The Milwaukee Bucks and Portland Trail Blazers have a lot in common heading into the 2019-20 season.
Both franchises are situated in smaller, traditionally less glamorous markets that tend to be a lot more popular with players once they’ve actually played there. Both teams took major and slightly unexpected steps forward last season. Both teams are built around true superstar, cornerstone talents. Both teams also made it to the Conference Finals only to fall short in 2018-19.
There’s one key difference, though, as while the Bucks are widely tipped to make a return to that stage of the postseason at the very least, some projections in the ultra-competitive West have the Trail Blazers fighting just to make the postseason this year.