As a teenager growing up in suburban Milwaukee in 1968, I was ecstatic when the city was awarded an NBA expansion franchise. I was a huge fan of those early expansion players like Jon McGlocklin, Wayne Embry and Len Chappell. I was super excited when the Bucks won the coin toss for the right to draft Lew Alcindor, and I was over the moon when Milwaukee won the NBA championship in 1971.
It all came crashing down in 1974. By then, Alcindor had changed his name to Kareem Abdul Jabbar and pronounced that he was “culturally starved” in Milwaukee and wanted to be traded.