"[13] The Bucks marked a return of the NBA to Milwaukee after 13 years; their previous team, the Hawks, played for four seasons in the early 1950s before moving to St. Louis in 1955 (they are now based in Atlanta).

The Bucks won the coin flip, but had to win a bidding war with the New York Nets of the upstart American Basketball Association (ABA) to secure him.

Not only was this a near-reversal of their inaugural season, but the 29-game improvement was the best in league history – a record which would stand for ten years until the Boston Celtics jumped from 29 wins in 1978–79 to 61 in 1979–80.

After the front office was unable to convince him to stay, the Bucks obliged Abdul-Jabbar's request by trading him to the Lakers on June 16, 1975, for Elmore Smith, Junior Bridgeman, Brian Winters, and David Meyers.

Meanwhile, Benson never played as aggressively again and the Bucks traded him to the Detroit Pistons in 1980 for veteran center Bob Lanier to fill in the hole left by the departure of Abdul-Jabbar.

Within those years, the Bucks became perennial Eastern Conference contenders, primarily due to the strong play of Moncrief, Marques Johnson, Paul Pressey, Junior Bridgeman and the arrival of Craig Hodges, Terry Cummings, Ricky Pierce and Jack Sikma from trades with the Los Angeles Clippers and Seattle SuperSonics respectively.

Under the leadership of Karl and general manager Ernie Grunfeld, and with the steady addition of talent such as Tim Thomas and Sam Cassell, the Bucks developed into an elite team in the Eastern Conference.

The fallout created tension between Karl and the players, resulting in a trade of Glenn Robinson to Atlanta (for Toni Kukoč and a 2003 first-round draft pick, used to select T. J. Ford).

During the 2002–03 season, the Bucks traded Ray Allen and backup Ronald "Flip" Murray to the Seattle SuperSonics for Gary Payton and Desmond Mason.

In April, the Bucks hired John Hammond, formerly vice-president of basketball operations for the Pistons, as their new general manager,[19] giving the Milwaukee team a fresh director recently associated with success.

On June 26, 2008, the Bucks acquired Richard Jefferson from the New Jersey Nets in a trade for 2007 first-round draft pick Yi Jianlian and Bobby Simmons.

[21] In October, the Bucks quickly fell behind the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Central Division, but Milwaukee ultimately clinched a playoff berth on April 6, 2010, with a road win over the Chicago Bulls.

The Bucks' short playoff run was also in part due to Bogut suffering a broken arm after making an awkward fall after a dunk in a late-season game, thus ending his season.

[24] With Bogut sidelined for the rest of the season and Stephen Jackson and head coach Scott Skiles not seeing eye-to-eye, the Bucks decided to trade both players.

On July 6, 2015, Bucks president Peter Feigin stated if public funding for a new arena fell through, the NBA could have bought the team and moved it to Las Vegas or Seattle.

Current Bucks owners Wes Edens, Marc Lasry and Jamie Dinan combined with Herb Kohl to pledge $250 million for a new arena and sought a match from the public.

In addition, the team would add new young improvements to the roster in drafting Thon Maker and Malcolm Brogdon, and made trades to bring in Tony Snell and Michael Beasley.

[44][45] During the first possession of a 2020–21 regular season game against the Detroit Pistons on January 6, both teams took a knee in protest to the announcement that criminal charges would not be filed against police officers in the Blake shooting.

Along with resigning their superstar, the Bucks also made a trade which resulted in Eric Bledsoe and George Hill being sent to the New Orleans Pelicans and receiving a former All-Defense player in Jrue Holiday.

In the 2021 NBA playoffs, the Bucks began by defeating the Heat in a four-game sweep in the first round in a rematch of the previous year's Eastern Conference Semifinals.

In the NBA Finals, the Bucks faced the Phoenix Suns, who were favored after defeating the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference first round.

Antetokounmpo was named Finals MVP after averaging 35.2 points, 13.2 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 1.2 steals, and 1.8 blocks in the series including a 50-point performance in a 105-98 Game 6 victory at Fiserv Forum.

Bango has worked hard to become popular with Bucks fans throughout the state of Wisconsin over the years, appearing at schools, parades, and festivals as a goodwill ambassador for the team.

His high-flying acrobatic layups, daring rebounds, and other entertaining antics still play an important role in energizing Bucks fans at the Fiserv Forum.

Bango tore his ACL due to the fall and was unable to perform for the remainder of the 2008–09 season, periodically making appearances at games in a wheelchair.

For the 2018–19 season, Milwaukee's "City" uniform will pay homage to Robert Indiana's famous MECCA court, featuring yellow, beige and red as base colors and light blue and forest green on the hem of the shorts.

This design, with a predominantly green base, featured "Bucks," the uniform number and piping in white with black trim, and stylized antlers on each side.

Notes: Since the 2007–08 season, all Bucks games not nationally broadcast have aired exclusively on regional cable television over FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin.

[78] Since the 2023–24 NBA season, due to the bankruptcy of the parent company of Fan Duel Sports Network, select games have aired instead on WMLW-TV in English and WYTU-TV in Spanish using FanDuel's production.

During that time, former Buck Marques Johnson also was in the booth for selected games, but became the new permanent color commentator for the 2018–19 season when the team moved to the Fiserv Forum.