The Milwaukee Bucks may have had a nightmarish start to the 2024-25 season, but they have since turned things around. And on Tuesday night, the Bucks’ efforts were vindicated with a commanding 97-81 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Cup finals – giving them a piece of silverware that should now spur them on to bigger and better things as they look to climb the standings Eastern Conference to move up.

And amid the Bucks’ success, an unsung hero takes center stage as fans recognize the greatness of Milwaukee assistant coach Darvin Ham in the NBA Cup, dubbed the NBA In-Season Tournament in its first season. Ham, as you may recall, was the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers team last season that won the in-season tournament and remained undefeated. Now that the Bucks are also undefeated, there is no doubt about Ham’s greatness in this regard – among the fans who are in a… wild jokes as a result.

Even Taurean Prince, now joked to be Ham’s son, stakes his claim as the greatest NBA Cup player of all time. He was also part of last season’s Cup-winning team and now started all of the Bucks’ games on their way to the Silver Cup in Las Vegas.

“Taurean Prince and Darvin Ham are the Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson of the season,” wrote X user @JCPagnie.

“Darvin Ham and Taurean Prince are still undefeated in the NBA tournament during the season 🙌,” @taylormade added.

“Taurean Prince is a two-time NBA Cup champion, that’s crazy,” @its2fye continued.

The Bucks will now have to be wary of suffering the same decline that the Lakers suffered after winning the Cup last season, but they should just cross that bridge when they get there.

Darvin Ham and the Bucks are showing the NBA world they’re on guard

The coaching duo of Darvin Ham and Doc Rivers were constantly mocked early in the season as the Bucks got off to a disappointing start. But since NBA Centel tweeted that Rivers was now taking coaching seriously, Milwaukee has turned the season around — and even won the NBA Cup.

Their attempt to win everything in the cup is no joke. They had to overcome a tenacious Orlando Magic team that pushed them to the brink despite the absence of Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero while fending off the strong attacking Atlanta Hawks. And they stepped up defensively to give the Thunder a terrible 33.6 percent shooting percentage as a team.