The Bucks eschewed the planned locker room party after winning the NBA Cup, and that was the right call

Milwaukee wisely celebrates this W in their own way, without spraying beer and champagne

Again, many readers know how I feel about the NBA Cup Final, and I can assure you that has not changed in the wake of the Bucks’ impressive victory in said game, one that is neither more nor less impressive than had it occurred in a typical regular season matchup. As the team left the court in Vegas, however, a choice made by the higher-ups got some people talking. The NBA, anticipating something similar to the Lakers’ postgame celebration at T-Mobile Arena last year, set the Bucks’ locker room up for a wet and rowdy good time befitting of a conference or league champion. But Milwaukee said “no thanks,” per TNT’s Chris Haynes:

Now, setting aside one’s opinion of a particular brand of light beer and the fact that the champagne wasn’t even in the room itself, let’s unpack this a little bit. Darvin Ham coached the Lakers to the inaugural NBA Cup Final in last year’s tournament, and they entered the title game in the West’s four seed with a 14-9 record, about a 50-win pace. After winning it, they returned to the regular season schedule and dropped 10 of their next 13, finished 47-35, fell to the seven seed, won their play-in game, then were gentlemen-swept by Denver in the first round. Much was made about the Lakers’ post-Cup swoon, so you can’t blame Ham for trying not to repeat it.

We also have the “focus on the remainder of the season” comment. Even if the Thunder won, they reportedly had plans to do the exact same thing. Per Sam Amick of The Athletic:

For both the Bucks and the Thunder, there was internal discussion about the lessons learned by the Lakers and Pacers a year ago and the measures that might need to be taken to avoid such a fate.

Some may not feel Milwaukee is a championship contender currently, but surely OKC is in those people’s eyes; would that not have been their rationale for eschewing the champagne-spraying? That’s a younger, less experienced team too. It’s astute of them to have bigger goals in mind and not get too distracted by what happens in a single game, especially with their massive outlier three-point shooting performance (in the negative sense), something that matters far less in a seven-game series.

Frankly, waxing poetic about how this misses some mark about how winning should be celebrated, a team bonding opportunity was missed, etc., is hilarious to me. We’re talking about getting plastered with your friends in Vegas! Maybe even trashing a locker room that isn’t your own! And the NBA was, in a way, expecting them to do this because they want the NBA Cup to stick. Before you call me the Fun Police, the Bucks should absolutely be proud of themselves, and they can fete their accomplishment a way they see fit. Perhaps that’s a nice dinner and a few expensive bottles of wine for the guys. It doesn’t make sense to party as hard as you would for a bigger accomplishment, and I’m not necessarily referring to an NBA title.

I have my personal opinion about how teams in another American sport celebrate postseason berths or first-round victories. To my knowledge, this has not been part of pro basketball at any point over the past several decades. Teams aren’t aren’t going very hard when they clinch a playoff berth, or popping bottles when they advance to a Conference Finals. Surely those are bigger deals than an NBA Cup win. To the latter outcome, check out the video of Jaden McDaniels here—he looks pretty dry and sober. There certainly are no post-game media scrums where reporters gather at lockers during wild postgame bashes. And this is a franchise that had no series victories in literally two decades!

Then there are those talking about how this was some sort of knee-bending to the wider NBA punditry and social media, avoiding being roasted for partying too hard, especially in the same fashion one does after winning an NBA title. Some even (seriously?) suggest this will come back to haunt them if they make a postseason exit too early. I am skeptical that many, beyond the most ardent haters, will clown the Bucks if they come up short in the playoffs for not taking advantage of the spread last night. “Should have celebrated while you can” for a competition in December, barely a quarter of the way through the season, doesn’t appear to me like a serious take anyway.

I sincerely hope the Bucks had a good time in Vegas and that they took time to savor their victory last night. If guys wanted to celebrate in their own way with their vice of choice, I have no problem with that: they are adults. While a postgame rager in December shouldn’t derail a team’s season if they truly are title contenders, teams that have been there before (like several key holdovers from Milwaukee’s 2021 championship squad) don’t have to get super amped up for their victories along the way, big or small.