A new Milwaukee Bucks season is upon us.
The Bucks will tip off the 2024-25 regular season on Oct. 23 when they travel to Philadelphia to take on the 76ers in a game that will be televised on ESPN. The team will play its first home game of the new season two days later against the rival Chicago Bulls.
The Bucks will make 17 regular-season appearances on national television, with games on ESPN (which will air nine games), ABC and TNT. An additional 10 games scheduled to air on NBA TV.
But before the games start to count, the Bucks will host their annual open scrimmage at Fiserv Forum at 10 a.m. Sunday. General admission tickets for the scrimmage are free. Doors will open at 9 a.m.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
Milwaukee held its training camp at the University of California-Irvine earlier this month in an effort to forge stronger bonds among players. After winning the NBA championship in 2021, the franchise’s first in 50 years and only second in its history, the Bucks have had stunning first-round exits from the playoffs over the past two seasons. Those losses came despite having championship-caliber talent, led by franchise cornerstone Giannis Antetokounmpo and star long-range shooter Damian Lillard, who arrived in Milwaukee after a trade with the Portland Trail Blazers just before the start of last season.
The Bucks didn’t sit still in the off-season, making three key free agent signings aimed at boosting the team’s chances of once again competing for an NBA crown. The trio of newcomers includes 25-year-old shooting guard Gary Trent Jr. and veterans Delon Wright and Taurean Prince. All are expected to play significant roles this season.
Holdovers include steady but oft-injured veteran Khris Middleton, who is entering his 12th season in Milwaukee, as well as 36-year-old Brook Lopez, who remains a force in the middle as he enters his 17th season in the league. Fan favorite Bobby Portis, one the league’s top sixth men, also returns.
Pat Connaughton, who along with Antetokounmpo, Middleton, Lopez and Portis are the only players remaining from the Bucks championship team, is likely to be a key contributor again this season.
Draft picks AJ Johnson and Tyler Smith aren’t expected to see much action this season and are viewed as longer-term projects.
Doc Rivers begins his first full season as head coach after being hired as a mid-season replacement for Adrian Griffin, who was fired in January even though the Bucks had the second-best record in the Eastern Conference at the time. Rivers, who was a standout at Marquette during his college playing days, has had a long career in the NBA as a coach and a player. Darvin Ham, a former Bucks player and assistant coach who most recently served as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, returns as Rivers’ top assistant.
There was big offseason news off the court, too, with former Bucks player Junior Bridgeman becoming part of the team’s ownership group when he took a 10% stake in the team in a deal announced in September. He joins co-owners Wes Edens, Dee and Jimmy Haslam, Jamie Dinan and Mike Fiscitelli.
“I’m overjoyed to return to the Bucks, where I spent the heart of my NBA playing career, to join their world-class ownership group,” Bridgeman said last month. “I hope that my life journey serves as an inspiration to current and future players who dream of joining an NBA ownership group. I look forward to cheering the Bucks on this season alongside our great fans.”
Bridgeman, whose No. 2 jersey was retired by the Bucks in 1988 and hangs in the rafters of Fiserv Forum, was one of the NBA’s top players off the bench in his 10-season tenure with the Bucks from 1975-84 and 1986-87.
Following his retirement from the NBA, Bridgeman began investing in restaurants and eventually became owner and CEO of Bridgeman Foods, which operated more than 450 Wendy’s and Chili’s restaurants in 20 states until 2016. The following year, Bridgeman Foods acquired Heartland Coca-Cola Bottling Co., making Bridgeman an independent bottler for Coca-Cola in Illinois, Kansas and Missouri.
