While a deliberately tanking opponent is in town tonight that may end it, the Bucks’ highly dispiriting four-game losing streak has put a series damper on fan enthusiasm, despite the eight-wins-in-10-games stretch that came before. Two weeks ago, in the midst of that stretch, nearly 70% of voters on our Tuesday Tracker wanted Milwaukee to go for it. At that time, the Bucks were 1.5 games back of the 10 seed and five back of the seven seed. Giannis wasn’t back yet. Only 20% of fans wanted to fold
up shop and tank.
Even though Giannis has returned to the team, this week it’s a vastly different story…
To be fair, about a third of our respondents want the Bucks to keep pushing, and a not insignificant 42% want to make the play-in at a minimum. But that is pretty daunting after the loss to Atlanta—who has now won five straight—on Wednesday. They and Charlotte are in the final two play-in spots, and while Milwaukee owns the tiebreaker over the latter, they are currently 4.5 games back of Charles Lee’s .500 squad. The Bucks’ season series is tied at one with the Hawks, and they have one more shot in a week. A win tomorrow over the Magic—a full seven games up on the Bucks right now in the eight seed—would claim that tiebreaker.
But most fans seem to recognize that this stretch doomed their playoff odds and want to maximize their lottery pick. Right now, Milwaukee is a game behind Chicago for ninth in the lottery standings and three games ahead of Memphis, so it’ll be hard to fall much further. New Orleans, who is currently sixth, has the right to swap picks with them thanks to 2020’s Jrue Holiday trade. If the season ended today with those standings, the Bucks would have only a 15.7% chance of moving up from 10th in the draft, factoring in the swap. Should they “rise” to nine, that number goes up to 19.5%.
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