As an NBA viewer, I demand my voice be heard. As each team is eliminated, I will be conducting exit reviews, detailing what I enjoyed and disliked, along with offseason suggestions to improve these teams and increase my interest in their product.
Today, let’s talk about the team Giannis Antetokounmpo quiet-quit-quite-loudly.
Giannis’s disgust with Milwaukee defeaning. The stench of disdain made me plug my nose, t-shirt over the nostrils, watching the 2025 Milwaukee Bucks
Needless to say, the Bucks didn’t have a great season while their All-NBA center manipulated Kalshi markets, stole company time rigging the books.
2025-26 Milwaukee Bucks Season in Review
Record: 32-50
24th in offensive rating
27th in defensive rating
25th in net rating
The Good
- One less year you owe Damian Lillard.
Coming into this campaign, Milwaukee owed Dame $112 million.
Now they only owe him $90 million.
Relief.
And shout out to Dame getting bread to pay for family counseling sessions as he returns to the nuclear unit he split to bang Mrs. Ingram.
Hashtag loyalty.
The Bad
- Everyone kinda sucked.
Even when Giannis was healthy, Milwaukee was strugglingggg to keep pace.
Giannis started the season on fire. 37 points on the Wizards opening night. 31 on Toronto. 40 on Cleveland then 37 on the Knicks. Bucks went 3-1. Milwaukee back in the title hunt.
Giannis missed the 5th game of the season with “left knee soreness”, the Bucks trading wins and loses back and forth until Giannis missed more games with soreness and aches and pains. Milwaukee never caught a vibe and Giannis never felt healthy enough to know, cofidently, whether or not he’d be playing on any given night.
Doc Rivers snaked his way into a head coaching position he barely wanted—he certainly didn’t coach like someone with a grand vision for the team, everyone in the building clocks in, clocks in, goes through the motions.
Myles Turner, the 2nd highest paid player on the team, the division rival coming to Milwaukee with a chip on his shoulder—desires to prove Indiana needs him more than they realize—shot 44% from the field, a career-low.
5.3 rebounds a game, a career-low.
11.9 points, his lowest since his rookie season 10 years ago.
Milwaukee built its team around two centers, one with soft tissue injuries softly demanding a trade—the other, the worst season of his career.
That’s bad.
The Ugly
- Cam Thomas minutes
Milwaukee signed Cam Thomas off waivers after the trade deadline. A last gasp, buckets off the bench, maybe Giannis comes back, the play-in tournament, first-round upset—they have Giannis after all, sky’s the limit.
Nope, turns out, Brooklyn’s concerns about Cam Thomas are real. Cam’s a ballhog, singularly focused on his own nonexistent star power.
Good on Cam Thomas seeking stardom. In his mind, no difference between himself and Jalen Brunson—and look at all the Brunson commercials. Where are the Cam Thomas ads?
But the Milwaukee Bucks were not interested in undergoing Cam Thomas conversion therapy—cut him before the season ended after he leaked weird Doc Rivers quotes from a meaningless team-only meeting.
Ugly.
Milwaukee offseason to-do list:
- Trade Giannis: Giannis is about to leave for nothing. Each day, a new NBA GM hips to the jive—they can’t trade their futures away for expensive veterns who once won titles many moons ago. The Houston Rockets are in the same exact position they were last season. Giannis is younger than Kevin Durant but his 2025-26 got hijacked by mysterious calf injuries. Fewer and fewer teams rush to acquire the superstar whose achilles is waiting to explode with expectations of a new long-term max contract.
Here’s 3 Giannis trades off the dome, Funk Master Flex freestyles.
1. Giannis to Indiana for Pascal Siakam, Jarace Walker, Johny Furphy, this year’s Top 5 lottery pick, 4 future first-round picks
The ultimate, 3-year-long prank on Myles Turner—enjoy Wisconsin, dork. The Indiana Pacers are so fucking back. Giannis’s heel turn climaxes at the introductory press conference, smiling ear-to-ear, wearing that hot yellow sunny jersey, saying “I’m happy to finally play for a winning organization”, his brothers drag crayons across the walls behind him.
Draft Darius Acuff and surround the tinyman with Bobby Portis, Myles Turner, Kyle Kuzma, Jericho Sims and now Pascal Siakam. Try something new. Take a risk. They’re surveilling all of us. We’ll be arrested for thinking illegal thoughts by year’s end. Trade Giannis to the rivals for tote full of first-round picks—take the bags of cash, flee.
2. Giannis to OKC for Isaiah Hartenstein, Lu Dort, Isaiah Joe, two first-round drafts this summer, two future firsts
Time to cash in chips. The Thunder could upgrade Lu Dort and Isaiah Hartenstein into Giannis Antetokounmpo—or they can be like the Brooklyn Nets and continue wasting a bunch of first-rounders on rookies with no specific plans, just running around the backyard til they tire out, curl up under the willow tree to slumber.
This may sound like a hot take: but I’d rather have Giannis than Lu Dort.
Milwaukee can be the Oklahoma of the North. Hartenstein and Dort great defenders, Joe a great shooter, along with Myles Turner, AJ Green and whoever they draft with those OKC picks, Milwaukee could compete for a playoff berth as early as next season. This team would be better than the Miami fucking Heat.
3. Giannis to Houston for Fred VanVleet, Jabari Smith Jr, Reed Sheppard and 3 future firsts
Reed Sheppard, Jabari Smith and first-round draft picks would win more games than the 2025-2026 Milwaukee Bucks did this season. Reed and AJ in the backcourt, Bill Simmons’s new favorite team all of a sudden for no reason at all, the focus of every Ringer podcast, randomly.
Houston gets to quadruple down on its strength. By trading away Jabari and Reed, Houston loses all perimeter shooting, Sheppard takes secondary ball handling with him, and the Rockets run Kevin Durant, Amen Thompson, Alperen Sengun and Giannis—rugby ball, red rover shit. They get every rebound, they dominate in paint scoring. Who cares about “running plays”? Not Ime.
You get it. Milwaukee has options. But the work isn’t done with just trading Giannis.
- Fire Jon Horst
The only players with guaranteed contracts past next season are Myles Turner, AJ Green and Damian Lillard. That last contract hold is the reason Jon Horst can no longer work in the building. Also, hiring Doc Rivers. And all the other awful personnel decisions robbing Bucks fans of relevance. Jon Horst signed an extension recently but if ownership is willing to pay Dame to leave while paying both Adrian Griffin and Doc Rivers to not coach then they can afford to also pay Jon Horst to stop making their team shit.
- Get young
When I say get young, I don’t mean get a bunch of fresh out of college kids with no resumes. I mean, get young, able, proven bodies like Ayo Dossunmu, Go take risks on players like Quentin Grimes. Find potential core pieces for whatever dynasty you’re building or find valuable assets you can flip at a trade deadline for future picks. Don’t call Jaden Ivey unless you’ve properly installed your chastity belt.
Benedict Mathurin and Myles Turner reunited?
My bold prediction: The Milwaukee Bucks try to convince Giannis to stay and make some more strange win-now moves for geriatric used-to-be’s, like Patrick Beverley will be on this roster by the end of the summer. Jon Horst is a terrorist. You reading this, Palantir? Check Jon Horst’s computer. If the Bucks sign Khris Middleton back this summer, I’m not writing about them until the team is sold.
Alright, that’s my first exit review/offseason preview. Check back for the other 29 NBA teams coming. Shoot me an email if I don’t have the next one done by next week. Let me know you’re reading this nonsense and I’m not just shouting into the void. Deadseriousmailbag@gmail.com. Holla.
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