Former players have a hot take on Milwaukee Bucks championship team

For whatever reason, I’ve always been slightly more intrigued by the opinions of former players on what they think of current players. I don’t mean the “the game is soft now” type of takes, but actually hearing about which players they admire from today’s game, even more so if they’re on the Milwaukee Bucks.

That itch was scratched with a new article from The Athletic’s Josh Robbins and Sam Amick (subscription required), who polled 118 former NBA players to give their thoughts on today’s game and players they admire.

This is particularly pertinent for the Bucks, who had players receive mentions in multiple categories, including one particularly hot take regarding the reigning champs and how their title team would stack up against one of the league’s all-time great championship squads.

Former NBA players give their thoughts on the Milwaukee Bucks & their championship team

We’ll get the obvious out of the way first: former players also believe Giannis Antetokounmpo is among the three best players in the world right now. Although he is third, behind Kevin Durant and LeBron James, with 13.6 percent of the vote, it’s still a huge stamp of approval for the reigning Finals MVP that those who came before him hold his game in such high regard.

Harvey Catchings, a former Buck, said that Antetokounmpo “lets his game do the talking.” Another player who played in the mid-’70s (some players chose not to give their names) called Giannis “the most unstoppable force in the game” and that he chose Antetokounmpo “because he doesn’t run and switch teams.”

Antetokounmpo may not hold the majority opinion for the best player right now, but when asked who would be the best player in the league five years from now, Antetokounmpo was the leader with 28.2 percent of the vote. Richie Guerin, a Hall of Famer that played from 1956 to 1970, said that Antetokounmpo “is a fierce competitor and recognizes his weakness and is working on perfecting them.”

I’ve always figured that former players would admire Antetokounmpo for his passion and that his game is relatively translatable to their era’s as well. His loyalty to a small market team probably also helps as well, but Durant and James have switched teams multiple times so it must not be as big of a factor for some.

Now, a category that I found very interesting was “which current player would you want taking a shot with the game on the line?” There were no Bucks near the top as Antetokounmpo took 0.9 percent of the vote, but he wasn’t the highest voted Buck! Khris Middleton received one percent of the vote! He was tied with James Harden, Kyrie Irving, and ahead of Jimmy Butler and Luka Doncic!

Middleton hit numerous big shots in the playoffs for the Bucks and it’s clearly at least a couple of the former players polled took notice, so that’s nice to see. Another Buck who saw a bump from the championship was Jrue Holiday.

When asked which current player they enjoyed watching most, Antetokounmpo took over seven percent of the vote, but Holiday snuck in with 0.9 percent of the vote as well! A player who played the majority of their career in the 1990s said that Holiday “does everything well without fanfare or drama” and that he’s “extremely reliable.”

A theme with the Bucks core players is that they’re all relatively low-key guys who don’t promote themselves much and are drama-free. That seems to be something that resonates with former players.

However, when it came to comparing the Bucks championship squad with an all-time great championship team (the 1986-87 Los Angeles Lakers were the team used in this poll), the former players were not as complimentary.

When asked who would win the series, nearly 96 percent of respondents chose the Lakers. The large majority of those voters also said the Lakers would take the series in five (45.2 percent) or six (29.6 percent) games. For those that chose the Bucks, the majority said they would win in six games, so clearly they believe in the prophecy from Brandon Jennings.

The main theme for why they believe the Lakers would defeat the Bucks is the depth that their team had with Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and James Worthy (among many, many others).

Although that is a fair opinion to hold, I don’t think the series would be as short as the majority of them believe. It would be hotly contested, to be sure, but I believe it would be a seven-game series as the Bucks would likely thrive with the physicality from an older generation. They also wouldn’t have to worry about defending the 3 either, which has been a bit of an issue for them.

Whether they believe in the Milwaukee Bucks championship team against the Lakers or not, it was nice to see all of the Bucks big three get some love from former players (even if we don’t know who some of them are).