The roster the Bucks assembled this summer might have more wins in it than the projection suggests.
The national forecast for the Milwaukee Bucks in their first season without Giannis Antetokounmpo is a rough one.
ESPN's 2026-27 Summer Forecast, released Monday, projects Milwaukee to go 25-57 and finish 14th in the Eastern Conference, ahead of only Brooklyn.
The panel of ESPN insiders put New York and Detroit at the top of the East at 53-29 apiece, while the Bucks were slotted with the rebuilding teams at the very bottom.
That is a strange place to be for a franchise that won a title in 2021, and the season really comes down to whether the group they got back for their superstar can outplay the number.
How Milwaukee Got Here
The Bucks went 32-50 last season and finished 11th in the East, and the slide cost them their franchise player.
Milwaukee sent Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis to Miami in the July trade, and the return was built on volume, with Tyler Herro, Kel'el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kasparas Jakucionis, No. 13 pick Nate Ament and a package of future draft capital coming back, per Field Level Media.
The franchise also has a new voice in charge after Taylor Jenkins was named head coach in April following Doc Rivers stepping down.
Whether the new group fits together is a fair question on this board, and the front office may not be done, as there has been talk about what it would take to add Jalen Duren from Detroit.
The Case for More Wins
The roster is not a typical bottom-five group.
ESPN's Jamal Collier wrote in the forecast that Milwaukee still has a collection of solid veterans led by Herro and Myles Turner along with a mix of young talent, and that is a real foundation.
Herro averaged 20.5 points per game in an injury-limited 33 appearances for Miami last season, and he has already pushed back on the doubters.
"Obviously, there's going to be people who probably don't think we're going to win many games. But that's the opposite of what we're thinking," Herro said at his youth camp in New Berlin this month, per WISN.
Ware and Jaquez give Jenkins two more rotation pieces who have produced early in their careers, while Jakucionis and Ament arrive as the young swings in the deal, the players Milwaukee is asking its fans to be patient with.
There is also a version of this season where a veteran like Caris LeVert becomes a trade chip, a scenario already being debated, which would push the rebuild further along.
The Honest Answer
Beating a 25-win projection does not require contending.
It requires health from Herro, a real leap from Ware or Jaquez, and Jenkins finding a defensive identity around Turner.
Those are reasonable asks, though a team with this many new faces usually needs a couple of months to sort out roles, rotations and who takes the last shot, so patience early would be wise.
The floor is low, but the range of outcomes feels wider here than it does for most rebuilding teams.
The smart bet is that Milwaukee lands somewhere in the low 30s, clearly better than the forecast but still a long way from where this franchise stood a few summers ago.
