Season Wrap: The 2024-25 Milwaukee Bucks

  • By Mike Passador

    Last Updated on June 14, 2025 10:29 am by Mike Passador | Published: June 14, 2025

    The Bucks largely ran back the same group after a disappointing first-round exit at the hand of the Pacers. In that series, they dealt with major injuries to one of their top dogs and were constantly worried about how much they could get out of Khris Middleton as a younger, faster team simply blitzed a Bucks squad that didn’t have enough depth to hang around.

    How’d It Go?

    Let’s skip to the end: the Bucks had a disappointing first-round exit at the hand of the Pacers. In that series, they dealt with major injuries to one of their top dogs and got blitzed by a younger, faster team that exposed their lack of secondary contributions. At least they didn’t have to worry about Middleton!

    With the way Milwaukee’s 2023-24 ended, the regular season was mostly about staying healthy and establishing chemistry. Ideally, another offseason of recovery for Middleton and a full camp of Lillard on stable ground with an experienced coach calling the shots would bring the best out of the Bucks. The team responded by going 2-8 in the first 10 games, including five double-digit losses. They were able to respond with a 9-2 run to get back over .500 but it was an inauspicious start for a team that failed to meet the hype in its first go-round.

    The big question was how Middleton would respond after bilateral ankle surgery over the offseason. Despite optimism that he’d be ready to roll, Middleton ended up missing the first 21 games of the season and was under heavy workload monitoring from there, not hitting the 25-minute mark until after Christmas. His need for kid gloves would come home to roost at the trade deadline.

    The Bucks also battled through inconsistent performances from their complementary players, as new signee Gary Trent Jr. was brutal for the first month of the season. While it would’ve been easiest if Trent just came to play, his struggles did give the Bucks a chance to promote Andre Jackson Jr. and AJ Green, who ended up being important rotation cogs.

    When the deadline rolled around, the Bucks were fighting for home court in the first round rather than home court throughout the playoffs as they would’ve hoped. Heading into the playoffs, the front office felt that having Middleton at half speed and at risk of further injury was untenable. It’s not an unreasonable conclusion, but swapping Middleton out for Kyle Kuzma deserves major scrutiny. It at least gave the Bucks some peace of mind that their third fiddle would be available, but Kuzma faded into the background and predictably proved unable to make an impact for a team trying to play serious ball.

    The Bucks had their group for the playoffs, for better or worse, until Damian Lillard was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis in his right calf at the end of March. That injury tends to be a season-ender and it once again left the Bucks headed into the playoffs without one of their superstars. Lillard blitzed through his rehab, however, and was able to return for Game 2. The good vibes were short-lived, however, as Lillard tore his Achilles in Game 4 and the Bucks were bounced in five games.

    With the supporting cast woefully unequipped to carry any weight alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo’s mastery, it looks like the Bucks are at a crossroads. The big money on the books will prevent the outside additions the team can make, and there aren’t many assets — besides Antetokounmpo himself — that other teams would want in a trade. If Giannis sees the writing on the wall, the Bucks could get some all-time trade offers while waving goodbye to a franchise icon. That’s not a choice that any management wants to face.

    Coaching

    Doc Rivers’ reputation is what it is at this point and short of another title victory, nothing will change what people think. The Bucks were 10th in offensive rating, 12th in defensive rating and 11th in net rating. They were a top-heavy roster propped up almost entirely by two guys and that can only get you so far in today’s game, regardless of what adjustments a coach does or does not make.

    Did Rivers make the most of the secondary players on the roster? It’s hard to argue that he did, given how much time was spent with isolation possessions in a system that demands a lot from its ball-handlers, though you could just as easily argue that tailoring possessions to generate off-ball action for Taurean Prince or AJ Green isn’t the best use of time anyway.

    Did Rivers coax out the best possible defense? Maybe, but there’s only so much you can do with an aging center who can basically only play drop coverage in an ecosystem where teams play five guys that can rip it from deep. Rivers didn’t do himself any favors with certain lineup groups — Prince, Lopez and Kuzma didn’t really work together — and Rivers’ hesitance to go away from lineups that were constantly bleeding points was a season-long problem.

    Rivers probably won’t be around when the Bucks hit their next peak, but neither will some of the limitations of this roster. He’s not necessarily a problem but Rivers is just as unlikely to be part of the final fix.

