web analytics
<
Tag Archive - FeartheDeer

Hardwood Paroxysm’s Incomplete 2010-2011 NBA Previews: Milwaukee Bucks

October 25, 2010 in by with 3 Comments

Yeah, yeah, we didn’t do one for every team. Not like you all won’t get your fair shake around here, for better or worse. Trust me, if you’re some of the teams out there, you don’t want to hear us talk about you.

But, with a little less than 48 hours to go before the season opener in Miami,we’re going to throw up some stuff discussing the upcoming season. We started with the Magic, and now, to indulge the League Pass junkie in you, move on to the Bucks.

THE MAIN EVENT

Angry deer sign

One year into Scott Skiles’ coaching tenure, four years after Andrew Bogut was selected with the top pick in the 2005 draft, and just months after Brandon Jennings skipped back across the pond, the Milwaukee Bucks became a legitimate cult favorite among NBA die-hards. Jennings’ 55-pointer against the Warriors cemented his status in the underground and the mainstream alike, but it was the rest of the season’s path that slowly converted all serious basketball fans into Bucks followers.

What started with Jennings carried to Bogut, the highly-skilled, two-way big man who unexpectedly made a run at the Defensive Player of the Year Award without notifying the appropriate authorities. We knew of Bogut’s lefty hook and his turnaround jumper, but few players are capable of putting together such an all-encompassing defensive performance. With Bogut quietly leading a charge that many attributed to Jennings, the tremendous impact of Skiles’ coaching became increasingly evident. With Bogut in, the Bucks were among the top defensive teams in the league last season, despite having a roster seemingly held together by putty and packaging tape. With Bogut out, the Bucks still managed to hold their own defensively, their best player sitting sideline, draped in white cloth. The Bucks’ appeal is equal parts Jennings, Bogut, and Skiles (with a dash of Ersan Ilyasova, Luke Ridnour, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, and Carlos Delfino, to taste), as their combination of flair, consistency, and grit made them one of the most endearing and successful teams in the league.

That doesn’t seem likely to change in the coming year, provided the NBA faithful keep their eyes open. Hit it, Holly.

GUEST LECTURE

Today’s mid-post guest lecture comes from Holly MacKenzie of RaptorBlog, The Basketball Jones, NBA.com, and Twitter (she runs the damn thing) fame. Holly has a degree in Pimpology and thinks the NBA is pretty swell. -Ed.

Viewers are going tune in for the Bucks because they’ll recall being mesmerized by a certain slight-yet-sturdy point guard’s passes, fearless drives to the hoop, and a bold personality that’s even brighter than his game. They’ll tune in because they remember that aforementioned fateful Saturday night, when the rookie went scoreless in the first quarter against the Golden State Warriors, but somehow finished with 55 points. They’ll tune in because they want excitement, and Jennings will give it to them.

What a lot of people don’t realize though, is that while they’ll be rooting for the new face of the Bucks, they’ll be falling for the rest of his teammates all at the same time.

Andrew Bogut is one of the youngest, brightest, and most exciting big men in the league, and though the enduring image of his fall will be remembered for it’s brutality, look for him to come back this season and force us to forget it. Bogut will remind us just how good he is and how great his team can be with him in the middle. Add in a cast of characters with a little bit of something for everyone and you’ve got the Bucks roster. You like hard workers with deep thoughts and gun tattoos on their stomach? See rookie Larry Sanders. How about outgoing, self-appointed social media kings looking for the right situation? Check @cdouglasroberts. Love cheering for the little guy? Boykins! Are blue-collar, college fan favorites your type? Jon Brockman’s in town. Oh, you want some royalty? Luc Richard Mbah a Moute. A fan of pretty boys? Carlos Delfino. Looking for an equally heartwarming/heartbreaking journey? Michael Redd.

I’d say that covers all of the things that the average fan and the fanatic could deem necessary. Actually, we forgot about the fanatics. The insane fans who sit in Squad6 are given free tickets all season courtesy of the Bucks’ jolly Australian giant. Bogut provides the tickets, the fans provide the noise and the Bradley Center is the happy beneficiary.

Add in a coach who is known for his stern and serious demeanor who will have the challenge of being responsible for harnessing all of the personalities and talent on this roster and you’ve got yourself a team to watch. Think about all of that and try to tell yourself you’re only tuning in to see what Jennings is going to do next.

