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Milwaukee Bucks: Five things you need to know
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Milwaukee Bucks: From Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Giannis Antetokounmpo's trade
- Milwaukee traded Giannis Antetokounmpo to Miami on July 6, 2026, ending 13 seasons
- The Bucks went 32-50 and missed the playoffs for the first time in a decade
- Two NBL Next Stars graduates, Ousmane Dieng and Malique Lewis, are on the roster
The Milwaukee Bucks traded Giannis Antetokounmpo on July 6, 2026, and in doing so ended the most successful era in the franchise's modern history.
Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis went to the Miami Heat. Milwaukee received Tyler Herro, Kel'el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr, Kasparas Jakucionis, three first-round picks including the 13th selection in the 2026 draft, a future pick swap and a second-round pick. With Portis included and Thanasis Antetokounmpo a free agent, no player from the 2021 championship team remains on the roster.
The Bucks have won two NBA titles in almost six decades, in 1971 behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson, and in 2021 behind Antetokounmpo. They now begin a third era with a new coach, four rookies and the youngest roster they have carried in more than a decade.
2025-26 season summary
- Record: 32-50
- Finish: 11th in the Eastern Conference, missed the playoffs
- All-Star selections: none
Milwaukee finished 32-50 and 11th in the East, missing the playoffs for the first time in a decade and finishing 28 games behind the conference leaders.
Antetokounmpo played 36 games, a career low, and the team went 17-19 in them. He hyperextended his left knee on March 15 and did not play again. Milwaukee was under .500 by the start of December and never recovered.
Doc Rivers did not survive the season's aftermath. The Bucks appointed Taylor Jenkins as head coach on April 30, 2026, and Jenkins accepted the job understanding that an Antetokounmpo trade was possible.
The Antetokounmpo trade
Antetokounmpo's exit had been building for more than a year. His representatives informed the club from May 2025 onwards that he wanted to be traded and would not sign another long-term extension. Co-owner Jimmy Haslam set a deadline in early May 2026, saying the Bucks wanted the question settled by the June 23 draft.
Milwaukee negotiated with two finalists, Miami and Boston, both of which were on Antetokounmpo's list of preferred destinations. The Bucks took Miami's offer because it delivered younger players on controlled contracts rather than a win-now veteran package.
He leaves as the most decorated player in club history. Across 13 seasons he played a franchise-record 895 games and finished as Milwaukee's all-time leader in points (21,531), rebounds (8,882), assists (4,484), blocks (1,088), field goals made (7,898), free throws made (5,178), triple-doubles (56) and minutes played (29,273). He averaged 24.1 points, 9.9 rebounds and 5.0 assists at 55.4 per cent from the field.
His honours list includes two MVP awards, the 2019-20 Defensive Player of the Year, the 2021 championship and Finals MVP, 10 All-Star selections, nine All-NBA honours, five All-Defensive selections, the 2016-17 Most Improved Player award and a place on the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team.
In the 2021 Finals against Phoenix he averaged 35.2 points, 13.2 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 1.2 steals and 1.8 blocks, and closed the series with 50 points in Game 6.
2026-27 season
The roster Jenkins inherits is unrecognisable from the one that won the title.
Tyler Herro is the headline arrival and the story writes itself. He grew up in Greenfield, Wisconsin, and went to Whitnall High School, a short drive from Fiserv Forum, before Miami took him 13th overall in 2019. He made his first All-Star team in 2025, won Sixth Man of the Year in 2021-22 and has averaged more than 20 points in each of the past five seasons. Last season he played 33 games and averaged 20.5 points, 4.8 rebounds and 4.1 assists while shooting a career-best 48.0 per cent from the field.
Kel'el Ware gives Milwaukee a starting centre still on a rookie contract. The 213cm big man played 77 games last season and averaged 11.1 points and 9.0 rebounds, the 10th-best rebounding average in the league, while shooting 39.5 per cent from three.
Jaime Jaquez Jr was the runner-up for Sixth Man of the Year, leading all NBA reserves with 15.4 points per game off the bench. Kasparas Jakucionis, the 20th pick in 2025, shot 42.3 per cent from three as a rookie.
Milwaukee then added three more rookies. Brayden Burries went 10th overall in the 2026 draft with the Bucks' own pick, a direct consequence of the 32-50 season. Nate Ament, from Tennessee, arrived at 13 through the Miami trade. Malique Lewis came at 60, the final pick of the draft, in a three-team deal involving Washington and Orlando.
Caris LeVert arrived from Detroit in a separate multi-team trade. Gary Trent Jr re-signed on a four-year contract worth a reported USD $64 million, and Ousmane Dieng re-signed on a three-year deal worth a reported USD $17.5 million. Jericho Sims picked up his player option. Bogoljub Markovic, the 47th pick in 2025, signed after a further season in Serbia.
The result is 21 players on an offseason roster that must be cut to 15, plus three two-way contracts, before the season opens in October. More trades are coming.
Head coach: Taylor Jenkins
Guards: Brayden Burries, AJ Green, Tyler Herro, Kasparas Jakucionis, Jaime Jaquez Jr, Caris LeVert, Kevin Porter Jr, Ryan Rollins, Gary Trent Jr
Forwards: Nate Ament, Ousmane Dieng, Kyle Kuzma, Malique Lewis, Bogoljub Markovic, Pete Nance
Centres: Jericho Sims, Myles Turner, Kel'el Ware
Two-way contracts: Rafael Castro, Kam Jones, Cormac Ryan
Departed: Giannis Antetokounmpo (Miami Heat), Bobby Portis (Miami Heat), Taurean Prince (trade), Doc Rivers (head coach)
The NBL connection
Two of the players Milwaukee is building around came through the NBL's Next Stars program, which makes this rebuild worth Australian attention.
