With the NBA preseason now in the books and the regular season set to begin, fans will soon see their favorite teams in games that actually matter. The preseason, of course, prepares teams for the actual season and gives them a chance to try out new lineups and see how their draft picks and free-agent acquisitions perform, and adjust their rotations accordingly.
Some teams take the preseason more seriously than others, and misleading trends can emerge. Bad teams can play well, creating a false sense of optimism while great teams can underperform, creating concern among fans. As a result, let’s take a look at three surprising preseason trends that won’t carry over into the regular season.
3. The Milwaukee Bucks going winless in the NBA preseason.
A healthy Milwaukee Bucks team is among the favorites to make the NBA Finals after winning the championship in 2021 and making the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals last year. However, they went winless in the preseason, suggesting they might not be as good as expected. Of course, the preseason should always be taken with a grain of salt and the Bucks clearly aren’t going all-out in these exhibition games.
Superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo only played in two of the team’s five exhibition games but averaged a terrific 21.5 points, 10.5 rebounds, and 1.5 steals in just 26.4 minutes per game. Had he played more minutes and more games, the Bucks obviously wouldn’t have gone 0-5. However, Antetokounmpo was already in midseason form and there was no need to put any unnecessary wear and tear on his body ahead of a long regular season.
Meanwhile, their second-best player, Kris Midleton, missed the entire preseason due to wrist surgery and will miss the first few weeks of the regular season. Nothing to see here. Once games start counting, the Bucks will go all-out and the team’s preseason record will quickly be forgotten. Even if they do struggle out of the gate, once Middleton returns, they should be among the best teams in the league and will likely end up as a top-3 seed in the East.