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MILWAUKEE (AP) \u2014 <\/strong>Much has changed in Milwaukee since the Bucks won their last NBA title a half-century ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nothing reflects the differences more than the melting pot of fans swarming together outside Fiserv Forum playoff games. Fans will flock there again Sunday in hopes of helping the Bucks rally from an 0-2 deficit in the NBA Finals when they host the Phoenix Suns in Game 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The diversity of the crowds is striking considering Milwaukee\u2019s history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Team President Peter Feigin backtracked five years ago after calling Milwaukee \u201cthe most segregated, racist place I\u2019ve ever experienced in my life,\u201d but 49-year-old Milwaukee native LaNelle Ramey \u2014 a Black man \u2014 believes it needed to be said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt forced those who were here, longtime Milwaukeeans, to look in the mirror \u2013 in particular those who didn\u2019t want to believe it,\u201d said Ramey, the executive director for MENTOR Milwaukee, a Bucks-backed organization that fosters mentorship programs for area youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said he took no personal umbrage over Feigin\u2019s 2016 comments. Barrett noted the diversity of his own administrative team while adding, \u201cI\u2019m also very cognizant of the fact we have a very large income gap, education gap, public safety gap in not only the city of Milwaukee but all of southeastern Wisconsin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Feigin believes what the Bucks have done off the court is at least as important as what they have accomplished on the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When asked what his proudest moment is with the Bucks, Feigin doesn\u2019t mention the Eastern Conference title the team just won. He instead cites the players\u2019 decision not to take the floor for a postseason game inside the bubble at Walt Disney World last year following the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their decision led to a leaguewide postponement of playoff games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt really kind of sparked a global pause and awareness for social justice,\u201d Feigin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Barrett said the Bucks \u201cembody not only the team spirit that you see with all the players, but they embody the community spirit of wanting to be a part of the community. It has been true since the day they got here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bucks players engaging in social issues isn\u2019t new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bob Dandridge, a recent Hall of Fame selection who played on the Bucks\u2019 1971 championship team and the 1974 squad that lost the NBA Finals to Boston, said there were plenty of outspoken players on those teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kareem Abdul-Jabbar\u2019s activism inspired the NBA to give out a social justice award bearing his name. Oscar Robertson filed the lawsuit that helped bring free agency to the NBA. Dandridge also wasn\u2019t shy about sharing his views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The difference today, Dandridge says, is the support players receive from management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think it\u2019s an entirely different approach as far as outspokenness with today\u2019s owners and the owners back in the 70s when I was in Milwaukee,\u201d Dandridge said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Team executives also issued a statement standing behind then-Bucks guard Sterling Brown after Milwaukee police took him to the ground and shocked him with a Taser in January 2018 over a parking violation. Brown, one of the leaders of the Bucks\u2019 playoff protest last year, sued the city and eventually reached a $750,000 settlement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Feigin took over as Bucks president in 2014 after Wes Edens, Marc Lasry and Jamie Dinan bought the team, the franchise was struggling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Milwaukee\u2019s 2001 Eastern Conference finals appearance marked the only time the Bucks advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs from 1990 to 2018. The Bucks were playing in the Bradley Center, one of the NBA\u2019s oldest venues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was like finding a unicorn, finding a Bucks fan six years ago,\u201d said Sean Marus, a 28-year-old Bucks fan from the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Times have changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marus was one of about 9,000 fans who poured into Fiserv Forum to watch on a video screen Tuesday as the Bucks played Game 1 of the NBA Finals at Phoenix. Bucks officials said another 20,000 fans gathered in the \u201cDeer District\u201d outside the three-year-old arena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what color you are,\u201d Brandon Cunningham, a 27-year-old Milwaukee resident, said outside Fiserv Forum before Game 1. \u201cEverybody\u2019s here to support the Bucks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Bucks have engaged in social change in Milwaukee and around the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bucks players visited a prison last season to spotlight the need for criminal justice reform. The Bucks teamed up with the Sacramento Kings on a Team Up for Change summit featuring panel discussions on police brutality. They led a protest march through downtown Milwaukee following George Floyd\u2019s death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After Feigin made his comments about Milwaukee in 2016 while speaking at a Rotary Club event in Madison, Wisconsin, he later issued a statement noting he was referring to the city\u2019s economic and geographic divides. As the mayor pointed out, those issues still exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Angela Lang, the executive director for the Milwaukee-based Black Leaders Organizing Communities, believes activists pushing back on issues such as police accountability, spending disparities and clean water has had an impact on unifying Milwaukee residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEven though we\u2019re I think a long way away from being perfect as a city, with that amount of activism and organizing, it feels like we could be on our way to something tangibly real in the next couple of years,\u201d said Lang, whose organization encourages civic engagement from Black residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lang said the Bucks are a major part of the change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt does feel that they\u2019re not just a team,\u201d Lang said. \u201cThey\u2019re actually embedded in part of our community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the court, the Bucks\u2019 run to the NBA Finals has boosted the city, which is reeling from the loss of last year\u2019s Democratic National Convention due to the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Bucks\u2019 turnaround began in 2013 when they drafted two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo with the 15th overall pick and acquired Khris Middleton from the Detroit Pistons. Before this season, the Bucks added guard Jrue Holiday, who has quickly made an impact on the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Holiday donated part of his 2019-20 salary to form the Jrue and Lauren Holiday Social Impact Fund with his wife. Their foundation recently opened a second round of funding to provide up to $1 million in grant money for Black-owned businesses and Black-led organizations in Milwaukee as well as the New Orleans, Indianapolis and Los Angeles areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His contributions have endeared himself to fans starving for a championship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey have made it known that this is just as important to them as it is to us,\u201d Holiday said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the Bucks can find a way to win their first NBA title in 50 years, it would give Milwaukee residents of all backgrounds another reason to celebrate together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MILWAUKEE (AP) – Mucho ha cambiado en Milwaukee desde que los Bucks ganaron su \u00faltimo t\u00edtulo de la NBA hace medio siglo. Nada refleja las diferencias m\u00e1s que el crisol de fan\u00e1ticos que pululan juntos fuera de los juegos de playoffs del Fiserv Forum. Los fan\u00e1ticos acudir\u00e1n nuevamente el domingo con la esperanza de ayudar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-basketball"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111495,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111493\/revisions\/111495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}