    The Players

    Giannis Antetokounmpo
    PF, Milwaukee Bucks
    SeasonTeamGPGSMPG FGMFGAFG% FTMFTAFT% 3PTM3PTA3PT% PTSREBAST STLBLKTO
    24-25 MIL 67 67 34.2 11.8 19.7 60.1 6.5 10.6 61.7 0.2 0.9 22.2 30.4 11.9 6.5 0.9 1.2 3.1
    23-24 MIL 73 73 35.2 11.5 18.8 61.1 7.0 10.7 65.7 0.5 1.7 27.4 30.4 11.5 6.5 1.2 1.1 3.4
    22-23 MIL 63 63 32.1 11.2 20.3 55.3 7.9 12.3 64.5 0.7 2.7 27.5 31.1 11.8 5.7 0.8 0.8 3.9

    ADP: 6.7/5.4 (Yahoo/ESPN) | Total Value: 41/60 (8/9-cat) | Per-Game Value: 36/55 (8/9-cat)

    We have to get this out of the way at the top — no player is misrepresented more by the pure rankings than Antetokounmpo. Accounting for all nine of the standard fantasy categories puts him 55th on a per-game basis, but he was not the 55th-best fantasy player in 9-cat leagues. Whether you planned to or not, having Antetokounmpo meant you were punting free throws. In those builds, he was No. 3 in 9-cat scoring. Roto managers may not have the luxury of waving away that unholy FT%, but pretty much everyone else wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) complain. Given the outstanding base Giannis provides in points, FG% and rebounds to go with quality production in assists, blocks and steals, it’s an easy trade to make in any format where punting is viable. After last season’s playoffs went down largely without him, Antetokounmpo was dominant in five games against the Pacers this time around, scoring a minimum of 28 points with five huge double-doubles and a single-game low of .450 shooting from the field; he was .529 or better in the other four contests despite being correctly treated as the only scoring threat on the floor.

    Of course, despite Antetokounmpo’s brilliance, the Bucks were dispatched in five games without a ton of fanfare. There just wasn’t enough support around him and the championship core that the Bucks once had is all but gone. Milwaukee’s back-to-back first-round whimpers should lead to some deep questions about where the team is headed and if it’s possible, given the assets available and contracts on the books, to get back to a level befitting Giannis’ talents. If the Bucks continue to plow ahead with Antetokounmpo as the tip of the spear, they’ll need to find him a new running mate for at least one year.

    Damian Lillard
    PG, Milwaukee Bucks
    SeasonTeamGPGSMPG FGMFGAFG% FTMFTAFT% 3PTM3PTA3PT% PTSREBAST STLBLKTO
    24-25 MIL 58 58 36.1 7.7 17.1 44.8 6.2 6.8 92.1 3.4 9.0 37.6 24.9 4.7 7.1 1.2 0.2 2.8
    23-24 MIL 73 73 35.3 7.4 17.5 42.4 6.5 7.0 92.0 3.0 8.5 35.4 24.3 4.4 7.0 1.0 0.2 2.6
    22-23 POR 58 58 36.3 9.6 20.7 46.3 8.8 9.6 91.4 4.2 11.3 37.1 32.2 4.8 7.3 0.9 0.3 3.3

    ADP: 24.5/30.0 (Yahoo/ESPN) | Total Value: 31/36 (8/9-cat) | Per-Game Value: 8/8 (8/9-cat)

    The market was somewhat harsh to Lillard after he slipped to top-25 levels in his first season with the Bucks after years of being treated as a first-round lock, and he ended up rewarding managers who trusted that a perennial elite performer would snap back into shape. It was a few marginal gains rather than one big change, as Lillard added a little extra to his FG%, 3-pointers and steals to climb back inside the top-10. It could’ve been an even better season but injuries seemed to slow Lillard down in the second half. He picked up a right hamstring strain right around the All-Star break and while he only missed one game as a direct result of the injury due to the timing of things, he only shot .433 from the field the rest of the way.

    Lillard’s season was derailed by deep vein thrombosis in his right calf. It was initially reported as a strain but ended up holding him out of the final 14 games as well as one playoff contest. He had a miraculous recovery and was off blood thinners in only three weeks — we have seen DVT end seasons with multi-month absences before — in hopes of lifting the Bucks to playoff success. He returned to big minutes in Games 2 and 3 before suffering a torn left Achilles in Game 4. It’s an injury that figures to sideline him for most, if not all of the 2025-26 season with massive ramifications on the future of Milwaukee.

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    June 14, 2025, 10:29 am