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The Bucks began NBA play in the 1968-69 season, amalgamation the league with the Phoenix Suns. At the end of their first season, the two teams flipped a coin to decide which team would have the number-one pick in the 1969 NBA draft. The Bucks won and choose Lew Alcindor , who had paced the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) to three directly National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championships.
In Alcindor 's recruit year of 1969-70, the Bucks won 56 games and higher to the Eas tern Division Finals previous to falling to the New York Knicks. In the off-season the Bucks acquire Oscar Robertson , an 11-year veteran and future Hall of Fame member. In 1970-71 the team, which also included onward Bob Dandridge , registered a 66-16 win-loss record. The Becks team marched through the playoffs and swept the Baltimore Bullets (now Washington Wizards) in the NBA Finals. For the season, Alcindor led the league in score with an average of 31.7 points per game and won the NBA 's most precious player (MV P) award.
Throughout three consecutive seasons, from 1971-72 through 1973-74, the Bucks reached the NBA playoffs. Although Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (as Alcindor was now known) won his second as the crow flies scoring title and MVP award throughout the 1971-72 season, the Bucks lost in the meeting finals to the Los Angeles Lakers. A period later the Bucks again were ousted from the playoffs, this time in the meeting semifinals by the Golden State Warriors. In 1973-74 Abdul-Jabbar earned his third MVP award, most important the Bucks to the 1974 NBA Finals next to the Boston Celtics. The Celtics won in seven games, and the series, which featured two overtime games, is careful one of the most unforgettable in professional basketball.
Abdul-Jabbar missed much of the next season because of injuries, and in 1975 the club traded him to the Lakers. with no Abdul-Jabbar the Bucks remained competitive. Under head coach and former Celtics star Don Nelson , Milwaukee higher to the 1978 conference semifinals before losing to the Denver Nuggets, four games to three.
Starting with the 1979-80 season, the Bucks won their separation for seven consecutive seasons, but each year the team lost to the influential Philadelphia 76ers or the Celtics in the playoffs. The 1980-81 team, which built-in center Bob Lanier , forward Marques Johnson, and guard Sidney Moncrief , Quinn Buckner , and Brian Winters, was particularly strong. It compiled 60 victories to win the Central Division, but it misplaced a seven-game series to the 76ers in the meeting semifinals. The results in the next two seasons were similar: the most excellent record in the Central Division and a loss to the 76ers in the conference semifinals.
In 1984 the Bucks lastly defeated the 76ers in the semifinals, but they lost to the Celtics in the meeting finals. Forward Terry Cummings arrived before the 1984-85 season and helped Milwaukee lead the league in protection, but the team lost in the playoffs to the 76ers in 1985 and to the Celtics in 1986. .
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