Milwaukee Bucks Retired Numbers
The Milwaukee Bucks have retired 7 numbers. Each one below records who wore it, the seasons they wore it, and what earned it a place in the rafters.
Back to Milwaukee BucksOscar Robertson
1970-1974
The Milwaukee Bucks raised Oscar Robertson's #1 to honor the player whose long championship wait finally ended in Wisconsin. Robertson had averaged a triple-double across the entire 1961-62 season — 30.8 points, 12.5 rebounds, and 11.4 assists, a full-season feat no one matched for 55 years, until Russell Westbrook in 2016-17 — and had been an MVP and twelve-time All-Star in Cincinnati without a ring.
Why #1 was retiredSidney Moncrief
1979-1989
The Milwaukee Bucks retired Sidney Moncrief's #4 because he gave the franchise a decade of two-way excellence it has never replicated at his position. Moncrief won the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award in 1983, then won it again in 1984 — the first player to claim it in back-to-back seasons and the first to win it in the award's first two years of existence. He was far more than a defender: a five-time All-Star who scored 20-plus points per game in three consecutive seasons and was one of the most efficient mid-range scorers of his era.
Why #4 was retiredJon McGlocklin
1968-1976
The Milwaukee Bucks played their first game in October 1968, and Jon McGlocklin was on the floor. He was there before Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, before the 1971 championship, before Milwaukee became a basketball city — a founding Buck who wore the uniform when the arena was rarely full. A shooting guard from Indiana with precise mechanics, McGlocklin averaged 19.6 points in the franchise's inaugural season as its primary scoring option, then adapted into the spacing specialist a championship team required.
Why #14 was retiredBob Lanier
1980-1984
Bob Lanier came to Milwaukee in 1980 as a veteran center acquired from Detroit, a 6'11" left-handed scorer with a delicate touch, exceptional footwork, and a size 22 shoe — the largest in NBA history. He had spent the first nine seasons of his career in Detroit, averaging 22.7 points and 11.1 rebounds as the Pistons' franchise center during an era when Detroit was competitive but never championship-level. His arrival gave a rising Bucks team built around Sidney Moncrief the interior credibility it needed.
Why #16 was retiredBrian Winters
1975-1983
The Milwaukee Bucks retired Brian Winters' #32 to honor a player whose excellence has been somewhat lost to history but whose number tells you exactly what the franchise thought of what he gave them. Winters was never the biggest name on the roster, but across eight seasons — one of the longest tenures in franchise history — he was the competitive engine that kept Milwaukee relevant between the Kareem championship era and the Moncrief defensive era.
Why #32 was retiredKareem Abdul-Jabbar
1969-1975
The Milwaukee Bucks retired Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's #33 in 1993, acknowledging what the Milwaukee chapter meant before he became a Los Angeles Laker. He arrived in 1969 as Lew Alcindor, a 22-year-old center and the first overall pick, after the franchise won a coin flip with Phoenix for the right to draft him. The three-year-old Bucks, coming off a 27-55 season, were transformed within months.
Why #33 was retiredRay Allen
1996-2003
The Milwaukee Bucks retired Ray Allen's #34 to honor the most complete shooting guard in franchise history — the player who gave Milwaukee a national profile it had not held since the Kareem era. Allen arrived via trade from Minnesota in 1996 and immediately transformed the Bucks' offensive ceiling. A 6'5" guard with the most mechanically perfect shooting form in basketball, he averaged 19.5 points per game across his Milwaukee tenure and 21.8 in his peak seasons.
Why #34 was retired