The Milwaukee Bucks have been one of the most successful teams in the NBA in recent years.
They won the championship in 2021, and they have been a perennial playoff contender ever since. However, some fans have been concerned about the team’s roster this offseason after a humiliating defeat at the hands of the eighth-seeded Miami Heat. They have lost some key players in Jevon Carter, Joe Ingles, and Wesley Matthews, and some have argued that the front office just has not made any major moves to replace them.
There’s a lot to be said about the holes that do remain in the roster, but much of the discourse misses the value that the team already acquired via the NBA draft and their other moves thus far. It’s by no means a complete offseason or a finished product, but this writer is of the opinion that the Bucks’ front office is, at the very least, close to one. All things considered, this iteration of the Bucks’ roster is not as lacking as is advertised by many on social media.
Here are a few reasons why the Bucks roster as it currently stands is already good enough to contend for a championship.
Reasons the Milwaukee Bucks roster is good as is: No. 4 – They have a solid supporting cast.
You can say what you want about their ostensibly declining on-court production well past the 30-year-old mark — at the end of the day, Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday are still both All-Star-calibre players even at this point in their careers, and they are great complements to Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Middleton, who has admittedly lost a step in his athleticism, is still a proven three-level scorer who can get hot from the outside and in the mid-range, while Holiday is a lockdown defender who can also create his own shot. Both players have shown as early as a few months ago that they are still capable of taking over games, and they are great complements to Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Even past the Big 3, Bobby Portis, Brook Lopez, and Grayson Allen are all solid role players who can contribute to winning basketball in a variety of ways. There are legitimate arguments to be had for trading a few of their peripheral secondary players, to be sure, but the truth is that we’ve seen this iteration of the Bucks do more with less.
What they lack in star talent, they make up for with cohesion and variety. The Bucks’ roster, as it currently stands, just has no glaring holes for this writer outside of the backup point guard position. This is not something we could have said before the acquisition of defensive-minded wings with size like Andre Jackson Jr. and Chris Livingston. These young Bucks can score and defend both at the rim and out on the perimeter, thanks to their most recent draft day haul to shore up their youth movement. They have good playmakers and defenders at nearly every position, and they have the floor-spacing to keep their stars open enough to make plays.
Even then, the Bucks have a track record of reviving the careers of aging veterans, which the free agency class this year is still chock full of. They still have one final roster spot left to plug, and it will be interesting to see who they ultimately decide on.
It is still a factual statistic that when completely healthy, no team in the association has beaten the core of Giannis, Khris, and Jrue yet dating back to their championship season. That’s not to disparage the feats of teams that have outed the Bucks, but it’s just a fact. As far as supporting casts around the league go, you could do a lot worse than the unit backing up the Greek Freak in Milwaukee.