Both Dunleavy and Diener have Wisconsin roots. (Getty)

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April 4, 2008

MILWAUKEE -- Mike Dunleavy and Travis Diener both grew up in Wisconsin.

They each spent substantial time in places where the people around them shared their obsession over basketball.

Over the past several years, both of them had their passion for the game put to the test, albeit in different ways.

And now their careers have intersected and their passion rejuvenated in the heart of Indiana. This is a place where, as a popular T-shirt design portrays, the state tree has a basketball goal attached to it.

Dunleavy and Diener will make their second Wisconsin homecoming of this season Friday, April 4, when their Indiana Pacers take on the Milwaukee Bucks at the Bradley Center at 7:30 p.m.

Dunleavy, the son of former Bucks player and coach Mike Dunleavy -- who is now coaching the Los Angeles Clippers -- arrived in Milwaukee when he was 3 years old, in 1983.

He watched his father play for the Bucks from 1983 through ’85 – sort of -- and again from 1988 through ’90.

As the story goes, when young Mike was 5 years old, he accompanied his mother, Emily, to one of his dad’s games in San Antonio. His mom made sure he had crayons, a coloring book and a scissors to keep him occupied.

When he became creative and began cutting his hair with the scissors, his mother took them away, and from that day on, his attention was diverted to the basketball court.

A mere six years later, when his dad was coaching the Los Angeles Lakers, the two were driving home from a game when young Mike questioned a piece of his dad’s coaching strategy. Mike Sr. said his son’s observation was right, too, so the kid with the scissors and crayons had obviously grown into a student of the game.

Mike the father was appointed Bucks head coach in 1992 and held that position for four seasons, so Mike the son received plenty of exposure to the NBA game.

With the Bucks marking their 40th anniversary season, Dunleavy was asked if he had a favorite Bucks player as a youngster.

“Other than my dad?” he asked. “I liked all those guys in the mid-1980s, like Jack Sikma, Terry Cummings, Sidney Moncrief … I really enjoyed watching all of those guys growing up.

“It’s a small market, but they’ve had some great teams and some great players come through here. It’s a great place for basketball, and it’s a terrific organization.”

Dunleavy enjoyed living in Wisconsin, too.

“I’ve got a lot of memories … I had some great experiences,” he said. “I met some very nice people, some good friends that I still keep up with.

“Milwaukee was a nice Midwestern town. I enjoyed going to Bucks games. I was telling one of our guys tonight that I was here when this building was under construction, and on the night that it opened. I had a lot of good memories here in Milwaukee, and it’s always nice to come back.”

He began his high-school career at University School of Milwaukee as a scrawny 5-foot-10-inch guard.

Three short years later, having relocated to Oregon when his father moved there to become head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers in 1997, he had sprouted to 6-6 and developed into a prep All-American at Portland’s Jesuit High School.

Two years after that – and two more inches taller – Dunleavy was named most valuable player of the NCAA championship game after his 21 points carried Duke University over the University of Arizona, 82-72.

Dunleavy left Duke following his junior campaign and was chosen by the Golden State Warriors with the third overall draft pick in the 2002 NBA Draft, one behind former Duke teammate Jason Williams.

Dunleavy, now 6-9 and 230, averaged 10.5 points through four-plus seasons with Golden State. He was subjected to heavy scrutiny by Warriors fans and even by individuals within the organization.

Then on Jan. 16, 2007, he was dealt to the Pacers along with Troy Murphy, Ike Diogu and Keith McLeod in exchange for Stephen Jackson, Al Harrington, Sarunas Jasikevicius and Josh Powell.

“It was a bad situation I was in with the Warriors,” Dunleavy said. “I stuck through it for four and a half years, and I finally got a chance to move on and get a fresh start in Indiana.

“It’s been great for me. I like being a Pacer, and hopefully we can help this team get to the playoffs.”

Dunleavy is aware of Indianans’ obsession for basketball from the grass-roots level on up. He and his Pacers teammates are trying to increase their enthusiasm for the NBA brand.

And as he learned during his years in Wisconsin -- he says he is still a Green Bay Packers fan -- there is football to compete with for fan interest.

“You’ve got to remember that the Colts are a hot item right now,” he said. “They won the Super Bowl last year, and football’s pretty big in Indianapolis.

“But the good thing is they have two professional sports teams, they’re passionate about both of them, and it’s a great place to play.”

Dunleavy has thrived in his first full season in Indiana. He ranks among the NBA's most-improved players, carrying averages of 18.7 points, 5.2 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game through March 31. He was shooting .481 from the field, .422 from 3-point territory and .840 from the free-throw line. In March alone, he averaged 21.9 points per outing. He has scored 36 points on four different occasions and 30 or more nine times.

Diener, too, hopes he has found his NBA niche in Hoosier Country. The burning passion for hoops the Fond du Lac native developed in Wisconsin makes him an ideal fit with his new citizenry.

Nearly 40 years ago, Travis’ late grandfather Lyle hung a hoop on his garage, and his driveway become home base for one of Wisconsin’s most accomplished basketball families.

Travis’ uncle Dick won 434 games as a high school basketball coach at Colfax and Fond du Lac Goodrich high schools before leaving the Fondy post two seasons ago. His 1978 Colfax team won the WIAA Class C state title.

Travis' uncle Tom has won five state titles – the most by any coach in Wisconsin history -- at Milwaukee Vincent High School and recently shared head-coaching duties with Milwaukee King’s Jim Gosz in the McDonald’s High School All-American Game.

