One Year Later: Reflecting on Milwaukee’s Championship

The Milwaukee Bucks have been NBA champions.

Have been.

Banners fly perpetually, the identify “Milwaukee Bucks” will perpetually be etched within the annals of NBA historical past. That grade on the group project can by no means be rescinded. The story of the 2020-21 championship staff will – and may – stay on with the fanbase, and stands as a primary instance of how far expertise, focus, onerous work, and slightly little bit of luck can take you.

However how a lot is an excessive amount of? At what level does reminiscing on the glory of previous achievements begin taking away from the current, or the long run? After some time, does the fixed callbacks to The Season That Was take a improper flip off of Reminiscence Lane and land us straight onto Has-Been Boulevard?

I don’t ask as a result of I need to destroy anybody’s enjoyable. I don’t need to rain on any parades, particularly a parade as improbable as this one was. My concern will not be of residing up to now, however of what comes after: complacency. It’s simple to relaxation in your laurels, to sit back and bear in mind. Are we on the verge of overdoing it? Possibly, possibly not. However the path is there and well-worn by those that walked it earlier than us.

That is, probably, the premise for any pessimism concerning the staff’s outlook for the upcoming season. Are we doing an excessive amount of based mostly on what was, quite than what can be? Sure, we’re within the doldrums of the summer season, there merely isn’t rather more to do than ponder the basketball world of both yesterday or tomorrow. The basketball world of at present is on a well-earned trip. On the identical time, the Bucks did convey again all people once more and can be placing (principally) the identical staff on the court docket once more. It labored two seasons in the past, and it could’ve labored final season if not for an ill-timed knee harm, proper?

Once you deal with the previous, that’s your ego. Once you deal with the long run, that’s your pleasure. Once you deal with the current, whenever you’re within the second, that’s being humble.

…The place have I heard that earlier than?

Benefit from the victory lap, Bucks followers, even when the Golden State Warriors are the present reigning champs. The recollections of the Milwaukee victory within the 2021 NBA Finals is simply a 12 months previous, so there’s nothing improper with re-living it for a short while. Allow us to simply take care that we tuck the recollections away afterwards, and keep away from over-indulging in order that they continue to be particular.

As soon as the following season rolls round, the Bucks are not defending their place on the mountaintop, however combating to return to it. Once we get there, the mentality ought to shift accordingly.

However we’re not there but, so…