Milwaukee Bucks Roundtable: Ready for the 2019-20 season to begin

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself, what the Bucks mean to you, and what you hope to bring to your coverage of the team this season?

Adam McGee (@AdamMcGee11): This is going to be my sixth season covering the Bucks at Behind the Buck Pass, so I’m sure many of you reading this will be familiar with me by now!

If not, a brief introduction would likely include that I’m from Dublin, Ireland, and therefore cover the Bucks from across the ocean and six hours into the future. In all, I’ve been blogging about the NBA for eight years, and have also occasionally written about other sports such as soccer, golf, and MMA, as well as movies, during that time. I’ve just completed my masters degree in Film and TV at Dublin City University, and I also work in sports social media outside of BTBP.

I ended up covering the Bucks, and running a Bucks site, somewhat by accident (and thanks to Zaza Pachulia) all those years ago, but in the time since I’ve become deeply invested in all things Bucks, and interested in Wisconsin beyond that. It’s been a wild journey so far that’s been made better by all of the great people I’ve gotten to know along the way. Now, my hope is that while I continue to share my every waking thought about the team in article, podcast, and tweet forms this season, the Bucks can cap it all off by getting their hands on the Larry O’Brien next June.

Dan Larsen (@DanLarsen34): Hi everyone! I’ve been a contributor here at Behind the Buck Pass on and off for a few years now. I wrote for the site originally while I was in law school from the fall of 2014 until the Fall of 2016, and rejoined the team again in December of last year.

When I’m not writing about the Milwaukee Bucks, I contribute for Reviewing the Brew, and for 93:20 which is a site about Manchester City Football Club. I’ve also guested on a few Win in 6 Podcasts with Adam and Jordan, which is a ton of fun, and I had a chance to appear as a guest on ESPN Milwaukee Radio over the summer to discuss the Milwaukee Brewers Trade Deadline moves.

Outside of sports writing, I’m an attorney. I graduated from UW-Madison Law School in May of 2017, and practiced criminal defense for a while after graduation. More recently, I started my own political blog/site called Blue Moon Wisconsin back in July. I’m also a political organizer and activist for Democratic campaigns and causes. I’m currently a team leader for Elizabeth Warren’s campaign in my home county of Ozaukee County, and I’ve been volunteering my time with the Wisconsin State Democratic Party too.

I’ve been a Bucks fan for pretty much my entire life! I first got into the team as a little kid and suffered, like most of us did, through the years of mediocrity that followed their 2001 run to the Eastern Conference Finals. I stuck those seasons out and never completely lost my love for the game. Boy did that pay off! Seeing this team now, being a legit contender for an NBA title, and having arguably the best player in the league on their team, is such an uplifting experience after going through that! It’s a special time in Milwaukee! Let’s hope this team can build on the success of last season.

Benjamin Sewell (@BenjaminSeweii): G’day mates! I’ve been writing on and off for Behind the Buck Pass since 2017 and have been a die-hard Bucks fan since 2009 (long live Bogut-Jennings PnRs). When I’m not spouting total rubbish about the Bucks/NBA on the website, I’m doing it with my mates on a podcast we run called Pencil’s Ballercast (shameless plug). Away from Basketball, I am a Physiotherapist living in Australia. I’m currently 14 weeks post ACL Reconstruction and am personally racing Klay Thompson (had his operation the same day as mine) back to basketball.

The highs and lows of last season really took it out of me and, this season, I’m hoping for much more of the same. Many general NBA fans conveniently forgot we were 2-0 up in the ECF last season against Kawhi and the Raptors and took Game 3 to overtime. This team is championship calibre and I personally believe 2020 will be our year. GO BUCKS!

Ryan Dean (@Rybread120): This will be my first year writing and contributing to Behind the Buck Pass. I am super excited to get into the swing of things. I have been a Bucks fan my whole life and will continue to love the Bucks until the day I die. I am currently a junior in college at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (still not 100 percent sure how I got here) studying Sports Media and Communication. I am a die-hard fan of all Wisconsin teams, the Washington Capitals, and the Nebraska Cornhuskers. One of my favorite Bucks players from past teams was Michael Redd. Currently my favorite player on the Bucks is Khris Middleton. I love the iso moves that Middleton pulls out from time to time, especially the double behind the back spin move crossover that he pulled off earlier in the preseason. I do however really really miss Brogdon, I loved how mature he was and how smart he was with his passes.

In all honesty, I don’t have a ton of writing experience but I really hope I can learn through practice and slowly find my voice and become a better reporter and writer. I want all the critique I can get and all the tips and pointers I can remember. I am really excited to get my feet wet in this industry and to gain connections through this site as well as other sites. I am very interested in player profiles and trying to tell the story of a player that goes deeper than stats. I also want to do pieces that are more personality stores rather than game pieces, although I am definitely interested in trying all styles of writing.

Looking towards this season, from an unbiased point of view, I truly feel the Bucks are the deepest team with some of the best veteran talent in the league. I hope the Bucks can make it to the NBA Finals this season and obviously win it all, which isn’t too far fetched. I think the Bucks can slightly improve their overall record and it would be a perk if they could go an entire season of not losing to the same team twice. BUCKS IN SIX!

Logan Beatty (@Logeyj): Hello! This will also be my first year as a contributor to Behind the Buck Pass. I had previously written for a little known (and little read) fantasy football website called Loaded Box where I barely wrote about football. It was a free flowing and loose writing experience, so I am going to have to learn how to rein it in a bit! When I’m not writing or obsessing over my large Greek son, I am an advisor at a small private University in La Crosse.

