National Basketball Association

Milwaukee Bucks: More Likely To Make Or Miss The Playoffs?

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

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Are the Milwaukee Bucks more likely to end their playoff drought after one season, or extend it and end up in the lottery once again?

New Milwaukee Bucks point guard Matthew Dellavedova is a reigning NBA champion. He does not intend on going from the top of the NBA to the bottom–according to a recent ESPN interview, Dellavedova intends on another trip to the postseason this year.

“We definitely want to get into the playoffs, that’s our main target,” Dellavedova told ESPN.

“They made the playoffs two years ago and looked really good in the first round against Chicago. It was a bit of a down year for them last year with injuries, but the development of their young players is really exciting for the future.”

Delly isn’t wrong. The Bucks do want a playoff berth this season, and the team is in a good place looking forward with the development of some of the young Bucks. But will Milwaukee be ready to vault back into the postseason this quickly?

There are a lot of factors at play here. Many of them are impossible to predict. The Milwaukee Bucks success will be tied primarily to three players–Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jabari Parker and Khris Middleton.

If those three have healthy seasons and continue to improve on their strong 2015-16 campaigns, the Bucks will be in a position to show improvement. But if one or more of them struggles at all, things become that much harder for Milwaukee.

Similarly, the fit of new pieces added this summer will be crucial to determining Milwaukee’s success. Will Dellavedova look so good apart from LeBron James? Does Mirza Teletovic have another incredible three-point shooting season in him?

If the Bucks three young stars continue to knock everybody’s socks off and the new players (not to mention draft picks) are integrated well, this could be a pretty damn good team. A win total in the low to mid 40s is certainly in reach, should everything go right.

Is that good enough for Milwaukee to make the playoffs, though? Last season it took 44 wins to qualify for postseason play. The Chicago Bulls went 42-40–a reasonable win projection for the Bucks this season–and missed out.

Nov 14, 2015; Milwaukee, WI, USA; Milwaukee Bucks guard Khris Middleton (22) passes the ball as Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) defends during the second overtime period at BMO Harris Bradley Center. The Bucks won 108-105. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

Let’s take a brief look at how the rest of the Eastern Conference projects to shake out. The Cleveland Cavaliers will hold the top spot once more. Then teams like Boston, Toronto, Indiana, Atlanta and Detroit all seem to be playoff locks, considering their collective talent.

That’s six spots. Considering there are nine teams unaccounted for and just two playoff spots left, the competition will be heated as usual. Luckily for Milwaukee, a few teams have no shot at being playoff contenders.

Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Chicago will all be bad–I don’t see any of them making it out of the regular season. That leaves six teams fighting for two spots.

Milwaukee, New York, Orlando, Charlotte, Miami, and Washington are the teams left. For the Bucks to qualify for the playoffs, they’ll probably have to be better than five of those teams.

That doesn’t seem impossible. There are massive chemistry issues in Washington, Orlando lacks outside shooting and has too many big men, the Knicks will be extremely fortunate to remain healthy all season, Miami may be without Chris Bosh once more and now lacks Dwyane Wade as well, and Charlotte is good but not overwhelmingly so.

It’s possible some of the earlier-listed teams fall off too. The Raptors kept DeMar DeRozan, but lost Bismack Biyombo. The Pacers hastily assembled an almost entirely new squad that should work out, but isn’t guaranteed to. The Hawks now have to deal with Dwight Howard, which can lead to just about anything happening. And the Pistons are nearly as unproven as the Bucks.

If the Bucks come on and play well together early, the postseason is certainly in play. But assuming the Bucks will make it may be premature. There aren’t too many teams that will be clearly better than Milwaukee this season in the East, but there are a lot of franchises who will be roughly as good.

Apr 13, 2016; Milwaukee, WI, USA; Milwaukee Bucks forward Jabari Parker (12) dunks during the third quarter against the Indiana Pacers at BMO Harris Bradley Center. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

That means a lot of close games that will end up being very important. The Bucks will need to do something they absolutely failed at last year if they want to turn things around. Milwaukee needs to be better at closing out games.

It’s hard enough to win in the NBA without giving up any leads a team has built sometime during the third quarter. Playoff teams can’t afford to do that. There are roughly three types of Bucks games going into second haves: the Bucks are up by a significant margin (ten points or more), they’re down by a significant margin, or the game is roughly even.

Let’s say the Milwaukee Bucks are aggressively average next season, and enter those three situations equally as often as the others.

Obviously the team down at the half is more likely to lose the game. Let’s say Milwaukee wins nine of the 27ish games they play while losing at halftime. Let’s also say the Bucks average ways continue, and they win half of the games that are close at the half.