When you’re thinking about the Milwaukee Bucks, what comes to mind first? Nothing? Thought so. Not much is associated with this laughing stock of a sports franchise. I usually think first of Nelly’s “Heart of a Champion,†the rap song with more sports references and metaphors per capita than any hip hop tune in history. It also samples the beat from the old NBA on NBC theme song.
“gettin Buck like Michael Redd, tell ’em again
I gets Buck like Michael Redd, heard what I said?â€
But my favorite lyric….
“With the look in my eyes I say, here comes a man with more heart than Hallmark on Valentine’s Dayâ€
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Are Bucks Devalued Currency?
Welcome to “Holiday Road: Milwaukee Bucks†by Paul M. Banks. Usually in this segment I focus on the franchise/program I’m visiting by giving you some history, facts about the city, nuggets, tidbits, stories from my experience at the stadium and then a sideshow recapping the zany people I encountered on this wonderful trip round the bases of America. This will have some of the regular material, but I just didn’t feel too compelled to spend much time talking about this sad sack of a franchise. Not many care to read about them. What I will do later is devote some time to why this is partially the NBA’s fault and how these dire straits came to be. In the meantime, here’s a video of Bill Simmons dunking on his rival, the Knicks’ Isiah Thomas.
One thing you should never do is purchase Bucks tickets ahead of time online. They’ll start losing and then the ticket office will start cutting prices. Or you’ll be able to upgrade and get really good seats for a fraction of face value from the guys on the street when you reach the Bradley Center. Or if you’re like me, some weird but nice hippy guy will come up to the 400 level and just give you great seats for free for no reason. And then you’ll laugh that it took him three quarters of a game to find someone willing to accept those free tickets. I swear if your house gets burglarized in Milwaukee, I bet the burglar will leave you his Milwaukee Bucks tickets. The close to courtside experience was awesome though! You can hang out in the “courtside club†afterwards with all the cool Bucks memorabilia on display. And drink “honeybears,†an awesome tasting concoction of Leinienkugel’s Honey Weiss and Berry Weiss that I wish was as readily available in various places in Illinois as it is in the Cheesehead state.
And on this night I got to witness a group of people that must have been the Pabst family heirs or something. Towards the end of this game, in which Steve Nash’s Phoenix Suns were utterly destroying the Milwaukee Bucks, this pretty attractive group of people started to leave early, cutting through the first row and waving at everybody in the stands as they left. From that spot, it was like they were waving goodbye to the entire 100 level. They were acting like the grand marshals of a parade. I was -  “like who the hell do you people think you are? Acting like you’re the main attraction here…why should we care about you leaving?†I got up and did a sarcastic wave and sardonically blew kisses to them as if their absence for the last five minutes would have an impact on me. Maybe they were the heirs to the Miller brewing family!
The Bucks have become such a laughable franchise lately, that there is grassroots political action currently being taken to hire ESPN’s Bill Simmons as their General Manager.
https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8672323194
https://www.hirebillsimmons.com/
I like big Bucks and I cannot Lie
The Bucks history has some highlights. They went to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2001, won the conference four years before I was born and won a title three years before that. Their list of retired numbers include Alvin Robertson and the fun to say names Sidney Moncrief and Junior Bridgeman. The most famous player in franchise history, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was dominant when he was here, but he spent less than a third of his pro career in Milwaukee. So he’s not really a Buck as much as he is a Laker. In the 80s and early 90s, the team sported uniforms that had every shade of green imaginable (and some shades of green that were unimaginable). These were cool, as were the green and purple outfits that featured a switch from the cartoonish happy buck to the serious and threatening looking buck. The current Christmas uniforms of red and green look pretty lame, as do a couple members of their dance squad “Energee.†From the 400 level of the stadium they all look pretty hot, but when you’re courtside, you’ll notice the weaker members of the unit very easily. Still they are collectively much more attractive than the Luvabulls, dance team of the Chicago Bulls. But then again that’s not saying much. The Luvabulls captain is Miss Illinois, Shannon Lerse, a PhD. Candidate at DePaul according to a Red Eye story. Amongst a pool of professional sports team dancers, you’ll find most have a greater chance of possessing an illegitimate child (or two or three) than they do an advanced degree. So Shannon is not only gorgeous, but she also totally destroys the stereotype you might have for professional cheerleaders. The rest of the unit though, doesn’t bring very much to the table. I guess they’re kind of like the Cleveland Cavaliers with Shannon as their LeBron.
The second coolest thing about this stadium is the roasted almonds and pecans. (Hey, vegetarians need to get their protein somewhere!) They taste as good as they smell and the sugar glaze or whatever they put on them tastes even better than the roasted nuts at Michigan State’s Breslin Center. The first coolest thing about this stadium is how the sound system plays bites of distinctive songs for each player when they score. For the raised in Australia Andrew Bogut, it’s men at work’s “down under†for #7 Ramon Sessions, it’s the theme song of 007 James Bond. For former Michigan State Spartan Charlie Bell, it’s the old disco song “Ring my bell.†Every player has a song and it almost makes you forget what a crappy team you’re watching.  By the way, the Bucks are looking for your help in how to improve the fan going experience, you can help them out here.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=7CcGx4SV3eqLZ6mA571c0g_3d_3d&c=1346879
Stacy, thankfully not spelled Stacee, is my favorite member of Energee!
Ain’t Nuthin but a Gangsta Party
A couple years out of college, during David K.’s senior year at Marquette, I visited and partook in his “ghetto party.†You know what those are, and if you don’t, take a look at an embarrassing picture of TSB’s top two officers from that party below.