Being a lifelong supporter of the Milwaukee Bucks is like, the truest representation of being an actual fan of something. I mean how many people would see mediocrity, bad decision making, and an otherwise listlessness toward success and go, “yeah, that appeals to me!” Well that was me as a kid and for some reason it never left. Sure I love the Packers and Brewers, but with the Bucks it just hits different. I cried when Ray Allen got traded in the 7th grade, thought T.J. Ford was going to be awesome because Paul Wall repped (and rapped!) about him in a video, and still to this day think the Bucks are making some noise in 2010 if Amar’e Stoudemire doesn’t give Bogut that itty-bitty shove in the back. But now those decades of drab have FINALLY PAID OFF (even if the smallest little voice in my head is telling me this ownership group stinks and will ruin everything. See: Malcolm Brogdon and the $10 million trade exception fiasco). I’ve never been more excited to be a fan of this team, and having the opportunity to write about them is so damn cool I can hardly stand it. I’ve begun to take a real interest in sports betting lately, for entertainment purposes only, of course, and I thought it would be fun to maybe be fun to have a little “Betting the Bucks” segment I could look into.

Gabby Stockard (@gabriela_sky7): Hi everyone! I am a student living in Utah at Brigham Young University, studying journalism with an emphasis in sports broadcasting. My absolute dream is to be a sideline reporter (hopefully for the Bucks) in the future. This is my first season with BTBP and I am looking forward to enhancing my sports writing with the team.

As most of you all are, I am a lifelong Milwaukee Bucks fan and grew up going to all the games with my dad as he’s a season ticket holder. I was titled the “Bucks Fan of the Year” in 2014 and I think that’s one of my greatest accomplishments – ha! I love the Bucks so much that my Lakers fan (ew, I know) husband proposed to me at Fiserv Forum, and so clearly he knew how much the Bucks mean to me. Watching and meeting players like Michael Redd and Andrew Bogut (and even T.J. Ford who was once my favorite when I was younger, and I loved him so much I mailed him a letter when he was injured), are some of my favorite memories.

Though I’ve always been a huge fan, I am recently beginning to write more about the team and learning along the way. I haven’t written much when it comes to sports, but have wanted to become more experienced, and I believe BTBP is going to be that for me. On the other hand, I’m hoping I can contribute to the site by bringing new perspectives and feature stories that readers will be interested in. I want to go beyond opinions and analyzing, and look deeper into the stories behind the team. I am very grateful for this opportunity and look forward to getting to know you all better, and winning a championship this season!

Brennan Olin (@brennan_olin): Hello everyone! I guess I’ll start off with some of the basics; I’m 23 years old, graduated from UW-Whitewater with a finance degree, and moved to Florida to be with my girlfriend who is following her dreams of being an Imagineer for Disney. This is my first season at BTBP, and I’m super excited to share my love and enthusiasm for the Bucks with you all.

To put it simply, the Bucks mean absolutely everything to me. I fell in love with them at a very young age, and I’ve been a diehard fan ever since. This year is actually going to be tough for me, because it’s the first year since I became a fan that my dad and I won’t be going to the home opener together. It really sucks living in Florida during the season, but hey, I’m still ready to cheer the deer from a distance.

This season, I hope to bring all the readers a level of passion and insight that not many people can provide. I want to make my pieces emotional and real; that way all the Bucks fans that have been here for the long haul can relate to me on a personal level. We’ve been through a lot of tough years as Bucks fans, and this is the year the Bucks will finally pay us back for it!

Joseph Corrao (@Joey_Corrao22): Hello fellow Bucks enthusiasts! I’m 22 years old and attend the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh. This will be my final school year as I will be wrapping up a History degree. I have had a bit of a wild ride in deciding my major in college as this will be the third major I’m aiming for while the other two were Business and Education. I also work for the college as an intramural sports supervisor which is a lot of fun especially on the nights I get basketball. I’m a new contributor to BTBP, and I’m very excited to write about the Milwaukee Bucks in what should be a great season!

I have grown up a Milwaukee Bucks fan my whole life through the bad, mediocre, and now great. My dad had season tickets throughout my whole childhood, and a lot of my favorite memories are at the now demolished Bradley Center. I love to show my Milwaukee Bucks fandom in public too. To show that fandom off my car has a bucks sticker and license plate cover, a Milwaukee Bucks lanyard for my keys, and I’ll usually be repping the Bucks with my outfits as well. I sometimes will be a little too much of a Bucks fan, if that is possible, by yelling at the TV to show frustrations. Those frustrations have understandably gone down over the past season though, for good reasons!

In terms of what I hope to bring to BTBP, I want to be able to write down and show my passion of the Milwaukee Bucks to the public. I hope to bring forth engaging and thought provoking topics that make Bucks fans think. I want to be able to create some sort of conversation, so us as Bucks fans can learn and grow together. A dream of mine has always included an opportunity to write about the Bucks and BTBP has allowed that, and I couldn’t be more excited to begin working with Bucks experts like yourselves.

Jordan Treske (@JordanTreske): (in Dr. Nick voice) Hi, everybody! This will be my fifth full season covering the Bucks, alongside Adam, and that’s obviously a lot of time and investment spent thinking, writing and podcasting about the Bucks both on and off the court. But I’m obviously proud of what we and countless others have done to build up BTBP to what it is today, and hope all those that follow and read the site can see that each and everyday, especially as we head into a new season.

It’s been a long journey following the Bucks for much of my life and my relationship/fandom has certainly transformed into something else entirely as I’ve written and taken a more critical eye watching the team over the last several seasons. What was once an outlet to explore what had been a lifelong hobby of mine has turned into a staple in my daily life and while there are certainly challenges occasionally, I can honestly say I’ve enjoyed every step along the way. Even more so as the Bucks have risen out of the mediocrity that summarized the end of the Herb Kohl era to the Larry O’B trophy contenders they have become going into this season.

Now if I can only get my hands on a Miles Plumlee toothbrush holder, my life will be set.