I can’t imagine that Adam Silver is going to be terribly thrilled with how the Milwaukee Bucks decided to celebrate … or rather not celebrate … their NBA Cup win.

In case you missed it, the Milwaukee Bucks won the second-ever NBA Cup with an easy 97-81 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Instead of popping champagne bottles and pouring beers on each other in the locker room after the victory, the Bucks opted to keep things casual.

They threw on t-shirts, sported hats, and accepted their medals and trophy on the floor after the game. However, once things got to the locker room, it was business as usual. The goggles stayed on the counter and the drinks stayed in the cooler.

According to NBA Insider Chris Haynes, the lack of a locker room celebration came at the advice of current Bucks assistant Darvin Ham. The former head coach of the Lakers led LeBron James and Co. to an in-season tournament victory last year.

Bucks Opt Out Of Big Celebration

Last season on December 9th, the Lakers beat the Pacers 123-109 to win the inaugural NBA Cup. After that win, L.A. went on to drop 10 of their next 13 games. Now, did celebrating that tournament win have anything at all to do with that? Probably not. But given how terribly the Bucks’ season started, keeping the status quo isn’t an awful idea!

Milwaukee was dreadful to begin the 2024-25 campaign getting out of the gates with a 2-8 record. Since that point, though, they’ve made a nice run and now sit at 14-11. At 5th place in the Eastern Conference, they’re still not where they want to be, but they have to be happy with where they’re at given the start.

It will be interesting to see how annoyed Adam Silver is by Doc Rivers’ squad opting out of the locker room party. The NBA Commissioner is trying his best to make the NBA Cup feel like an important accomplishment, and while it’s been more fun than expected, it still probably doesn’t move the needle in the way the league wants it to. The stakes just don’t feel big enough, and it’s hard to make a trophy pop up and matter out of thin air.

The question now is how will the Bucks celebrate the accomplishment back at Fiserv Forum. Will they raise a banner similar to the Lakers or continue to act like this was just another regular season victory?