Milwaukee Bucks

Published April 18, 2026 · Updated May 21, 2026 · By The Basketball Fans Editors

The Milwaukee Bucks have won two NBA championships (1971 and 2021), fifty years apart. The 1971 title was the second season of the franchise’s existence. Lew Alcindor had been drafted first overall in 1969 after the Bucks won a coin flip with the Phoenix Suns; he was paired with Oscar Robertson in a 1970 trade from Cincinnati. The 2021 title was won behind Giannis Antetokounmpo, drafted 15th overall in 2013 from the Greek amateur system; Giannis’s 50-point, 14-rebound Game 6 against Phoenix is one of the most complete individual Finals performances in NBA history. The franchise has been owned since April 2014 by a group originally led by Marc Lasry (Avenue Capital) and Wes Edens (Fortress Investment Group), who purchased it from Senator Herb Kohl for $550 million. Lasry sold his majority stake in April 2023 to Jimmy and Dee Haslam for approximately $3.5 billion.

The 1968 founding and the 1971 championship

The Milwaukee Bucks were founded in 1968 as an NBA expansion franchise, paired with the Phoenix Suns in that expansion class. Wesley Pavalon and Marvin Fishman, Milwaukee-based entrepreneurs, led the founding ownership group. The first head coach was Larry Costello. The 1968–69 Bucks went 27–55.

Milwaukee won the 1969 NBA Draft Lottery coin flip with Phoenix, giving them the first overall pick. They selected Lew Alcindor out of UCLA. Alcindor was the 1969–70 Rookie of the Year (28.8 points, 14.5 rebounds). The 1969–70 Bucks improved to 56–26, the third-best record in the NBA.

On April 21, 1970, the Bucks traded Flynn Robinson and Charlie Paulk to the Cincinnati Royals for Oscar Robertson. Robertson was thirty-two and arguably the best perimeter player in basketball history to that point. The trade is the most consequential single acquisition in Bucks franchise history.

The 1970–71 Bucks went 66–16, swept the San Francisco Warriors in the first round, beat the Los Angeles Lakers in the conference finals, and swept the Baltimore Bullets 4–0 in the 1971 NBA Finals. Alcindor was regular-season MVP and Finals MVP. It was the franchise’s first championship in its third season of existence.

The Kareem era (1971–1975) and the 1974 Finals

Alcindor announced his conversion to Islam and name change to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in a Milwaukee press conference in 1971 detailed on his biography. The 1973–74 Bucks, still with Abdul-Jabbar and an aging Robertson, reached the NBA Finals and lost to Boston 4–3. Abdul-Jabbar played through a scratched left cornea he had sustained in Game 5 of the conference finals. Game 6, a double-overtime Bucks win in Boston Garden on Abdul-Jabbar’s skyhook from fifteen feet, is still the most-replayed shot in a Celtics-opponent uniform.

On July 21, 1975, Abdul-Jabbar was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for Elmore Smith, Brian Winters, Junior Bridgeman, and Dave Meyers. The Abdul-Jabbar request-and-trade, covered in his 1983 memoir Giant Steps, is still a sore point in Bucks franchise history. The Lakers would go on to win five championships with him.

The Don Nelson era (1976–1987)

Don Nelson coached the Bucks from 1976 to 1987, the longest continuous head-coaching tenure in franchise history. Nelson-coached Bucks made the playoffs eight consecutive times (1980–1987) and reached the Eastern Conference Finals three times (1983, 1984, 1986). Sidney Moncrief, drafted fifth overall in 1979, was a two-time Defensive Player of the Year (1983 and 1984), a five-time All-Star (1982 through 1986), and the franchise’s face through the 1980s.

Moncrief’s peak years were 1982 through 1986. He averaged 22.5 points per game in 1982–83 and earned All-NBA First Team recognition that season, then followed with 20.9, 21.7, and 20.2 in the three seasons after. He won the Defensive Player of the Year award in both 1983 and 1984, the first two seasons the award existed in the NBA. His career offensive rating of 119.7 still stands as a Bucks franchise record. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2019.

The 1980s Bucks never reached the NBA Finals. The era’s signature failure was the 1983 Eastern Conference Finals loss to Julius Erving’s Philadelphia 76ers in five games; Philadelphia went on to win the championship in the “Fo, Fo, Fo” sweep run. In 1983, the Bucks also became the first team in NBA history to sweep the Boston Celtics in a playoff series. Nelson resigned in November 1987 and was succeeded by Del Harris.

Bob Lanier, acquired from Detroit in February 1980, helped fill the interior void left by the 1975 Abdul-Jabbar trade for the five seasons he remained in Milwaukee. His number 16 was eventually retired by the Bucks, a somewhat unusual honor given he spent only five of his fifteen NBA seasons in Milwaukee. Junior Bridgeman, who arrived in the 1975 Abdul-Jabbar trade from Los Angeles, gave the franchise a reliable wing scorer for a decade and later returned as a minority investor, purchasing a 10% interest in the team in 2024.

