NBA: Bucks confident they can contend as long as they’re healthy

Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo reacts after a dunk during the first half of an NBA preseason basketball game Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, in Milwaukee. |AP Photo/Morry Gash

MILWAUKEE — Giannis Antetokounmpo had a few spare moments during his busy summer to let the NBA know he is keenly aware of what the league thinks about his Milwaukee Bucks.

In addition to getting married and playing in the Olympics, the two-time MVP had a telling social media post about the NBA’s schedule: “No Christmas game?!” he wrote, with two emojis showing a laughing and crying face.

It is hardly the only sign of disrespect the Bucks have received after going out in the first round of the playoffs the last two years.

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While the league’s five-game Christmas Day schedule didn’t have any room for the 2021 champions, the Bucks finished fifth in an NBA.com survey of general managers asking them to list the top four teams in the Eastern Conference.

“As a basketball player who loves the game, nobody’s talking about us, right?” Bucks forward Bobby Portis said. “Nobody mentions us about championships. Nobody mentions us about Christmas. Nobody says anything about the Bucks.”

There was plenty of unwanted conversation about the Bucks last season.

Milwaukee was at the center of much second-guessing while dealing with all sorts of upheaval.

The Bucks acquired seven-time All-NBA guard Damian Lillard just before training camp. They fired Adrian Griffin just 43 games into his coaching tenure and replaced him with Doc Rivers. Counting the playoffs, Milwaukee had Antetokounmpo, three-time All-Star forward Khris Middleton and Lillard all available for only five of its final 39 games.

They’re hoping a little more stability leads to a lot more success.

“This year we have a little bit more time to be prepared,” Antetokounmpo said. “Having one year of working together, me and Dame, and a few months with the coaching staff. That’s also a benefit. We’ll take it day by day and try to build it, and hopefully that will put us in a better position to compete.”

Lillard could benefit most of all. A year ago, he spent pretty much the entire offseason awaiting his destination after requesting a trade from Portland. Now he finally had a summer to prepare for a season knowing the people he’s going to be working alongside.

He has spoken about how the Bucks will see the “real version” of himself this year.

“Now we’ve been in something together,” Lillard said. “We’ve experienced some struggles together and some failure. We’re coming into a new year much more familiar with each other, just being connected over the summer. I know Giannis’ game better than I did when I got here. I’m more familiar with Doc than when he got here. I’m more familiar with Khris and the rest of the guys on the team than when I first got here.

“So we don’t have to go through that process again this time. It’s just let’s keep the ball rolling and get down to business.”

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The makeup of this team, with veterans leading the way and young guys filling out the roster, has Rivers drawing parallels to the Boston Celtics squads he coached earlier in his career. Rivers won his lone title with Boston in 2008.

“We were having this discussion as a staff, and I don’t want to compare any teams, and I made the comment this is the closest team that I’ve had to that Boston team,” Rivers said.

The Bucks didn’t make the sweeping changes that they did a year earlier, when Jrue Holiday and Grayson Allen departed as part of the trade that brought in Lillard.

Milwaukee must replace Malik Beasley, who signed with the Detroit Pistons after starting 77 games. It added veteran free agents Gary Trent Jr., Taurean Prince and Delon Wright while losing Jae Crowder and Patrick Beverley. Thanasis Antetokounmpo, Giannis’ brother, also is no longer on the roster as he recovers from a torn Achilles tendon.

But the main players all are back, and they’ve had time to adjust to Rivers, who sent the Bucks out of town for training camp at Irvine, California, to foster more team-building excursions.

“The vibe hasn’t been this good in years,” Portis said.

None of this will matter if the Bucks are unable to stay healthy. Injuries have hindered the Bucks as much anything else over the last three seasons.

A knee injury prevented Middleton from playing in a second-round loss to Boston in 2022. Antetokounmpo missed two full games and much of a third in a first-round loss to Miami in 2023 with a back issue and didn’t play the entire first-round series against Indiana last year because of a calf strain.

Avoiding injuries could prove tricky for this team because of its aging roster. Three of its key players are 33 or older: Middleton (33), Lillard (34) and 7-footer Brook Lopez (36). Antetokounmpo, who turns 30 on Dec. 6, plays at such a forceful level that it will always make him an injury risk.

Even last season, the Bucks often were dominant in the rare occasions when Antetokounmpo, Lillard, Middleton and Lopez were all on the floor together. If the Bucks gain the chemistry and health that they lacked last year, they just might reassert themselves as legitimate title contenders again.

“You hope with all your veterans, they all make this choice (that) it’s time, it’s time to focus on winning only,” Rivers said. “Because I always think with every team, it has to be the right time. And I really believe this is a group that is in that mental place. It’s time. Or, it’s time again, for some of them.”