But at the same time, to think that a season is championship or bust is certainly not the way we’ve approached it. We embrace competition, we embrace the playoffs, we embrace the opportunity and we want to be that last team standing. But that phrase just doesn’t resonate with me, our group or organizationally.”"

In his first appearance with the media last week, Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo seemingly echoed Budenholzer’s comments, all while knowing the Bucks need to get better to move past how everything fell apart last season:

"“Last year, we weren’t ourselves. What we showed in the bubble wasn’t ourselves. It wasn’t even close to what we can do. Going into this season, our main focus is on a championship, but before even that, we got to get better as a unit. We got to create good habits. We’ve got to be the toughest, the nastiest, the team that plays together. We have to take it step by step.I don’t believe this is a championship or bust situation. Obviously, everyone wants to win a championship. I want to win a championship. There’s nobody that wants to win a championship more than me. I can guarantee you that. But there are steps to that. You got to keep improving. You got to keep getting better and hopefully, we can get it this year.”"

Clearly, setting the highest bar of expectations only sets up the room for error if the Bucks fall short of their ultimate goal. We all understand the ultimate points that both Antetokounmpo and Budenholzer are making it being a process and having to take steps into being in a position to win a title.

With Giannis Antetokounmpo’s long-term future a constant source of speculation, winning a title would ensure his stay with the Milwaukee Bucks.

But it also has to be taken account that this is no ordinary season for the Bucks. Not when Antetokounmpo still has not showed in his cards regarding where he stands with his future in Milwaukee and the team’s ability to compete for titles not just this year, but over the prime of his career.

With the deadline looming for when he’s able to sign his supermax extension this year, the unknowable is what the two-time MVP feels about the direction the Bucks are moving towards. That’s also considering that Antetokounmpo is eligible for a shorter-term and far less lucrative extension that can be signed beyond the start of the season as ESPN’s Bobby Marks recently noted

In the most recent episode of ‘The Woj Pod,’ ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski laid out the biggest factors that Antetokounmpo has been weighing in his decision while noting the time and security is in his favor with his future:

"“I know this about Giannis: His decision is not wanting to be in a big market and have all of the trimmings that come with Los Angeles or New York or wherever it is. I don’t think that’s part of his decision-making. At his core, he’s immensely loyal and I believe he loves the people in Milwaukee, loves that community, he loves the organization. But he wants to win and that’s what he’s weighing.”"

The criteria that Woj outlined shouldn’t come as much of a surprise and Antetokounmpo himself remarked on the progress and the Bucks have made over his career to the point where they’ve led the league in wins the last two regular seasons. But after taking such a massive step back during last year’s playoff run, even considering the unusual circumstances up to that point, the Bucks were forced into action to improve their roster in hopes of going deeper into the postseason.

That doesn’t exactly create a referendum on the Bucks’ regular season success during the Mike Budenholzer era. With that said, the Bucks’ actions and moves this offseason spoke that the team as was constructed was unable to sustain their regular season success into the postseason.

Of course, there is something to be said about the disparity of going through a regular season versus at best, a seven-game playoff series. All Bucks fans don’t want to hear talk about running into bad matchups like both the Toronto Raptors and Miami Heat were in each of the last two years, especially with the other factors that eventually led to their downfall.

All of the changes the Bucks made in recent weeks have made treating this regular season different than the last couple seasons. And how everything comes together over the course of the season will determine how far they end up going and if they’re able to rid of the playoff demons that have followed them to this point.

Ultimately, if Antetokounmpo’s decision is rooted in being able to win at the highest level and all of the leverage is in his grasp as he decides his future, this season, after all of the changes the Bucks made, can’t end in disappointment, just as it has the last two seasons. The thought that this isn’t a championship-or-bust season for the Bucks just doesn’t sit well when the reason the Bucks are in this position is Antetokounmpo himself and he very well could be elsewhere next year when all is said and done.

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Antetokounmpo has and continues to play his cards close to the vest and it’s on the Bucks to make a definitive case for why his future lies in Milwaukee. After all, all of their offseason moves have made it so that there is no time like the present to make good on their championship potential.

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