Ousmane Dieng spent the 2021-22 season with the New Zealand Breakers, the first European to sign with Next Stars, and averaged 8.9 points before New York took him 11th overall in 2022. He reached Milwaukee via Oklahoma City in February 2026 and has now been re-signed through 2029.
Malique Lewis spent two seasons with the South East Melbourne Phoenix between 2024 and 2026 and became one of the club's best defenders. Born in Trinidad and Tobago, he was the final pick of the 2026 draft and is the fifth Next Stars graduate to reach the NBA, after LaMelo Ball, RJ Hampton, Josh Giddey and Dieng.
For a franchise rebuilding around players in their early twenties, the NBL has supplied two of them.
Australians who have played for the Milwaukee Bucks
Andrew Bogut. Selected first overall in the 2005 NBA Draft, the first Australian ever taken at No.1, Bogut played for Milwaukee from 2005 to 2012 and remains the highest-drafted Australian in league history.
Matthew Dellavedova. After winning a championship with Cleveland in 2016, Dellavedova joined the Bucks and played from 2016 to 2018, returning for the 2018-19 season.
Joe Ingles. Ingles signed a one-year contract with Milwaukee in July 2022 and made his debut on December 19, 2022, after recovering from an ACL injury.
History of the Milwaukee Bucks
Milwaukee joined the NBA as an expansion team in 1968 and won a championship in its third season, one of the fastest title runs by an expansion team in American professional sport.
That 1971 side, built around Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson, won 66 games, still the franchise record. The Bucks returned to the Finals in 1974, where Abdul-Jabbar's skyhook in double overtime in Game 6 remains one of the league's most replayed shots, before Boston took the series in seven.
The decades after 1974 were defined by individuals more than titles. Sidney Moncrief anchored a team that reached the playoffs 12 seasons in a row from 1980 to 1991. Ray Allen and Michael Redd led the high-scoring sides of the early 2000s, and the 2001 team came within one game of the Finals.
The second great era began with the 15th pick in the 2013 draft. Antetokounmpo developed from a slight, unheralded teenager into a two-time MVP, and in 2021 he ended a 50-year title drought. The Bucks added the 2024 NBA Cup, beating Oklahoma City in the final.
Then it unwound quickly. Milwaukee traded for Damian Lillard in 2023, tore up the roster around him, waived him in 2025 after his Achilles tear, and lost Antetokounmpo 12 months later.
Identity
For a decade the Bucks built everything around one player. The philosophy was to surround Antetokounmpo with shooters and defenders, defend at a high level and let him attack in transition, and under Mike Budenholzer between 2018 and 2023 it produced a championship.
That model is gone. What replaces it is not yet clear, and Jenkins has said little to define it, but the shape of the roster suggests the answer. Milwaukee now has four players aged 22 or under, a starting centre who shoots 39.5 per cent from three, and a lead guard in Herro who scores off the dribble rather than off gravity.
The franchise has been here before. Milwaukee is a small market that has twice built a champion around a player nobody else wanted badly enough, once with a draft pick out of Greece and once with a trade for a UCLA centre named Lew Alcindor. The next answer will have to come from the draft again, and the Bucks now hold picks to work with.
Five fast facts
- Antetokounmpo leaves as the franchise's all-time leader in points, rebounds, assists, blocks, minutes and games played.
- No player from the 2021 championship team remains on the Milwaukee roster.
- Tyler Herro grew up in Greenfield, Wisconsin, and attended Whitnall High School, a short drive from Fiserv Forum.
- The Bucks won 66 games in 1970-71, still the club record, and won the title in only their third season.
- Two NBL Next Stars graduates are on the roster: Ousmane Dieng, of the New Zealand Breakers, and Malique Lewis, of the South East Melbourne Phoenix.
Bucks timeline
- 1968: Franchise founded as an expansion team.
- 1971: Win a first NBA championship in their third season, led by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson.
- 1974: Lose the NBA Finals to Boston in seven games.
- 1979: Draft Sidney Moncrief, beginning a run of 12 straight playoff appearances.
- 2005: Draft Andrew Bogut first overall, the first Australian taken at No.1.
- 2013: Draft Giannis Antetokounmpo 15th overall.
- 2021: Win a second NBA championship, beating Phoenix, with Antetokounmpo named Finals MVP.
- 2024: Beat Oklahoma City to win the NBA Cup.
- 2026: Finish 32-50, appoint Taylor Jenkins as head coach and trade Antetokounmpo to Miami.
What's next
Milwaukee opens the 2026-27 season in October with a roster it has not finished assembling. Twenty-one players must become 15, the guard rotation is overloaded, and Myles Turner and Kyle Kuzma are the kind of veteran contracts a rebuilding team usually moves.
The Bucks are not close to contending and the front office has not pretended otherwise. What they have is three first-round picks from Miami, a top-10 rookie in Burries, four players aged 22 or under and a lead guard who wanted to come home.
For Australian and New Zealand readers the thread to follow is Malique Lewis, who arrives in the NBA off two seasons in the NBL, and Dieng, who is now signed in Milwaukee through 2029. Both are on a roster with minutes available for the first time in a decade.
