Milwaukee Bucks
Khris Middleton is making early-season headlines with his three-pointers.
The Milwaukee Bucks have already made the new $524 million Fiserv Forum a place in which opponents “Fear the Deer.” The Bucks are 5-0 at home and off to a 7-0 start — their best since 1971, when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson helped Milwaukee start the season with a 17-1 streak.
After Milwaukee’s 124-109 thumping of the previously unbeaten Toronto Raptors on Oct. 29 at the Fiserv Forum, the Bucks remain the NBA’s only undefeated team.
They are averaging 120 points per game, and the win over the Raptors came without formidable league MVP candidate, 6-foot-11 forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, who sat out for concussion protocol. Now in his fifth year with the Bucks and coming off a season in which he averaged nearly 27 points per game, Antetokounmpo was named the NBA’s 2017 most improved player. Until he was elbowed in the head by Orlando’s Aaron Gordon during a win over the Magic on Oct. 27, he was averaging 25 points and 14.2 rebounds per game.
Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton, who’s shooting 55 percent from the three-point line, are two big reasons why the Bucks are making early-season headlines — and why the 17,500-seat Fiserv Forum could very well host its first NBA playoff series in the spring.
“I think we’ve got really good players,” new head coach Mike Budenholzer recently told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “The roster here was in a great place.” Budenholzer takes over a team that last season posted the best Bucks record in nearly a decade, losing a first-round playoff series to the Boston Celtics in seven games.
The new arena anchors the planned renaissance of a 30-acre downtown Milwaukee district that includes existing buildings, current construction and empty lots. It stands only a few minutes’ walk from its antiquated predecessor, the BMO Harris Bradley Center, which opened in 1988 and is slowly being demolished, and it boasts significantly more social spaces, open concourses, and food and beverage options. Additionally, a 3,922-square-foot center-hung scoreboard is now the largest in the NBA.
Architecturally, the LEED Silver building features high recycled content, regionally sourced materials, bird-friendly exterior glass and low-emission products. Native plants, a composting program and low-flow toilets also are part of the Forum’s sustainable design strategy.
It will be easy to check out the space; eight of Milwaukee next 14 games between Nov. 1 and the end of the month are at home.
