You have to be right

And you have to be right a year early

BY HENRY ABBOTT

Not long ago, the Bucks were champions. Nobody expects that anymore. STACY REVERE/GETTY IMAGES

’Tis the season for NBA previews, and we’ve reached the point where everyone from John Hollinger to Las Vegas has moved the Bucks somewhere a little outside contention. The consensus seems to be that sure, there’s a chance the Bucks win it all, but there’s a much greater chance that the Celtics win—or the Thunder, Knicks, Nuggets, Wolves, 76ers, or Mavericks. 

Ouch. Milwaukee is not New York, where people pack Madison Square Garden whether or not the Knicks are good. I lived in Wisconsin for a while after college, during the Big Dog years, when you barely had to pay for a Bucks ticket. It’s a football state that flirts with curling and, on occasion, basketball. 

But then the Bucks brilliantly drafted Giannis Antetokounmpo in 2013. By 2021, he’d blossomed into unstoppable and had been paired with the exceptional Jrue Holiday, Khris Middleton, and Brook Lopez under a bona fide coac…