History Of The Milwaukee Bucks In The Rising Stars Challenge
By Ti Windisch
Malcolm Brogdon is the latest in a long line of Milwaukee Bucks to participate in the NBA Rising Stars Challenge. Read up on the Bucks who have been there before.
The NBA Rising Stars Challenge began in 1994 as the Rookie Challenge, a game between the NBA’s best rookies. Over the years the Rookie Challenge grew to hold both first- and second-year players, and went from being East vs West, to teams drafted by NBA legends, to World vs USA.
Some of the greatest Milwaukee Bucks in franchise history have played in one form or another of this game, and aside from a long gap in the late 90s/early 2000s there hasn’t been more than three consecutive Rising Stars Challenges without a Buck represented.
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In total, nine Bucks have been selected to play in the Rising Stars Challenge (or the Rookie Challenge.) We’ll go through all nine, including the year(s) they went, their stats from the game, and what they did in that season overall.
Unfortunately Milwaukee does not have a history of balling out at the Rising Stars Challenge. No Buck has ever won MVP honors at the game, and no Bucks have any game records from it either. Maybe this is the year!
Keep in mind that some older players didn’t get a chance to go to consecutive Rising Stars games because only rookies were allowed until 1999. We’ll go from oldest to youngest, and we’ll skip Brogdon for now since he obviously hasn’t gotten to play quite yet.