Look, I am no Bucks fan, so I'm not losing sleep over the Bucks being back to probably some sort of irrelevancy (though they have often been a competitive team in their history). But I do think we've been so tired of the will-he / wont-he drama of his exit, that we've forgotten just how cool the actual story was. Let's take a trip back to draft day 2013. Long known, and rightly so, as the worst NBA draft maybe ever - a young man named Anthony Bennett was taken #1 overall. There are some real dogs in that Top-15, from Bennett himself (arguably the worst bust ever - given he didn't ahve some offcourt reason he failed, he just sucked). But there was also Cody Zeller at #4, Alex Len at #5, Nerlens Noel at #6, Ben McLemore at #7, and the great Shabazz Muhammad at #14. And then, there at #15 is that name - Giannis Antetokounmpo. I had heard about him in sone draft coverage - with the comp being "he looked like Durant". Not taht he played like him, but this tall, gangly as shit Greek kid had the same dimensions as Durant. When he was drafted, I texted my main group chat that the Bucks drafted "Kevin Durantopolis" - this was one of my best lines. Got a ton of likes. Little did we know...
Giannis's rise wasn't meteoric. He got materially better each year for five years, in seemingly constant increments, turning that franchise from doormats into dominant forces. His Points per Game increases are just beautiful - 6.8 as a rookie, to 12.7 -> 16.9 -> 22.9 -> 26.9 -> 27.7, that last year being his first MVP in 2018-19. He did it again the next year. Some argued that it should've been James Harden the first year. No one really argued the second time. The 2018-19 Bucks were a great, great team - dominant through two rounds of the playoffs, taking a 2-0 lead on Toronto, before the Raptors won Game 3 in OT and won three more close ones to shock the 60-win Bucks.
Of course, the Raptors won 59 - this was no real big "upset", but was seen as Giannis failing. And maybe it was - he was not great the last four games (the rest of the team was worse), and the Bucks probably do beat the Warriors if you assume the same injuries. But whatever it did, it motivated them the next year. The 2019-20 Bucks were a sight to behold. They went 56-17 (it was the Covid break year). They were actually 52-8 before a 1-3 stretch right before lockdown, and that killed all their momentum. In the bubble, Giannis got hurt and the Heat beat them in teh second round, but had Covid not happened (which, admittedly is an earth-shattering type "what if") the Bucks might have done osmething phenomenal that year.
No worries, they did it the next. We'll probably lose the 2020-21 Bucks to the annals of history, a random 1-time Champion in a run of one-time Champions, but without the legacy of the Celtics, Knicks, Lakers or Warriors, and not even a great story in that they beat an even more random finalist. The 2021 Finals being a matchup of the Suns and Bucks doesn't feel real, but it was, and Giannis put together one of the all time finals (which also is being forgotten). It wasn't just the clincher, that immaculate 50-point game where he managed to astonishingly go 17-19 from the line, but it was his block in Game 4, and his alley-oop to close out Game 5. He was that series. He was the best player in the World. His will, and the Bucks development team, made this scrawny little Durant-lite into a one of a kind monster.
Sadly, of course, the story didn't end there. They remained good for years, but the supporting cast that was overrated, in retrospect, never got better. Age, injuries and then short-sighted decisions (the Jrue for Lillard swap, which granted Giannis did ask for) ended any real chance of a second ring. But do we need one? Shouldn't we jsut celebrate that Giannis brought a title to Milwaukee in a sport built for a city like Milwaukee to not win?
The comp to make is Jokic - another transcendental superstar who was not a top pick, who slowly year by year just got better to the point he was back-to-back MVP and won a title in a non-traditional market, where we are slowly realizing it will probably be his only one. Injuries cost him other great shots - particularly in 2021 and 2022, when a potential title-worthy team was short-circuited by Jamal Murray's ACL, which then cost him the next year. For Giannis, it was often his own injuries. These are the stories we should be celebrating - both have been the alpha in their places or 8-10 years, won multiple MVPs, a title, other deep playoff runs and been just great players throughout. That's about all you can ask for.
There is a chance Giannis comes back, stays relatively healthy (he'll probably be never fully healthy again), and the Heat do great. There is a chance we are underestimating a future Hall of Famer who has a legitimate claim to being a Top-30 All Time player. Hell, in his half-season last year, he had a crazy good campaign statistically. But he'll be doing it in Miami, and that is just a bit sad. Not because he chose to leave - he earned if after thirteen years. But because we don't know when Milwaukee, or a similar type market, will find the next Giannis. That's their only real route - they found one in the midst of the bleakest draft ever, and he turned to a monster and they won a title. Mission accomplished - you ran the good fight, Giannis - we'll see you in Valhalla (Miami).