Yeah, I’m pretty brave to post this pic of us doing the “West Coast” sign we saw from the cover of the 2pac album. Pretty white if you ask me
The fact that I went to one of these in Milwaukee on the campus of a team that shares it’s home arena with an NBA team that can’t draw anyone to their games, is more than coincidence. It’s the circle of life. When I see a guy dressed as Bishop Don Magic Juan next to me in line for pizza at the game, it only verifies that this is all part of that enchanted, all-knowing circle. Why no one cares about the Bucks, is part their fault for being awful, part the NBA’s fault for driving fans away. The “thuggish ruggish†element in the NBA and the media’s often incorrect portrayal of it is half the equation. (We did a study on this last May) I only have a few white friends who like the NBA, and one of those friends named his AOL Buddies list “My Thugz,†so he’s not truly white.Â
The other half of the diminishing NBA relevance equation is skyrocketing ticket prices despite fan apathy. This is about as dumb as cutting taxes at home while raising an army to invade another country. (But we’ve seen that act of economic retardedness just take place too.) I’m perfectly fine with a league marketed to thug culture, but when it’s priced for executive culture, they are shooting themselves in the foot. The Bucks are a good case study in this, moronically defying the basic economic principles of supply and demand. However, my hometown Bulls are just as awful when it comes to raising prices even though interest is fading. There’s a reason the Bulls and Bucks have to hard sell you with gimmicks and ticket price reductions for the late season games. It’s because the original ticket prices were ridiculously overpriced to begin with. Chicago used to have a ton of $10 seats available for every game and you used to be able to then sneak down to wherever you wanted in the 300 level. Now those $10 seats are somehow sold out by the first day of the online presale. Not the first day that tickets go on sale mind you, but the first presale day. Yet every Bulls game I’ve attended has had numerous “fans dressed as empty seats†in every section.Â
Show any remote interest in purchasing any type of season ticket plan and the sales department WILL STALK YOU. Seriously, Stacy, the stalker ex-girlfriend character in Wayne’s World showed more self-awareness and self-restraint than the Bulls ticket agent I encountered. The Bulls, with their no halfway decent seats available for under $80 policy, joined the Bucks this February and March in hosting games that had no impact on the postseason. Both will likely spend April tanking their games in order to get better lottery position. Most of my friends don’t care about the NBA anymore, and only one of those that still does lives in Chicago. He actually lives in the far north suburbs, so when you factor in the Bulls ticket price inflation and how people begging for change in front of the Bradley Center will give you free Bucks tickets, it almost makes more sense for us to come here instead.
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So what happened to the NBA?
I have legions of New England Patriots fan readers of my work who love the Red Sox almost as much, but do not care about the Celtics. (I won’t ever bring up the Boston Bruins because the NHL is so irrelevant, it’s not even worth making fun of.) Yes, these New Englanders who love the Sox and Pats, do not care about their hometown NBA team. A team with the best record in the league and one of the richest traditions of ANY sports franchise. Now when I say that I’ve lost interest in the NBA, I mean it’s become a lot less enticing than it used to be. I still think the playoffs rock, with the TNT 40 games in 40 nights being almost as exciting as March Madness; and when the Bulls are good, I do find myself paying attention to the rest of the league more. And with Utah Jazz point guard Deron Williams emerging to become the best professional player in University of Illinois basketball history, I have found much to pay attention to. However, like most people I know, I find the NBA way less interesting than the other two major sports. And it wasn’t always this way. Sure, I started following the NBA in junior high (what the hell is “middle schoolâ€?) in the Chicago suburbs as the Bulls were starting to win titles, so my interest in the league can probably only go downhill from there. I’m just surprised everyone else’s did as well. Only you can answer why you yourself have tuned out since the 90s. My answer:Â
MICHAEL JORDAN AS A WIZARD, THAT’S WHAT RUINED THE NBA FOR ME.
They desperately tried to revive rapidly dwindling fan interest, but killed it instead with this cheap publicity stunt. To me that never happened. Michael Jordan was never a Wizard, and I (like most real Bulls fans), don’t look at those years as part of his career. I’m also trying to erase all memory of the time Mariah Carey performed the MJ tribute at half time of the All Star game in 2004. I can accept the fact that M Jeff took time off to play minor league baseball during the prime earning years of his basketball career. I mostly accept this because I completely buy into the conspiracy theories about how he was being suspended from the NBA for his destructive off-the-court behavior: some theories say it was his gambling, others say it was his adulterous philandering they wanted to punish for fear of it ruining his image and the reputation of the league. I just don’t accept the idea that the ultimate corporate marketing department disguised as a human being and absolute king of personal competitiveness would just leave the game that made him an emperor during his peak to pursue a silly and Quixotic baseball dream. Jordan doesn’t make decisions that don’t make business sense. And this maneuver made his financial bottom line look a lot worse for a couple years. Like the whole military-industrial complex, not one lunatic, killed JFK theory, it just makes too much sense that David Stern and company would use this baseball thing as an excuse to keep devastatingly bad PR from being released about Jordan, the man who has done more than ANY individual to raise the profile of ANY professional sports league.
 
Of course, the NBA is going to protect the man who was the global face of the league for the entire 1990s. Jordan was an amazing athlete, possibly without parallel. He was so intensely competitive that he would stop practice if they weren’t scoring correctly and he un-retired twice. Like Frank Lloyd Wright or General Patton, sometimes you have to be a completely egomaniacal asshole in order to get results. I accept that. If it means punching teammates who screw up in practice drills or throwing chairs at incompetent teammates at halftime of games, so be it. I accept all these inconvenient truths about the greatest player in basketball history and the best athlete in Chicago sports history. However, Michael Jordan, taking the court in a Washington Wizards jersey? No, that is unacceptable and I’ve never looked at the league in the same way since.
On Deck: Orlando Magic
In the Hole: Detroit Tigers or Milwaukee Brewers
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