National Basketball Association

Milwaukee Bucks History: Death And Rebirth In The 1990s

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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The 1990s was a tough time for Milwaukee Bucks fans, but the losing in that decade enabled the Bucks to have their brief resurgence in the early aughts.

It was tough to be a Milwaukee Bucks fan for most of the 1990s. After the 1990-91 NBA season Milwaukee completely fell apart, missing the playoffs for seven consecutive seasons.

Many of those seasons, Milwaukee wasn’t even close to the playoffs. Three of them saw Milwaukee win less than 30 games, and the best season of the bunch was when the Bucks went 36-46 in 1997-98.

Three Bucks coaches saw their tenure both begin and end during this horrible stretch of losing basketball. Frank Hamblen took over for Del Harris after 17 games in 1991-92, and finished what would be his only season in Milwaukee with a 23-42 record.

Mike Dunleavy then took over, and somehow lasted four years as the Bucks head coach. He went a combined 107-221, winning just 32.6 percent of his games with the Bucks. It wasn’t pretty.

For the last two years of the worst seven-season stretch in Milwaukee Bucks history Chris Ford was the man calling the shots. Ford oversaw a Bucks team that did somewhat improve, going from 33 wins in his first year to 36 in his second.

Still, after that second season his time with the Bucks was over. George Karl was brought in, and the team went to the playoffs for the next three seasons, culminating with a close loss to the Philadelphia 76ers in the 2001 Eastern Conference Finals.

That great Bucks team in 2001 was only possible because of the absolutely awful Bucks teams in the 1990s, just as those 1990s teams were caused by the Bucks being too good to get any decent draft picks (and blowing the ones they did have) in the 1980s.

The NBA is a funny thing that way. Being bad for long enough tends to be good in the long run–all those shots at a high draft pick mean it’s likely even the worst teams end up with a star eventually.

The Bucks won 28 games in the 1992-93 season, and selected Vin Baker eighth overall with their resulting pick. They only won 20 in 1993-94, and got Glenn Robinson first overall in the 1994 NBA Draft.

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And after a weak 25 win season in 1995-96, the Bucks got the fourth overall pick, which they flipped for Ray Allen. Unfortunately Baker wasn’t around for the success Milwaukee found in the 2000s, but Allen and Robinson made up two of the Bucks big three at the time.

If they won 40ish games every year for that stretch, they don’t have a shot at either of those players. It’s possible to find great talent in the latter picks of the NBA Draft, but it’s not something teams can usually rely on.

Making the most out of lottery picks is crucial for that reason. Good teams don’t end up there often–if they did, they wouldn’t be considered good teams anymore.

Therein lies the challenge of being a consistently successful NBA franchise. To stay competitive, there’s a need to inject new talent every so often.

With Milwaukee’s cap space tied up in their modern big three, the Bucks will have to draft well from here on out–and hope young players like Thon Maker, Malcolm Brogdon and Rashad Vaughn can ball out for them over the next several seasons.

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