“It’s not just [that] the Milwaukee Bucks won a championship after 50 years,” Eglash told The Jerusalem Post. “It’s 50 years of listening to every game on the radio, or watching it on TV or following the box scores.”
Eglash made aliyah from Milwaukee 25 years ago before the age of live streams and VPNs, which is how most people in Israel watch American sports today.
“I thought I would have to give up on my favorite sports teams,” Eglash said. “At that time it was more difficult to get the stream and watch the games and follow your team. I made a commitment to myself that I wasn’t going to [give up on them].”
His father, who had been a Milwaukee basketball fan during the Milwaukee Hawks era of the early 1950s, helped him keep his promise. He would mail his son newspaper articles and cutouts of the box score from Bucks games from Milwaukee after he made aliyah. He passed away in December 2020.
Those box scores helped Eglash maintain a close connection with his team while he was in Israel. He would watch for patterns in statistics and take note of great performances from Sidney Moncrief to Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Eglash was also able to show his son his love for his hometown team. His son is currently serving in the IDF and woke up in the middle of the night to watch the Finals with his army buddies who aren’t necessarily Bucks fans.
Even though the Bucks are a small-market team, they’ve grown in prestige over the last few years. They finished first in the Central Division in the last three seasons and made it to the Conference Finals in 2019 after a 60-win regular season, the most in the league that season.
Then there’s Antetokounmpo. The “Greek Freak” won the NBA’s most valuable player award in 2019 and 2020. He was also 2020’s defensive player of the year and a five-time All-Star.
He took his game to another level in the finals. He averaged 35.2 points per game in the six-game series, up from 28.1 in the regular season. He scored a season-high 50 points in the clinching Game 6 and was awarded Finals MVP.
“Over the last couple years, [there are] more and more Giannis Antetokounmpo jerseys in the playgrounds of Israel,” Sam Foss, a friend of Eglash and another die-hard Israeli Bucks fan observed. “The Bucks are known here, largely because of their recent success. As a result of this win, there’s more notoriety with Milwaukee. Finally, we’re on the map.”
Foss was also born in Milwaukee and made aliyah when he was 19. He was born in 1973, two years after the Bucks’ first championship, and said he hasn’t been to a Milwaukee home game since he was 12.
“It’s not easy, but it’s sports,” Foss told The Jerusalem Post. “I believe that where I’m living is much bigger than that. That doesn’t mean that I can’t root for my home team so to say, even though Israel is now home for me.”
The road to the championship was anything but smooth. After sweeping the Miami Heat in Round 1, the Bucks went down 2-0 against the Brooklyn Nets in Round 2 and didn’t lead the series until they won Game 7. They also dropped the first two games of the Finals before winning four straight.
Foss said there’s a lot to learn from the resiliency the team showed these playoffs, and how certain players were able to step up when someone wasn’t having a great game. For example, Antetokounmpo didn’t play in the last two games of Round 3 but the Bucks won both games.
Foss was also happy to see his kids get excited about the team and watch and learn from their historic run.
“What I find amazing about the team is that it’s a really humble bunch of people,” Foss said. “That really represents Milwaukee well. These are not ego-driven athletes. They care tremendously about the community.”
The Bucks brought the championship trophy back to their community on Thursday with a parade in downtown Milwaukee. Eglash wished he could be there with his remaining family in Milwaukee.
“I would die for it,” he said. “It [gives] me chills to know that there’s going to be a parade in downtown Milwaukee that we only dreamt about over the last 50 years. It brings me a huge amount of excitement to know that this is happening. My mother, who’s in her 80s, basically cried throughout [all of Game 6]. All my cousins and relatives are going to be there, that’s for sure.”