The Milwaukee Bucks Tickets : At The Begin, The Bucks Wouldn't Be In The Playoff Race

The Milwaukee Bucks were formed in January 1968 when the NBA awarded a franchise to Milwaukee Professional Sports and Services, Inc

. (Milwaukee Pro), a group headed by Wesley Pavalon and Marvin Fishman. In October, the Bucks played their first NBA regular season game against the Chicago Bulls before a Milwaukee Arena crowd of 8,467. As is typical with expansion teams, the Bucks' first season, 1968/69, was a struggle.

Their first victory came in their 6th game as the Bucks beat the Detroit Pistons 134/118; they would win only 26 more games in their first year. The Bucks' record that year earned them a coin flip against their expansion brethren, the Phoenix Suns, to see who would get the first pick in the upcoming draft. It was a foregone conclusion that the first pick in the draft would be Lew Alcindor (who became Kareem AbdulJabbar in 1971, after converting to Islam) of UCLA. The Bucks won the coin flip, but had to win a bidding war with the upstart American Basketball Association to secure him.

While it was expected that Alcindor would make the Bucks respectable almost overnight, no one expected what happened in 1969/70. They finished with a 56/26 record/a nearly exact reversal of the previous record. This was good enough for the secondbest record in the league, behind the New York Knicks.

The 29 game improvement was by far the best in league history/a record which would stand for 10 years until the Boston Celtics jumped from 29 wins in 1978/79 to 61 in 1979/80 (the difference again being a highlytouted rookie, Larry Bird). They defeated the Philadelphia 76ers in five games in the Eastern semifinals, only to be dispatched in five by the Knicks in the Eastern finals. Alcindor was a runaway selection for NBA Rookie of the Year.

In the 2009 NBA Draft, the Milwaukee Bucks selected promising point guard Brandon Jennings, who had not gone to college, but played in Italy the previous year. The play of Jennings, along with the improvement of Andrew Bogut, the surprisingly improved Ersan Ilyasova, and the John Salmons trade, have catapulted the team to be a playoff contender. Midway through the season Bucks GM, John Hammond traded Hakim Warrick to Chicago, and acquired John Salmons. In a Bucks uniform, Salmons averaged a team leading 19.9 ppg.

At the beginning of the season, the Bucks were viewed as a team that wouldn't be in the playoff race. They hadn't been in four years.

In October, Milwaukee surprised many by taking a commanding lead in the Central division. The Bucks quickly fell behind the Cleveland Cavaliers. Milwaukee ultimately clinched a playoff berth on April 6, 2010 with a road win over the Chicago Bulls. It was during this time that the phrase "Fear The Deer" started, most likely by an ESPN commentator and adopted on message boards and within Andrew Bogut's Squad 6.

The slogan rang well with Bucks fans, who started bringing signs with the phrase to games. The said slogan became the team's battle cry in the NBA Playoffs. The Bucks finished the season with a record of 4636. The Bucks clinched the 6th seed and were eliminated in a hard fought sevengame series against the Atlanta Hawks. It was the farthest Milwaukee had gotten in the postseason since 2001. The Bucks short playoff run was also in part to Andrew Bogut suffering a broken arm after making an awkward fall after a dunk in a lateseason game, thus ending his season.

The Bucks' official mascot is Bango, presently performed by Kevin Vanderkolk. The word "Bango" was originally coined by Eddie Doucette, the longtime playbyplay announcer for the Milwaukee Bucks. Doucette used the word whenever a Bucks player connected on a longrange basket. It was often used for sharpshooter Jon McGlocklin. Appropriately, when it came time for the Bucks to choose a name for their new mascot, the name "Bango" won the contest.

At the 2009 All Star Weekend in Phoenix, Arizona, Bango suffered an injury during a mascotparticipative skit. While standing on one basket's rim, Bango's right leg slipped through the hoop, got caught on the rim, and he fell through the basket entirely. Bango tore his ACL due to the fall and was unable to perform for the remainder of the 200809 season, periodically making appearances at games in a wheelchair. A video of Bango's injury at the 2009 Mascot Challenge was uploaded onto YouTube shortly after the incident occurred .

During Game 4 of the 200910 firstround playoff series between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Atlanta Hawks, Bango successfully performed a backflip dunk from the top of a 16 foot ladder, a feat similar to the Seattle SuperSonics's mascot, Squatch's feat during a March 19, 2008, game between the SuperSonics and the Phoenix Suns.

by: Amanda Harrison

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