You know, when it comes to the Milwaukee Bucks its hard to get too excited about anything.  However, the Bucks managed to stay under the luxury tax by dealing Richard Jefferson for 3 other players.  They can now re-sign Ramon Sessions and Charlie Villenueva.  Plus, with the draft tomorrow, we should finally be able to answer the question of which point guard the Bucks are going to draft.

Unfortunately, Richard Jefferson was the only guy who showed up all year long last year.  Redd went down hurt.  Bogut went down hurt.  Ridnour went down hurt.  Sessions would be there one game and gone the next.  CV didn’t show up until the end of the season.  I think both Sessions and CV are starting to get more consistent as they get more mature, but neither has shown up for an entire season yet.  Makes me feel a little less excited.  Throw on top of that all the rumors that the Bucks don’t think they’ll be able to give Sessions what he wants and he’ll go elsewhere and I’m even less excited.  Which means we’ll live with rookie mistakes at the point and Redd taking as many shots as he feels like.  That will leave Bogut and CV to fight for offensive boards if they want to do any scoring.  Makes me feel even less excited.

I wish I could get behind this team.  I want to get behind this team.  Scott Skiles is a good coach.  John Hammonds seems to be a decent GM.  But, this team has had too many problems for too long, and Hammonds is still cleaning up the mess Harris left.  I’m just going to have to wait for another 1-2 years before I can finally stop talking about lottery picks this time of year.

I’m having a hard time believing this team is still winning games.  In fact, they’ve won 3 in a row.  They’re 2 games ahead of New Jersey for the 8th and final playoff spot in the East.  This is a team that lost their leading scorer and leading rebounder for the season.  Then they lost their top assists man for a month, and they seem to be playing better ball?!?

So, I decided to watch the game last night.  Unfortunately, I only got to see the second half, but I think I know why they’ve been winning.  That was a huge defensive effort last night.  They were getting 24 second calls with frequency.  That’s not what Milwaukee Bucks teams do.  At least not in recent memory.  They’re sieves on defense and if they’re hot jump shooting they might win a game or two.  This team played defense, made crisp passes on offense, didn’t take stupid shots, and made plays when they needed to.

I know the trade deadline is tomorrow.  I know the Bucks don’t want to hit the luxury tax if they sign Sessions and Villanueva.  So, there have been a lot of rumors about trading Richard Jefferson.  But, man I tell ya, when the Pistons were clawing back into the game and it looked like the Bucks had lost all momentum, it was Jefferson who stepped up and made plays.  I don’t know what his contract looks like, but I’d sure like to keep him around.  And the way Sessions has been playing since Ridnour got hurt, you gotta believe they want to keep him.  But, Villanueva has really stepped up after Redd and Bogut got hurt.  It’s almost like you’d like to see them deal Redd somewhere, but no one is going to take a guy with a max deal who’s about to go under the knife for an ACL tear.  Too bad too, because a starting 5 of Ridnour, Sessions, Jefferson, Villanueva and Bogut would be one hell of a team.  Granted, there’s not much on the bench, but a starting 5 like that can hang with anybody.

Lots of changes happened over the off-season, but with the win last night, they proved that they actually want to play some defense this season.  That will keep them in most games and they should continue to improve as they jell.  Check out these stats a mere 9 games into the season:

• Opponents pts/game: 95.3.  Last year: 103.9
• Opponents rebs/game: 39.  Last year: 40.7
• Opponents FG Pct/game: 45.1 Last year: 48 (the worst in the league last year)
• Bucks rebs/game: 42.4.  Last year: 41.7

Scott Skiles has taken basically the same set of players (granted Mo’s gone and Jefferson is here – big difference on defense right there) and gotten them to toughen up and be aggressive.  People say Skiles is a hard-nosed coach that grates on players.  So far things seem to be working just fine as the playres are resonding.

Okay, so the Bucks are far from perfect.  They aren’t scoring a lot of points, but Redd has missed the last 5 games (the Bucks are 2-3 during that span).  Their FT shooting is terrible.  Bogut has had trouble scoring ever since Redd went out and teams have changed their plan to stop him.  But, there is a lot to build on with this team.  As the season progresses I think you’ll see a team that plays aggressively from beginning to end of the game and they’ll be in most games right down to the end.  Skiles won’t accept anything less.  Just ask Bogut.

Looks like Mo is on his way out along with Desmond Mason.  Wow.  Unlike his counterpart in Green Bay, I’m having a hard time finding a wrong move Bucks new GM John Hammond has made yet.  The Bucks would get Luke Ridnour and get to unload Mo’s large contract.  A PG who actually plays PG and it costs less money?  Seems like a win-win.

Don’t look now, but I’m starting to get a little excited about the upcoming Bucks season.

He must be trying to earn his paycheck or something.  What a novel idea for the Milwaukee Bucks.  He managed to get rid of Bobby Simmons, and got something of value in return.  That had to be the worst deal former GM Larry Harris made.  I’m not second guessing history here — a lot of people thought it was a good deal when it was made — but hindsight has given us better perspective.  Unfortunately, to get rid of Bobby Simmons ridiculous contract, they had to give up on a young player who flashed talent.  This really was a Yi Jianlian for Richard Jefferson trade and Bobby Simmons got sent along to make the contract numbers work out.  The Bucks get a proven power forward who can score night in and night out.  He averages the same PPG as Michael Redd.  It will be interesting to see what happens at point guard because there are options now.

Then on that same day, John Hammond drafts the kid to replace Bobby Simmons, Desmond Mason, et al. in Joe Alexander. The kid is an athletic white guy who carried West Viginia through the tourney last year.  He was also the oldest kid drafted from the top 10.  He came out after his junior year. I doubt he’ll be asked to start this year, but if he can come in and play for 20 minutes a game and add 10-12 points with 4-5 boards, he’ll be doing alright.

