Last week, we presented our annual Milwaukee Bucks fan survey and asked for your thoughts and feelings ahead of the 2024-25 NBA season. Now, it’s time to reveal the survey’s results and summarize what you believe about the Bucks heading into this season.
As always, we’d like to extend a big thank you to everyone who regularly reads, interacts and comments on our Bucks content here at The Athletic and a special thank you to the subscribers who took the time to fill out the survey.
Let’s get into the takeaways from this year’s results.
Championship expectations shrink significantly
Since we started doing this survey on an annual basis following the 2021-22 season, Bucks fans have been overwhelmingly confident about their franchise’s chances to win a third NBA championship.
That is no longer the case.
Following the Bucks’ unsuccessful attempt at a repeat in 2022 when the Boston Celtics eliminated them with Khris Middleton on the sidelines, 98 percent of our survey participants believed the team still had enough talent to win the 2022-23 NBA championship. That number dropped to 91.9 percent last offseason following the Bucks’ first-round loss to the Miami Heat and the firing of former head coach Mike Budenholzer. Now, it has dropped even lower with 78.3 percent of surveyed fans believing the Bucks have enough talent to win a championship in the 2024-25 NBA season.
The responses to the second question in the survey reveal fans are even less confident than that first number suggests.
For the first time since we’ve conducted this survey, the majority of fans are not confident the Bucks will be able to win the title, with just 42.9 percent of fans claiming to be extremely confident or somewhat confident that the team will win the 2025 NBA championship. In 2022, 79.6 percent of respondents chose one of those two positions. Last year, those combined categories still had 60.3 percent of respondents.
This is the first time that “not that confident” has been selected by the highest percentage of respondents. It is also the first time that more than 10 percent of respondents (12 percent) have said they are “not at all confident” that the Bucks will win an NBA championship in the upcoming season. That number has doubled since last season, when just 5.2 percent of respondents selected that option and only 0.5 percent of respondents made that selection before the 2022-23 season.
All in all, this is the least confident Bucks fans have been in the team’s ability to win a championship before the start of the season. It is somewhat startling to see considering the Bucks still have one of the best players in the world in Giannis Antetokounmpo and a point guard who was named one of the 75 greatest players of all time. It shows the team’s repeated shortcomings in the postseason the last three seasons have worn on fans and their belief in the organization. Fans are clearly far more skeptical of the Bucks’ chances to contend this season, which will give the team plenty to prove.
Regular season expectations down as well
Fans’ expectations this season become clearer when looking at where fans believe the Bucks will finish in the regular season. This may speak more to the Boston Celtics winning last year’s NBA championship in dominant fashion, as well as the moves made by the New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers during the offseason, but just 3.3 percent of respondents believe the Bucks will end this season as the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. That number was 64.2 percent last season and 81.9 percent the season before that.
Digging deeper with the responses to the next question reveal just how far the Bucks have fallen in the eyes of respondents.
While roughly a third thought the Bucks could still be the No. 2 seed in the East, nearly half believe the Bucks will end the season as the No. 2 seed, which could point to a high level of belief in the defending champion Celtics. It is notable, however, that more thought the Bucks would end up being the lower-seeded team in the first round of the playoffs (4.4 percent) than the No. 1 seed in the East.
After three disappointing seasons following the team’s second NBA title in 2021, it appears as though fans are starting to question whether or not this team can still compete at the highest level.
Fans support Adrian Griffin dismissal, believe in Doc Rivers
One of the biggest events of last season was the Bucks’ firing of Adrian Griffin and subsequent hiring of Doc Rivers as head coach. When Griffin was dismissed, the Bucks were 30-13. Despite his strong record at the time, respondents to the survey overwhelmingly agreed with the Bucks’ decision to let Griffin go.
With Rivers taking over midseason, the Bucks finished the year with a 49-33 record, good for third in the East. Rivers coached the final 36 games of the season and compiled a 17-19 record before falling to the Indiana Pacers in a first-round upset with Antetokounmpo on the sidelines. Despite his relative struggles, respondents still relayed that they are confident in Rivers’ leadership.
While the majority of Bucks fans lean towards having confidence in Rivers, the responses to that question are notable, especially when compared to last year’s survey. Last offseason, 76.4 percent of respondents told us that they were “somewhat confident” in Griffin as he started his first NBA head coaching job, while 16.4 percent of respondents said they were “not that confident” and 1.4 percent were “not at all confident.” With Rivers’ long track record as a head coach, it’s probably a bit easier for fans to form opinions about his work while they were forced to guess and hope for the best with Griffin, but the strong negative reactions to Rivers’ abilities are certainly worth noting.
Belief in Jon Horst lessening, despite strong offseason
Over the years, Bucks fans have been overwhelmingly supportive of the work done by general manager Jon Horst, but that trust has decreased over the last few seasons.
In our 2022 offseason version, belief in Horst was overwhelming, with 47.3 percent of respondents saying they were “extremely confident” in Horst and another 44.2 percent saying they were “somewhat confident” in the Bucks GM. Last offseason, 36 percent of respondents were still “extremely confident” in him, and 54.4 percent were “somewhat confident” in his work. So, while respondents in this poll still overwhelmingly believe in Horst’s ability to do the job, the level of confidence and trust is not as robust as it was previously, which falls in line with the rest of the responses we’ve recapped.
