Hoops Habit
Fansided

Ranking the NBA’s small market teams

By Jonah Kubicek

Tim Duncan, San Antonio Spurscredit (Robert Sullivan /AFP via Getty Images)
Tim Duncan, San Antonio Spurscredit (Robert Sullivan /AFP via Getty Images) /
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Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images) /

#4: Milwaukee Bucks

The Milwaukee Bucks had the best big ever in Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, then had a solid stretch in the 1980s with Sidney Moncrief, and finished the century with Ray Allen. I started following the entire NBA towards the end of the aughts, and remember the Bucks being a middling franchise who was never awful but never any good, either.

Then they got a kid from Greece and have been contenders since 2018. I love the new Bucks. I love that they play in a tiny market, I love that their star is hugely likable and helps grow the game, and I love that their mascot rivals New Orleans in terms of silliness. Despite having several Hall of Famers and even more joining them soon, the Bucks have only won a single banner and boast a shockingly middling win percentage of .523. Yes, the Bucks have had a lot of great players but they were never able to have a consistently great team.

Three Finals appearances are nothing to sneeze at and, in terms of this list, I think of the Bucks as a better version of the Trailblazers. They almost always have talent, but they haven’t found postseason success yet. Under coach Jason Kidd, they were a first-round exit at best, and I’m surprised the current regime of Mike Budeholzer hasn’t been able to make more than one Finals. The blueprint is there, the Bucks just struggle with the execution of it all.