Cousin Derek played at West Point; cousin Drew played at Saint Louis University and is now director of basketball operations at the University of Virginia; cousin Drake, his high school teammate at Fond du Lac, played at DePaul University and is playing pro ball in Italy; sister Brittney played at Lewis University; and sister Rachel plays at Saint Louis.

So Travis never needed to go hunting for competition on his grandparents’ driveway. And as the legend goes, not even Wisconsin’s snow and ice could keep the Dieners off of it during the winter months. When shoveling didn’t clear the surface well enough, they draped rugs over it and the games went on.

As a freshman in high school, Travis, who stood 5-8 and weighed all of about 140 pounds, made the Fond du Lac Goodrich varsity and helped the Cardinals reach the state tournament in Madison.

During the summer of 2000, he led his club team, the Wisconsin Playground Warriors, to three national tournament championships and earned MVP honors in all three.

As a senior at Goodrich, he was a unanimous all-state selection and a fourth-team Parade All-American.

During those years, Diener experienced more than his share of scrutiny, heckling and abuse. None of it ever cracked his will to succeed, though. In fact, he thrived on it.

“The sectional games we played had a college atmosphere,” Diener said. “We played in the Kolf Center at Oshkosh, and that place would be packed.

“I still remember those games. Those were exciting games. There’s nothing like a high school or college game that everybody around gets so excited about.”

Marquette University coach Tom Crean became excited, too, when he signed Diener to a letter-of-intent after he led Goodrich to a 22-2 record in his senior season.

Over the ensuing four years, Diener, who had grown to 6-1 and 175 pounds, became one of the central characters in a revival of the Marquette program.

In his sophomore season, he and Dwyane Wade led Marquette to its first Final Four since Al McGuire’s team won the NCAA championship in 1977.

In head-to-head battles against Wisconsin’s Devin Harris, Notre Dame’s Chris Thomas and Arizona’s Mustafa Shakur, he piled up 52 points and 20 assists while they combined for 35 points and 17 assists.

Diener left MU as the program’s third-ranking scorer – behind only George Thompson and Butch Lee – with 1,691 points and as the runner-up to Tony Miller in career assists with 617. He was one of 30 finalists for the Wooden Award, presented to the nation’s best college player, and one of 18 finalists for the Cousy Award, which goes to the country’s premier point guard.

Diener still had his share of doubters, but he was selected by the Orlando Magic with the 38th overall pick in the second round of the 2005 NBA Draft.

Stuck behind the likes of guards Jameer Nelson, Steve Francis, Keyon Dooling and Carlos Arroyo, he played just 49 NBA games over two seasons, averaging 3.8 points and 1 assist, despite shooting 57 percent from the field and 81 percent from the free-throw line – better than the vast majority of NBA players.

One of the highlights of his Orlando tenure came Dec. 3, 2005, in his first professional appeareance in Milwaukee.

Shooting at familiar hoops, he nailed five of six shots – four from 3-point range – and scored a then NBA-best 14 points after being activated less than a week earlier.

“It was kind of surprising when I first walked in, the ovation that I got,” Diener said at the time. “But that’s the loyalty of Fond du Lac and this city.

“Fond du Lac had eight busloads come down. It was great. I had a chance to play in front of these guys for four years. Once I started hitting 3s, I heard them.”.

Diener became a free agent and signed a three-year deal June 19, 2007, with the Pacers.

He knew his career was taking him into a state where basketball matters more to people than it does anywhere else.

“The people in Indiana are very intelligent basketball fans,” Diener said. “We’d like to see more of them at our games; we’re not drawing very well right now. I few start winning, I think that’ll take care of that.

“I haven’t done it yet, but I’d like to go watch some Indiana high school games. Those are legendary, from what I’ve heard. It’s a state of basketball. It’s where high school basketball is at its finest, along with Kentucky. It’s a great hoops state.”

Diener had to bide his time in Indiana before getting his minutes. He coincidentally made his first start of the season Jan. 24 against the Bucks at the Bradley Center, and he narrowly missed achieving a double-double, totaling 15 points, nine assists and just one turnover in a career-high 40 minutes of action.

Dunleavy has been impressed with the way Diener assumes his role, whatever that may be at a given time.

"Travis does a great job when he’s in there, whether he’s playing for 10 minutes or 40 minutes," Dunleavy said. "He knows how to play. He gets the ball and pushes it up the floor. He’s capable of taking over the reins.”

Diener's teammates helped him come up with 60 tickets for family members and friends on his visit to the Bradley Center back in January.

“The last three to four weeks have been great for me, getting an opportunity to play,” Diener said at the time. “I’m playing all right. I’d like to be shooting the ball a little bit better, but I know that’ll come.

“The big thing has been being able to try to help us win games. We’re playing better; we’re just not finishing games the way we want to.”

Through games of March, Diener was averaging 6.8 points and 3.6 assists in 20 minutes per game. His field-goal (.367) and 3-point (.311) shooting percentages weren't where he'd like them to be, but he was shooting .905 from the free-throw line and had an assist-to-turnover ratio of better than four-to-one, with 210 to 50. He netted a career-high 22 points against Chicago on Feb. 27.

The two former Wisconsinites will return to their old stomping grounds on the night of April 4 when their Pacers take on the Bucks at 7:30 p.m. And after their visit, they will venture southward and continue to plant their roots, just like the age-old song says, “Back home again … in Indiana.”