Despite fans losing a little bit of their belief in Horst’s work, this was Horst’s highest-graded offseason as general manager during the time we’ve done these surveys, as 25.7 percent of respondents said they would give Horst an “A” grade for this offseason, which is nearly double Horst’s previous high of 13.7 percent of respondents giving him an “A” in 2022. The high marks make sense considering Horst was able to grab Gary Trent Jr. on a minimum contract, as well as Taurean Prince and Delon Wright to strengthen the middle of the roster.
Despite lack of confidence in team, belief in individual players still high
Perhaps the most interesting findings of this survey came in the questions devoted to individual players on the roster, because while fans might not believe in the team to the same extent they once did, their belief in the players on the roster seems to still be high.
When asked about Antetokounmpo, 93.3 percent of respondents told us that they thought he is one of the five best players in the NBA, with 55.1 percent of respondents naming him one of the two best players on the planet and 20.5 percent saying he is the best player in the world. Those numbers are lower than they were in previous seasons, but that is still an overwhelming amount of belief in Antetokounmpo to perform at the highest level.
Moving down the roster, there is quite a bit of belief in Damian Lillard and Middleton as well.
When asked if they believed Lillard could be one of the three best players on a championship team during the 2025 NBA playoffs, 58.2 percent of respondents said they were “extremely confident” and another 29.4 percent said they were “somewhat confident” in the Bucks’ starting point guard.
Those results were interesting when looking at the thoughts of Bucks fans around this time last season. When asked the same question about former point guard Jrue Holiday, 35.7 percent of respondents told us they were “extremely confident” and 51.9 percent of respondents told us they were “somewhat confident” in Holiday. That means the same percentage of fans (87.6 percent) were confident in the Bucks’ point guard play heading into these two respective seasons, but a far greater percentage are “extremely confident” in Lillard than Holiday.
When asked if they believed Middleton can be one of the three best players on a championship team in the 2025 NBA playoffs, here is how respondents answered:
- Extremely confident: 35.3 percent (up 5.3 percent)
- Somewhat confident: 39.9 percent (down 10.9 percent)
- Not that confident: 20.9 percent (up 3.3 percent)
- Not at all confident: 3.9 percent (up 2.3 percent)
All of which shows just how complicated feelings can be for fans regarding Middleton’s play. While more than one-third of the fan base has trust in him, there is still a quarter that is not quite sure he’ll be able to come through when it matters most. Since the start of the 2021 playoffs, Middleton’s playoff performance has been difficult to question as he has raised his output in the postseason and been a clutch performer in the biggest moments, but he did miss much of the Bucks’ postseason effort to repeat in 2022. He then missed portions of the last two seasons with injuries, which may account for the higher level of distrust among fans.
KHRIS MONEY MIDDLETON TIES IT! pic.twitter.com/o27gvnfFhs
— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) April 27, 2024
When Horst spoke with The Athletic in July, he made it clear that the Bucks have no intention of trading starting center Brook Lopez, and the results of the Lopez-based survey question show that fans seem to understand his opinion on the matter, even though trading Lopez is often offered as the best pathway to a new play style for the Bucks. While a little more than 20 percent of respondents to the survey relayed a lack of confidence in Lopez, most of the respondents showed confidence in him, including more than 26 percent sharing high-level confidence in the Bucks’ 36-year-old center.
Overall, the results of this year’s survey show the fan base finds itself at an interesting crossroads with the team. The last three seasons have not been a whole of fun for fans who showed a high level of belief after the Bucks hung a banner at Fiserv Forum in 2021. That faith has not been rewarded as injuries have hampered the Bucks’ last three postseason runs, leading to disappointing early exits from the postseason. Many of our respondents still believe in the players on the roster, but the recent losses seem to be keeping them from seeing their team once again from raising the Larry O’Brien Trophy once again.
Intrigue exists throughout the rest of the roster
Outside of Antetokounmpo, Lopez and Middleton, there are two other players on the roster that remain from the 2021 championship team: Pat Connaughton and Bobby Portis. Both have been constants off the bench for the Bucks over the last four seasons, but now as they enter another season in Milwaukee, we wondered how fans felt about their spots on the roster.
And respondents made it clear that while they still trust Portis to perform at the highest level, they don’t feel the same way about Connaughton. An overwhelming 82.7 percent of respondents believe Portis is still capable of making real contributions in the playoffs, while conversely 73.9 percent of respondents believe that Connaughton is no longer capable of making the same contribution. With Prince, Trent and Wright on the roster, the Bucks may be able to survive if fans are correct about Connaughton, but as we’ve discussed in this space already, it will be an interesting season for the 31-year-old shooting guard.
When asked about the impact that newcomers to the rotation could make this upcoming season, respondents all circled one man: Gary Trent Jr. While A.J. Green grabbed 10.2 percent of the vote, Wright took 9.1 percent and Prince snagged 8.0 percent, respondents overwhelmingly selected Trent as the newcomer to the rotation that they are most excited to watch next season. Taking a closer look at the young players on the roster, respondents believed Andre Jackson Jr. (64.7 percent) would be the young player most likely to contribute to winning playoff basketball someday.
Beyond predictions and thoughts on what was going to happen on the floor this upcoming season, respondents also shared some of their favorites on the roster, and their responses were unsurprising: 78.6 percent of respondents named Antetokounmpo as their favorite player on the team, and when asked to remove the two-time MVP out of the equation, 48.1 percent of the respondents chose Middleton.
(Photo of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
