After winning their first championship in 50 years, Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry is confident that they can achieve similar success next season, he discusses with Anthony Slater of The Athletic.
P.J. Tucker, who was an instrumental part of the Bucks’ success, moved on to the Heat this offseason. Lasry praised him as well as Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry, but still firmly believes his team is better than theirs.
“Ultimately at the end of the day I’d rather have our team,” Lasry said. “… If we’re healthy, you know we should go pretty far.
But I would say the same thing (about other teams). If the Nets are healthy, they should go pretty far. It’s who’s going to be the healthiest when you get there. And it’s been interesting trying to figure out (that part) because I bet you there’s going to be a lot of gaming of this… You want to be the No. 1 seed, but do you want to be the No. 1 seed, or do you want to make sure you’re the healthiest going into the playoffs?”
Many people fully expect the Nets to not only get to the Finals next season, but win, as they would’ve beaten the Bucks in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals last season if Kevin Durant‘s big foot didn’t get in the way.
Still, the Bucks capitalized, and a lot of that has to do with the coaching of Mike Budenholzer, who was seemingly on the hot seat during the postseason. However, he’s now sitting pretty with a nice contract extension.
“Bud is really good,” Lasry said. “I mean, he is. He does have that quiet confidence, which is nice. So I think you go through all of this, and one of the things that I saw — and I told this to Bud — was I said, ‘Look, there was a huge amount of pressure on us, on him, on all of us, because everybody expects you to win.’ And what he showed us during that time is how well he handled the pressure, how well he prepared the team, and what a great job he did, so that after we won, we were like, ‘Look, it’s not like we want to reward you; we want to keep you.’”
Prior to last season, Milwaukee finished with the league’s best record in back-to-back seasons. However, if their playoff runs were any indication, Giannis Antetokounmpo, the league’s MVP in those back-to-back seasons, clearly needed help, and they got just that in Jrue Holiday, as he was instrumental in limiting Chris Paul defensively and carried his weight offensively when the Bucks needed him.
“(General manager) Jon Horst felt that (Holiday) was going to be the missing piece, and he was dead right,” Lasry said. “You know, I remember the first practice and Jrue is covering Giannis. And same thing — Giannis knew Jrue by reputation. After practice that day, Jon says to me, ‘Yeah, Giannis now knows how good he is. (Holiday’s) covering him. He’s good.’ It was actually great. It was. And I think 100 percent it was a huge factor in Giannis re-signing because he saw what we were willing to do.”
If the Nets are healthy, they are the clear favorites to win it all next season, but the Bucks pose the biggest threat to them in the Eastern Conference as things currently stand.
