National Basketball Association

Milwaukee Bucks: Season Could Be Defined By The Quality Of The Start

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

foxsports

In an 82 game season there’s always a danger of overreacting, but if the Milwaukee Bucks want to make the playoffs this year they mustn’t fall behind early.

A season that was once pegged by most to be a bounce back year and an opportunity to take a big step forward in their development process now looks like more of a mystery for the Milwaukee Bucks.

With Khris Middleton scheduled to miss most, if not all, of the season following surgery on a torn hamstring, it’s become harder than ever to predict what the unpredictable Bucks will do next.

As The Ringer’s Jonathan Tjarks so accurately described it in the intro to a recent piece of his:

“The Bucks have been on a yo-yo the last few years. When they were supposed to be bad, they were good. When they were supposed to be good, they were bad.”

The only prediction that it seems safe to make about this team heading into an important season is that the margins for error have been significantly reduced with the loss of Middleton, the team’s most reliable contributor.

Every game will matter, and perhaps most pressingly for the Bucks, that means they need to start positively right from the very first game of the season.

For all of the ups and downs of the past two seasons in Milwaukee, there’s a clear trend that can be identified in differentiating the seasons of success and failure.

When a plucky Bucks group surprised the NBA in making the playoffs in 2015, they ended the month of November with a 10-8 record. When they slipped to a disappointing season that assigned them to the draft lottery last year, it was a 7-11 start through the end of November that set the tone for what was to come.

Although it could be argued that Milwaukee’s talent is improving as their young core continues to develop, on the whole, they likely still don’t have enough talent or experience to turn things around if they fall behind the 8-ball in the early running.

Could a young, emerging team with improving talent kick on to surprise the NBA if they can build up a head of steam early on? Without a doubt they could, but that early confidence boost would be key.

If Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jabari Parker get the taste of early success, feeling more at ease than ever before in the NBA, they could breakout in a pretty spectacular fashion.

And so for Milwaukee, for as long and as arduous as the season may be, they can’t afford a slow start. They can’t allow doubts to set in.

Luckily for the young Bucks, their schedule is kind enough to mean that getting a solid footing early on is at least in play.

Six of Milwaukee’s opening 10 games are at home in the Bradley Center, and a slate of the Hornets, Nets, Pacers, Kings, Pelicans and Grizzlies certainly shouldn’t strike fear into Jason Kidd‘s team.

Road games against the Pistons, Pelicans, Mavericks and Hawks are certainly not beyond winning either.

That relatively soft start should fuel confidence, but a kind schedule did no favors at the beginning of last year. It’s up to the Bucks to go out and win the games, and if this team can build up some early confidence and momentum, the outlook for the year could change in a hurry.