AND NOW BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING:

Holly’s right, but it’s not only the Milwaukee mainstays and the lovable cast-offs that act as extensions of last season’s Bucks allure. Ridnour, scrappy resurgent that he was, has signed with the Timberwolves after playing the year of his life last season for the Bucks. Charlie Bell and Dan Gazuric are gone, but no one weeps. In their stead, Milwaukee has added two understandably polarizing figures: Corey Maggette and Drew Gooden, both scorers tasked with improving the Bucks’ offense.

They are the key to what will become the new and improved — but still infinitely watchable and appealing — Milwaukee Bucks. This isn’t the Heat, a demolition project labeled as a remodel. It’s a series of renovations to emphasize the same familiar themes, to evoke the same feelings with different light and new architectural features. All in all, the Bucks boast everything they had and did a year ago, only with a few new deceptively appealing characters and a subtle shift toward offense’s dark arts. Chalk up Maggette and Gooden’s production as empty stat-hoarding if you must, but they’ll be gorging on points on a team that starved for them last season.

Last season’s Bucks were lovable for their flaws, and while many of those flaws will be hedged in the coming season as Maggette cycles to the free throw line, Gooden and Brockman hit the offensive glass, and Keyon Dooling and CDR generate some extra offense, each of those new additions brings with them their own delightful limitations. The new Bucks won’t be a Broadway performer’s rendition of a penetrating folk song, perfect in its pitch but devoid of all character. They’re still limited. They’re still a step below Miami, Orlando, and Boston. They’re still the ideal selection for League Pass viewing on a Wednesday night, when that nationally televised Nuggets game is the last thing you need. They’re still the Bucks, and they’re still perfect just the way they are.

NECESSARY ADDENDUM:

Even though he’s given a rather cursory treatment here, Brandon Jennings is pretty spectacular. His field goal percentage is painful, but to see his synergy with Bogut on the pick-and-roll, his quickness in limited space, and his on-ball defense…well, it’s always the little things, isn’t it? He may not be the total package yet, but Jennings has a lot going for him in ways both big and small.

PLAYFUL TUNES:

PLAYER WHO COULD BE AN IMPACT GUY BUT PROBABLY WON’T BE:

Who can ever tell with Skiles doling out the minutes? I’d say Chris Douglas-Roberts, but its feasible that he could turn his career on its head and turn out shooting mid-range jumpers for the Bucks all day, every day. I’d say Jon Brockman, if only because the rotation may not allow him the minutes he deserves to gobble up rebounds, but the Brochness Monster seems to be of Skiles’ brand. I’d say Larry Sanders, but Jennings bucked everything I thought I knew about Skiles and young, promising players. Every player on this roster who has the potential to contribute could be on Skiles’ call, so even a random guess is as good as mine.

YOU SHOULD TOTALLY WATCH BECAUSE:

Ahem. You have been reading, right?

YOU SHOULD TOTALLY HATE THIS TEAM BECAUSE:

Skiles, for all of his strengths, will be Skiles. Jennings, though gifted in so many ways, will be Jennings, and he’s no stranger to hoisting up a shot or 12 just for the hell of it. All of this means that the Bucks’ offense, though improved, will be the Bucks’ offense.

That’s about all I’ve got. They’re not as good offensively as you’d like them to be, and the new additions can only do so much. Otherwise, the Bucks are theatrical dynamite, a basketball fan’s dream, and quirky enough to funnel interest over the course of the entire year.

The Bucks Have Become Some Sort Of Deranged Machine

June 23, 2010 in by with 7 Comments

CDR is about to be traded to the Milwaukee Bucks for the bargain basement price of just a second round pick, the two teams are just haggling over which second-round pick in what year will come back to New Jersey, according to Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski, who broke the trade.

This is another sign that the Nets are set to draft Syracuse’s Wesley Johnson with the No. 3 pick and were trying to avoid any controversy or glut of talent out on the wing.

Then in eight days the Nets are going to target Utah power forward Carlos Boozer in free agency, according to ESPN’s Marc Stein.

via Chris Douglas-Roberts traded to Bucks for a second-round pick, Nets to target Boozer in free agency – ProBasketballTalk – Basketball – NBC Sports.

