Milwaukee and Phoenix were two of five teams in the league with an active championship drought of 50 years or more. Prior to 2021, the Bucks won their only title in 1971, while the Suns have yet to win a title since joining the league in 1968. They were both making their third Finals appearance. Phoenix and Milwaukee each began play as expansion teams in 1968. Both teams were involved in a coin toss for the rights to the first overall pick in the 1969 NBA draft, which the Bucks won and used to select Lew Alcindor, later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, from UCLA. He led the Bucks to their first championship in 1971.
The 2021 Finals was the first since 1971 to not include any players who had previously won an NBA championship, and the first since 2015 that no players on the winning team had prior NBA Finals experience. The Suns' Jae Crowder was the only player in the series who previously played in the Finals, making it just the second time since the first Finals that fewer than two players had previously appeared in the championship series; no players had previously played in the Finals in the 1977 series.
Comments
Post a Comment