Fishman, one of Bucks' original owners, dies at 84

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MILWAUKEE (AP) -- Marvin Fishman, one of the original owners of the Milwaukee Bucks, has died at a Wisconsin hospital, his rabbi said Saturday. Fishman was 84.

Rabbi David Cohen, who will conduct Fishman's funeral, said he died Friday evening at St. Mary's Hospital Ozaukee in southeastern Wisconsin. Cohen would not give the cause of death.

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.

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.

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