Despite the gaudy salary, Maggette does what he’d always advertised: he scores the ball in prolific fashion, and does so as efficiently as almost anyone else. The price may be steep, but you’re getting something for those dollars.

His defense is worse than circumspect: he’s a big minus on that end, which figures to draw concern from Bucks coach Scott Skiles, who won’t hesitate to bench someone giving less than their all on defense. Optimists would argue Skiles will be able to milk some effort out of Maggette on that end, but seeing is believing, and we haven’t seen defense from Maggette in years.

via Warriors Trade Corey Maggette to Milwaukee for Gadzuric, Bell — NBA FanHouse.

Seems like only months ago they were drafting Joe Alexander, trying to pick up the pieces, trying desperately to convince anyone there was a plan in place. They looked like this.

Now, they’ve formed into some sort of impossibly complex fusion machine that runs on defense and exhausts awesomeness. It’s a bizarre world when hip slogans are being made of the Bucks, and then they make a series of moves that don’t necessarily screw it all up, but somehow just confuse me. Because now they seem like this:

Maggette AND CDR to go along with Delfino AND Moute (who does spend some time at the 3, though mostly at the 4)? What?

Here’s one for you to wrap your wee brain around.

Brandon Jennings-Michael Redd-Corey Maggette-Ersan Ilyasova-Andrew Bogut.

What? Not weird enough? Try this one.

Ridnour-CDR-Maggette-Mbah a Moute- Bogut

Or, maybe you were thinking…

Jennings-Redd-CDR-Ilyasova-Bogut

AND I HAVEN’T EVEN TOUCHED THE WEIRD FAUXHAWKNESS OF CARLOS DELFINO!

But yet, here we are. Brought to the brink of madness by Hammond, unleashed. Before we look at what the Bucks are looking to do in terms of draft night trades (COUGH*GOODBYECARLOS*COUGH), can we all take a second and realize that Scott Skiles will be coaching Chris Douglas-Roberts? Scott Skiles. This man.

Is coaching, this guy:

Yeah, this guy.

If CDR is going to make this work it’s going to take a dramatic change for him to a defensive stopper. He has to be Mbah a Moute-light.  All that one-on-one explosiveness has to be translated to awareness. He’d better enter a no-mind state and just do whatever it is that Skiles tells him.  If not, well, look at what happened to Carlos Delfino, the poor bastard.

Maggette is such a mixed bag. He was a Warrior and a Clipper. That pretty much sums it up, no? He was a high-usage, low-defense, low-return Warrior and Clipper. If anything teaches you that a guy is probably overvalued, it’s that. What happens if they do manage to re-ink Salmons? You have to ditch Redd for a quarter on the dollar, right? You can’t possibly go that deep in the tax with this unit, as much upside as they may have. I will say that bringing in two ISO players on a team that passes the ball really well and needs guys that are willing to step up and absorb a possession is key. CDR doesn’t do it effectively or efficiently, but there is hope that with Skiles he could get there. And Jenning is going to create enough Maggette corner threes to challenge some franchise records. The Bucks have gone from having no offense to being offensively versatile at nearly every possession. Also, I want to see two-on-two’s with Ridnour-Ilyasova and Maggette-Kurt Thomas. And I want it on YouTube, set to House music.

Yao-zers – Andrew Bogut Out For The Season

April 4, 2010 in by with 6 Comments

This just sucks. We’ve been robbed of our manifest playoff destiny once again.

Andrew Bogut is out for the year. Now, normally this wouldn’t be huge news and it wouldn’t really matter with just a week and a half remaining in the regular season. Normally, the Bucks would have been eliminated from playoff contention for a couple of weeks now and the city of Milwaukee would be turning their attention to Prince Fielder and the rest of the Milwaukee Brewers. But not this year.

This year, the Bucks aren’t just making the playoffs; they’re putting teams on notice that if you face them in the first round you’re going to be in for a rude awakening. The Bucks are scrappy but it’s a different kind of scrappy. In the past, we’ve had scrappy teams that “nobody wanted to face.” They were teams who most likely put up a lot of points or had huge glaring weaknesses that far superior teams would be able to exploit in a seven-game series. The Wolves teams from the late 90s and early 00s were scrappy but you didn’t truly fear them. Tracy McGrady’s Orlando teams were scrappy but you knew they weren’t pulling off the massive upset against better teams. But this Bucks teams is completely different.

