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Do you want to see if the Bucks are beginning to take on the personality of their hard-nosed new coach, Scott Skiles, but can’t find time to make the trip? Do you want to see if this team’s revamped lineup can really compete?
Problem solved.
For the second consecutive year, you have a chance to watch the Bucks play in
La Crosse as Milwaukee will take on Mark Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks in the La Crosse Center. Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m. Friday.
A year ago, this game drew a jam-packed — and enthusiastic — crowd of 6,118.
This year? So far, ticket sales have not been through the roof, but John Steinmiller, the Bucks vice president of operations, is hoping the last few days are like last year where hundreds of people purchased tickets on the last day.
“We expect to sell out the building, which is a little less than 6,000,” Steinmiller said. “We would like to have more tickets sold in advance, but hopefully the last few days will be strong.”
As added incentive, the first 2,500 fans through the door will receive a bobblehead of Bucks’ All-Star Michael Redd.
Putting on a preseason game outside of their normal home is a big undertaking, Steinmiller said, as basically the entire Bucks’ operation moves three hours west for a day. That means Game Day personnel, dance teams, halftime acts, and everything else in addition to the team.
“It’s a total move for a day. We’ll take two buses and two trucks with equipment and support,” Steinmiller said.
It’s all worth it, Steinmiller said, if the crowd is as big — and as vocal — as it was last year. If Michael Redd, Andrew Bogut, Charlie Villanueva, Richard Jefferson and Charlie Bell put on a show, then Steinmiller, along with Bucks’ new GM John Hammond, will likely be smiling.
It is a new beginning of sorts for Milwaukee as well as Dallas. The Mavericks have a new coach in Rick Carlisle, who has been highly successful in previous stops at Detroit (100-61) and Indiana (181-147). And, of course, the Mavs have one of the league’s most proven players in Dirk Nowitzki.
Skiles, meanwhile, had successful stops in Phoenix and Chicago as a head coach that followed an 11-year, 6,652-point NBA career as a player.
He inherits a team that went 26-56 last year and finished last in the Eastern Conference’s Central Division, but has eight new players on its roster.