The Ray Allen and Glenn Robinson era (1996–2003)

The 1990s Bucks made the playoffs only three times. Glenn Robinson was drafted first overall in 1994 but did not lead a deep playoff run. Ray Allen was drafted fifth overall in 1996 and made four All-Star teams in Milwaukee before being traded to Seattle in February 2003. The 2000–01 Bucks, coached by George Karl, with Allen, Robinson, Sam Cassell, and Tim Thomas, went 52–30, won their first division title in fifteen years, and reached the Eastern Conference Finals, losing to Allen Iverson’s Philadelphia 76ers in seven games. It was the franchise’s deepest playoff run of the post-Kareem era.

The 2000–01 run was genuinely close. Milwaukee beat Charlotte in the first round, beat New Jersey, and pushed Philadelphia to seven games in the ECF before losing. Allen averaged 22.1 points through the playoffs. The Bucks had a real shot at the Finals and didn’t get there. For most of Milwaukee’s fan base, the near-miss from that spring is still the one that stings.

In February 2003, the Bucks traded Allen and backup Flip Murray to the Seattle SuperSonics for Gary Payton and Desmond Mason. The trade effectively ended the competitive window. Payton, thirty-five at the time of the deal, was acquired as a short-term patch rather than a long-term building block. The Bucks missed the playoffs in five of the next seven seasons as the front office cycled through roster iterations that never cohered.

The Giannis Antetokounmpo era (2013–present)

The 2013 NBA Draft produced Giannis Antetokounmpo with the 15th overall pick, out of Greek second-division basketball. Full Giannis story here. Giannis was Most Improved Player in 2016–17, MVP in 2018–19 and 2019–20, and Defensive Player of the Year in 2019–20.

The 2020–21 Bucks, under head coach Mike Budenholzer (hired in 2018), went 46–26. They beat Miami 4–0, Brooklyn 4–3 (the most-discussed playoff series of the era, decided in Game 7 overtime on a Kevin Durant made three-pointer that was ruled to have landed on the three-point line, making it a two-point shot), Atlanta 4–2, and Phoenix 4–2 in the NBA Finals. Game 6 of the Finals, played July 20, 2021 at Fiserv Forum, ended 105–98 in the Bucks’ favor. Giannis had 50 points, 14 rebounds, and 5 blocks. He was Finals MVP.

The 2023–24 season produced the September 2023 trade for Damian Lillard from Portland (for Jrue Holiday, Deandre Ayton, Toumani Camara, and a first-round pick, part of a three-team deal with Phoenix). Damian Lillard’s Milwaukee story here. The Giannis-Lillard pairing produced one playoff appearance before Lillard’s April 2025 Achilles rupture.

The 2022–23 Bucks were swept by the Miami Heat in the first round, losing all four games by an average of 12 points. Budenholzer was fired on May 22, 2023. Adrian Griffin, a Raptors assistant, was hired as head coach in June 2023. Griffin was fired in January 2024 after the team started 30–13 but reported a breakdown in the coaching relationship with the roster. Doc Rivers was hired to replace him. The 2024–25 Bucks, with Rivers, Giannis, and Lillard (before the April 2025 Achilles rupture), reached the first round of the playoffs and were eliminated by Indiana.

Current ownership

Marc Lasry and Wes Edens purchased the Milwaukee Bucks from U.S. Senator Herb Kohl in April 2014 for $550 million. In April 2023, Lasry sold his majority stake to Jimmy and Dee Haslam (owners of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns and the MLS’s Columbus Crew) for approximately $3.5 billion. Edens remains the managing owner.

The Bucks’ 2025 Forbes valuation was approximately $3.9 billion.

Retired numbers

Seven jersey numbers have been retired:

• Oscar Robertson (1)
• Jon McGlocklin (14)
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (33)
• Sidney Moncrief (4)
• Bob Lanier (16)
• Brian Winters (32)
• Junior Bridgeman (2)

Giannis Antetokounmpo’s 34 is presumed future retirement.

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Sources

• Basketball-Reference, Milwaukee Bucks franchise page
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Bucks beat coverage
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Peter Knobler, Giant Steps (Bantam, 1983)
• 1971 NBA Finals records (Milwaukee vs Baltimore Bullets)
• 2021 NBA Finals records (Milwaukee vs Phoenix Suns, Game 6, Giannis 50-point performance)
• April 2014 Kohl-to-Lasry-Edens purchase records ($550 million)
• April 2023 Haslam purchase records ($3.5 billion for Lasry’s majority stake)
• Forbes NBA Team Valuations, 2025