Or at least it was until last night when Andrew Bogut seemingly slipped off the rim and fell on his right arm. The diagnosis is a dislocated elbow, a broken hand and a sprained wrist. If it was just one of those injuries, the tough Australian anchor to the Bucks defense would wrap it up and go be the destructive defensive force he’s been all season. He’d be the guy that makes you wonder if Dwight Howard is hands down the best defensive player of the year.

Dislocated elbow? He’d probably pop it back into place in a pseudo-tribute to Lieutenant Riggs and go out there and be the guy Milwaukee needs him to be. If it was a broken hand, he’d most likely tape it up, take a few painkillers and go out there to carry out the plan of his defensive-minded coach. Sprained wrist? I don’t even know that we would hear about him having a sprained wrist. Andrew Bogut is one of the toughest guys in the NBA. He has that Aussie blood running through his veins that allows him to feel very little pain. However, throw all of those injuries together into one horrible fall and you’re left with the situation the Bucks are in.

It’s eerily reminiscent to the Houston Rockets situation from last season. With Tracy McGrady on the shelf already, the Rockets lost Yao Ming deep into their playoff push against the Lakers. The Rockets were already in the playoffs and in the middle of a Round 2 showdown with the eventual champs. After Game 3, we found out Yao Ming had a hairline fracture in the same left foot that had sustained three significant injuries throughout his career. It was completely deflating for all basketball fans that didn’t root for the forum blue and gold. When you have a scrappy team with the odds stacked against them, you don’t want them to lose their best player in the middle of what could be a special run.

Would the Rockets have beaten the Lakers in the second round of last year’s playoffs? Would the Bucks have advanced to the second round or the Eastern Conference Finals on the shoulders of the biggest, toughest man in Milwaukee? Unfortunately, we will never get those answers. We’re left to guess and hypothesize instead of get a definitive yes or no to the situation.

Much like the Rockets, the Bucks were already without their best wing scorer – a fate they have grown accustomed to and are used to dealing with. They know life without Michael Redd just the same as Houston knew life without Tracy McGrady. It was something you could sort of prepare for and make due with. Any NBA wing player (outside of Sasha Pavlovic or Sasha Vujacic or anybody named Sasha) can get hot and carry his team for an extended period of time. But like that Rockets team, this Bucks team has always been praying the bad luck wouldn’t once again trickle down into the post and befall their franchise big man.

What’s left of the Bucks is an aircraft carrier with no anchor. The Bucks are left with Ersan Illyasova playing the role of a much younger Luis Scola, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute playing the role of Shane Battier, John Salmons as a heavily medicated Ron Artest and Brandon Jennings as the flashier and more swaggerish version of Aaron Brooks. And I sort of hope it works.

What we need now is this Bucks team to rally around this adversity. We need them to accept this horribly dealt hand and bluff their way into winning a pot.

I often get labeled as a Brandon Jennings “hater” because I believe Tyreke Evans is not only the better player but is far more deserving of the Rookie of the Year award. The truth is I’m crazy about Brandon Jennings. Just because I believe Tyreke is better and more likely to receive the hardware doesn’t mean I’m not a Jennings fan. I’ve always been a fan of point guards first in this league. I’m drawn to them for some reason. Honestly, I would love nothing more than Brandon Jennings to go NOVA for the entire playoffs and give the opposing defenses more than they could ever hope to handle.

I want Brandon Jennings to turn back into the Pterodactyl With Wings of Fire. I want him to find the jumper that eluded him for too long this season. I want the three-point shot to snap through the bottom of the net. I want the runner to fall, the pull-up jumper to splash and the dribble to be so succinct and elusive that defenders are left confused and trying to recreate the scene of the crime to figure out how their dignity was taken from them on Jennings’ way to the court. I want chalk outlines of defenders’ ankles on the court and William Petersen brilliantly piecing the whole thing together with his creepy beard.

The Bucks may be deflated with the loss of Andrew Bogut for the rest of this campaign but this is a new Milwaukee team. Hopefully they can show the innate toughness that their coach and defensive centerpiece have infused into Bucks basketball.

Fear the Deer.