Marvin Fishman, 1 of Milwaukee Bucks’ original owners, dies at Wisconsin hospital at age 84

Fishman, 1 of Bucks’ original owners, dies at 84

MILWAUKEE — Marvin Fishman, one of the original owners of the Milwaukee Bucks, died Friday at a southeast Wisconsin hospital following a stroke, his daughter said Saturday. He was 84.

Fishman was instrumental in raising money to bring the Bucks to Milwaukee in 1968. The next year, the team drafted Lew Alcindor, who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The Bucks won an NBA title in 1971.

The team released a statement Saturday expressing its sympathies to Fishman’s wife and three children.

“The entire Milwaukee Bucks organization is deeply saddened at the news of Marv’s death,” the statement said.

Leslie Hayes of Whitefish Bay said her father sold his interest in the team in the mid-1970s. She remembered her father having players over to their house and taking them out after games.

“They just seemed to be regular guys,” Hayes said. “We used to wait for them after games and take them out to dinner.”

Fishman served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. Afterward, he earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing and master’s degree in business administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He started a real estate company in 1952 and later branched out into developing subdivisions.