Now I’m curious to see what Hammond plans on doing with Gadzuric, Villanueva, Mo, and Redd.  He can’t get rid of all of them.  If I had to bet, the first 2 are gone and the next 2 get a year to redeem themselves with new coach Scott Skiles.  So far, it seems like the team is headed in the right direction. 

So, aftrer the Bucks let GM Larry go they brought in John Hammond who quickly dumped Coach Larry after the season mercifully ended.  With any luck he’ll start dumping other people off this roster and adding ones that might actually want to play in the NBA.  I will say this: all of the rumored coaching candidates all have had teams that play defense.  A huge plus.  Must be his experience with the Pistons.

It’s okay to score lots of points, but I just don’t think a team that doesn’t play defense has a lot of heart.  Why?  Because that’s what defense is all about — heart.  It takes a certain amount of God given ability to be a good scorer.  Anybody with enough talent to make the roster can play defense because its all about desire.  If you can’t put forth the effort to keep the other guy from scoring on you, then you just don’t have what it takes to win a championship.

So, let’s start by dumping contracts like Bobby Simmons, Dan Gadzuric, and I’d look long and hard at Mo Williams, Charlie V. and even Michael Redd.  Some of those guys never had it in the first place.  Some of them have all of the talent in the world, but not the desire to make the most of it.  And I want guys who realize what could be if they just put the heart into it.

Why are the Bucks even bothering to show up to these last 4 games?  They are absolutely dreadful.  I guess they hired a new GM so he probably wants to see these guys up close and in person.  But, you know what?  I’ll save him some time.

Mo Williams doesn’t play defense and while he can shot the ball, he’s not real good at passing it.  Good qualities for your point guard, eh?  Michael Redd?  Ditto.  Charlie Villanueva only seems to show up in games that don’t matter.  This marks two years in a row where he started having great games after the Bucks were out of the playoff picture.  Yi may actually be a player, but he definitely hit a rookie wall.  There was a little bit of something there I think.  Bogut has trailed off a little bit here as the games have become meaningless, but thanks to Coach Larry I think Bogut is finally a player.  The bench?  Mostly worthless, although Royal Ivey is the one guy on this team that plays with heart every time he’s on the floor.  He doesn’t have as much talent as most guys, but he actually seems to care.

There you go.  Everything you needed to know about this season’s Milwaukee Bucks.  I don’t talk about them much because they are just too painful to watch much less analyze.  And it wasn’t so long ago we sat in the Bradley Center as the Bucks dropped Charlottle and then took on the Sixers for the East title.  That was fun to watch.  Even my wife who’s not a big basketball fan had fun following that team.  Since then, ouch.

The Milwaukee Bucks are still in the playoff hunt.  They are 18-27.  This is not a good basketball team.  The have won just three of their last 10 games.  And yet, there they sit.  1 game out of the 8th playoff spot and within 6 games of the 4th playoff spot.  Were they in the west they’d be that many games out of the 8th spot.  Oh, how sweet it is to be in the East.

Despite winning just 3 of the last 10, what’s with this Bogut fellow?  7 double-doubles in the last 8 games.  Last night he added 18 points, 15 rebounds and 6 assists.  That equals the amount by each of the point guards.  Remember, he plays center.  This is the kind of guy the Bucks thought they were going to get when they drafted him with the first pick in the draft.  This is the kind of a guy you can build a team around.  Each year out (this is his 3rd year) he averages more points and more rebounds.  This year his blocked shot average is 2x greater than his previous career high.  So, despite playing on a bad team, he’s having the best year of his career.

With the Bucks still in it, is Bogut the guy to take them there or is it Michael Redd?  Right now, my money is on Bogut.

He was the #1 overall pick of the draft for a reason.  He can play ball.  Only now with Michael Redd coming back from and injury have people realized it.  Last night’s game was just another example.  He now has 17 double-doubles on the season and his 3rd in a row.  Over the last 3-4 weeks he has been playing like the inside force he was supposed to be when he was drafted.  Why now?

 Well, for one he’s touched the ball a lot more.  With Redd out of the lineup and not throwing up every other shot, the Bucks have had to move the ball around.  They’ve had to rely on more people.  With that the guys inside have finally started to get more looks.  The 3 inside players (Bogut, Yi Jianlian, Charlie Villanueva) combined for 46 points and 28 rebounds.  That would have been unheard of the last few years.  This team is a much better team when they can go inside because it opens up the jump shooters more.  Hopefully, this stretch of games has helped them realize it.

Don’t look now but the Milwaukee Bucks have the longest active winning streak in the Eastern conference.  Here come the NBA finals baby!

Well, not quite.  They’ve still got a long ways to go, but they’ve moved from 12th place overall to 10th.  So, they’re getting closer to those playoff spots.  And they’re doing it without Michael Redd.  Why?  How?  Because more people are involved in the game.

When Redd is in the line-up the Bucks stand around on offense waiting for him to do something.  On defense, Redd’s a liability that people are trying to make up for.  When he’s not in the game, everyone is trying to make something happen.  Everyone is covering their own guy.  Is that a rip on Redd?

I don’t think so.  (Well, maybe the fact that he can’t play defense is a rip on him) Sure, Redd can be a ball hog at times, and he’s always throwing up some ill advised shot at the end of close games that seems to miss more often than not.  But, the other 4 guys on the floor need to hustle as much when Redd’s in the as when he’s not.  I have no idea why everyone just stands around when he’s in the game.  That’s relying on 1 guy way too much.  If they continue to work as hard as they currently are when Redd gets back into the lineup, there should be a lot more wins coming their way.  If they go back to standing around they can kiss any dreams of the playoffs goodbye.