Tracking the larger sentiments of Bucks fans week by week.
As they have basically every season since 2019, the Bucks came into this season with designs on winning a title. But as their key pieces aged, they went from a team within the top three clearest-cut title favorites from 2019–2023ish, Milwaukee was surpassed by other title-winners like Denver and Boston as they endured early playoff exits due to key injuries. Still, to begin the season, they were sixth at +1000 per FanDuel’s odds, in the same general range as Denver, Minnesota, Dallas, and OKC. Though they haven’t fallen as far out as Minnesota and Dallas, they now sit outside the league’s upper echelon.
Or do they? If we go by FanDuel’s odds today, the Khris Middleton-Kyle Kuzma trade only marginally dropped their title chances from +2800 on February 1 to +3300 today. That puts the Bucks in a distant seventh, behind the Celtics (+175), Thunder (+200), Cavs (+900), Nuggets (+1300), Knicks (+1400), and Lakers (+1800). Interestingly, they’re ever so slightly ahead of Memphis, the West’s second seed, who is +3400 but has the league’s fourth-best record and is a full 6.5 games up on Milwaukee. Would that fall of 400 happened even with Middleton? Perhaps that’s what Vegas thinks.
In this week’s Tuesday Tracker, we want to know if you think Vegas is overestimating the Bucks’ odds of winning a second title in five seasons or if teams beneath them are safer bets. We also have a few questions about your thoughts on this year’s All-Star format, the latest in a line of experiments.
As always, this poll will be open until midnight Central on Friday, and we’ll post the results later that day. Thanks for voting!