There’s no easy way to put it, but the Milwaukee Bucks might be in one of the worst positions in the league, and much of it is because of front-office management. 

Milwaukee has started the season 1-9 after losing to the Boston Celtics for the second time in five days in a 117-97 loss Sunday night. The Bucks are only a few losses away from tying the worst start in franchise history with the 1974-75 team, as they began the season 1-11. 

When the Bucks traded away Giannis Antetokounmpo after 13 years, they were going to take a massive step back after a 32-50 season where the former MVP only played in 36 games. The decision to trade him wasn’t necessarily the problem, and some people may say it was the correct choice, as Antetokounmpo and the organization had not seen eye to eye in his final years with the team.

However, the execution of the trade has been criticized, and it’s another example of how the front office has poorly executed its recent moves, as it’s starting to reflect in this year’s team. You can go all the way back to May of 2023 when Milwaukee fired its second championship-winning coach, Mike Budenholzer, after losing in five games to the No. 8 seed Miami Heat in the first round. 

The decision felt premature and like an overreaction to one playoff series in which Jimmy Butler averaged 37.6 points, 6 rebounds, 4.8 assists, and 1.8 steals per game while shooting 59.7% from the field and 44.4% from the 3-point line. Butler single-handedly put his team on his back and had multiple historic games and plays where there was simply no answer for him.

On top of that, Antetokounmpo only played in three of the games as he battled injuries in the series, leaving Milwaukee to face off against the Heat without its best player. The Bucks let the floodgates open after firing Budenholzer by hiring Adrian Griffin as their next coach and trading Jrue Holiday and other pieces for Damian Lillard.

Dame Time Runs Out

The Lillard era was a fiasco, as after 43 games and a 30-13 record, Milwaukee fired Griffin for Doc Rivers, who would finish the year 17-19. Antetokounmpo would miss the entire first round of the playoffs to the Indiana Pacers, with Lillard missing two games himself, and the Bucks would lose to the Indiana Pacers in six games.

The following year was another bad one despite returning to the playoffs as Milwaukee traded Khris Middleton for Kyle Kuzma. The playoffs repeated themselves with the Bucks losing to the Pacers again as injuries plagued them once again.

Lillard had missed the final games of the regular season due to a blood clot in his right calf but would try to push through for the playoffs. After missing Game 1, he came back in Game 2, where it was clear he was not 100%; he struggled in Game 3 and would tear his Achilles in Game 4. 

A few months later, Milwaukee waived him and decided to stretch the remaining $112.5 million total of his contract over the next five years. They decided to do that in an attempt to salvage Antetokounmpo’s talent to pair up with Myles Turner, who signed a four-year, $107 million deal. 

Spoiler Alert: it didn’t work. Rivers was fired after the season, and Antetokounmpo was traded this past summer in June, when Milwaukee received Tyler Herro, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kel’el Ware, Kasparas Jakučionis, three future first-round picks, one first-round pick swap and a second-round pick. 

Many people thought the Bucks waited too long to trade Antetokounmpo and should’ve traded him the year before rather than holding him on for one more season. Instead the front office accepted the Heat’s trade package where people thought it was underwhelming compared to a deal that could’ve been made with the Boston Celtics, Golden State Warriors or New York Knicks. 

Milwaukee wanted a mixture of future assets, including draft capital and young players, which led to them accepting Miami’s deal. The Bucks decided to make a few other signings, bringing players back, but none more head-scratching than Gary Trent Jr., who signed a four-year, $64 million contract after posting some of the worst statistical numbers since his rookie season.

The Giannis Package

Now 10 games in, the Bucks have only won once, and all of the decisions they made in the past are starting to blow up in their face. 

Herro has had a good start to the season, averaging 21.4 points, 4.6 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game while shooting 45.5% from the field and 39.7% from the 3-point line. 

Jaquez has also had a solid start as he’s averaging 15.2 points and 5.8 rebounds per game on 48.3% shooting from the field and 42.5% from the 3-point line, but has disappeared at times this season. Meanwhile, the Ware and Jakučionis have not had the best start. 

Ware has gone downhill after recording three double-doubles in his first six games with Milwaukee and has averaged 2 points and 4.3 rebounds while shooting 19% from the field in his last four games. He had high expectations on a young team and looked to even possibly beone of the best players on the team, but has been extremely disappointing as the third center on the roster; Jericho Sims has seen the floor more than him as of late. The same concerns about his motor and energy he faced with head coach Erik Spoelstra, have shown up in Milwaukee as well.

Jakučionis had a lot of potential heading into this season after he averaged 6.2 points while shooting 42.3% from the 3-point line with the Heat last year. While it’s only his second season in the league and first on a new team, we haven’t seen that shooting this year.

He’s averaged 6.4 points, 3.4 assists and 1.9 turnovers per game on 42.2% shooting from the field and 20.8% from the 3-point line. Despite averaging fewer points, he’s been better on the court than Ware. He plays with energy, and his playmaking has been seen, but turnovers and poor shooting have limited his success.

The Holdover Center

Turner might be the biggest disappointment of them all as he’s produced 7.1 points, 5.7 rebounds, 2.5 blocks and 2 turnovers per game while shooting 34.6% from the field and 26.7% from the 3-point line. For someone who’s making over $26 million per year, it’s been extremely hard to watch. In the last two games, he’s played a total of 37 minutes and has recorded zero points while going 0-for-13 from the field.

He was a potential trade candidate, but his contract has made him hard to move. You add a bad contract with terrible production, and there aren't many teams intrigued by acquiring Turner.

And for the cherry on top, Trent has played a total of 13 minutes while scoring only six points through the first 10 games. His contract is currently under investigation for salary-cap circumvention, and if the Bucks are found guilty, they could face worse penalties than the Los Angeles Clippers, who were gutted of five future first-round draft picks and fined $30 million. 

The decisions by the front office were criticized when they first happened, from the firing of Budenholzer to the contract of Trent, and now they are facing the consequences on and off the court.