It’s been a good week to be a rookie for the Bucks.  Summer league is the last time most rookies get an opportunity to relive their glory days from college (or high school in Brandon Jennings case) and Jodie Meeks and Brandon Jennings have taken full advantage of that.  I’m even giving Jodie Meeks top billing today. (When it comes to Meeks and Jennings we’ll have to get used to me putting Jennings ahead, I’ll explain later.)

Meeks has had a terrific first week of professional basketball.  The Bucks most consistent performer in Vegas, he’s averaging over 16 points per game while hitting a tidy 57% of his shots.  A good start for a player many criticized for leaving Kentucky a year early.  Wait, Meeks is volume scorer who drew criticism for leaving school a year early and then proceeded to use summer league as his playground to shore up a roster spot before training camp even opened?  That sounds familiar.  Have we seen this episode of “The Milwaukee Bucks” before?  Like in the year 2000?  I know, it’s early to start with the “he’s the next Michael Redd” stuff, but I’m just pointing out what’s there and what we’re hoping for.  We all knew Meeks would be there on opening night, but the Bucks made things official with his contract, a three year $2.3 million contract guaranteed in the first two years.  That could be a steal come year three if he continues to develop.  Meeks catch and shoot game seems perfectly designed to blend with Brandon Jennings slasher game.  The Buck s were in desperate need of guards who could shoot the ball once Redd went down last year (and when Redd was playing and missing threes at a career high pace) and Meeks looks like he’s primed to chip away at some of the minutes reserved for Charlie Bell and whichever point guard falls third in line.  That is, if he commits to defense, which will likely be a challenge in his first year.  Even if he’s busting his tail and working hard on the defensive end, guarding NBA two’s will be a challenge at his size, at least initially and probably forever.

Speaking of those point guards, I’ve gone on long enough without really getting into how Brandon Jennings has looked so far this summer.  I’ll be honest, I’ve only seen one game.  Actually one half of a game.  The schedule has not been conducive to my life this summer.  I have made a vow to make it to Vegas next summer though, so we won’t go through this again.  Anyway, Brandon Jennings.  Reports were that he struggled a little in his first game of the league and looked better in game two on Sunday.  But Monday, he looked like he really started to figure things out against Sacramento.  The common knocks you hear about Jennings are  he’s, “selfish” and “immature”.  To that I reply, he’s 19.  Find me a 19-year old kid who isn’t selfish and has even a little bit of maturity.  If any have maturity, it’s Brandon.  Not only was he making some very flashy ally-oop passes, but he was very willing to lay the ball off to teammates.  And more often than not, he was committed defensively.  He was matched up against Tyreke Evans, a tough match-up for any point guard in this league, but did his best to pressure Evans in the back court where his quickness was advantageous over the bulky Evans.  His biggest problem came offensively, where he would occasionally get off balance on his jumper and do way too much.  Does he force some bad shots?  Yes.  But overall I get the feeling that he is one of those players who loves setting up his teammates for sweet looking plays as much as he loves making them himself.

Except when things are getting serious.

Jennings is not unlike a lot of young point guards in that he’s probably been watching the NBA his whole life.  When you’re a point guard and you grow up watching the NBA there is one quality you’re very likely to develop.  You want to take (and preferably make) the “big” shot.  That’s a burden you feel since the point guard is the supposed leader of the team on the court.  That’s my theory on why Jennings will occasionally pull-up for a silly looking shot when the situation might call for something different.  In Jennings mind it might not be that bad of a shot.  In his mind it might be an opportunity to stick it to the other team and chip away at them mentally.  There was no doubt in my mind Monday night that he was going to shoot the ball when things were getting a  little tense with around 15 seconds to go.  Jennings likely grew up watching Baron Davis who was a by-product of Gary Payton who hung around Sam Cassell and argued over who would get to take big shots when they played together on the Bucks in 2003.

So, I could see how someone would think Jennings is immature on the court.  It does stand to reason however, that when camp starts and he takes some of those shots that he thinks are good shots he’ll have to answer to Scott Skiles on them.  I imagine those conversations will go something like this:

Skiles: Excuse me fellas, stop the scrimmage.  Hey Brandon, may I ask why you shot that pull-up three off one leg with 20 seconds left on the shot clock right there?

Jennings: Coach, if I hit that all they can do is shake their heads.  They wouldn’t have no answer for it.

Skiles: Hmm.  That’s an interesting theory there BJ.  I love your enthusiasm.  Maybe instead of shooting that next time though, you could walk off the court and drive a knife into my heart though.  BJ, every time you shoot a shot like that, I die a little bit on the inside.  So instead of killing me slowly, the knife would do the job quicker and with less pain.  Please, blow by your man every time you get the feeling you want to shoot that or I will chain your left leg to the bench all year long.  (Expletive).

The flashy passing and the ballsy shots, those are ingrained in Jennings basketball personality.  They can be ironed out and used effectively.  They are embraceable qualities.  Those are the kinds of things that make teams exciting and competitive.  And in the short term, they are the kinds of things that get people talking.  Jennings has people talking, well whispering or mentioning at least, about the Bucks for the first time in a few years and that’s why he’s going to be drawing top billing, hopefully for a long time.

From Sekou Smith’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution Hawks blog:

According to my sources, the overall interest in Josh Childress’ services this summer exceeds the level of interest from a year ago. But the same hurdles remain for any team trying to pry him away from the Hawks. He’s restricted. And any mid-level type offer from another team is sure to be matched.

The one sign-and-trade deal that has been on a low rumble throughout the past two weeks has been a proposed deal with Milwaukee, where the Hawks move Childress for a package that includes veteran big man Kurt Thomas (although, if I were the Hawks, I’d need a draft pick or something else to even consider this one).

I just can’t see moving a young player like Childress for a player that might not be in the playing rotation. The Bucks would have to add something to sweeten the pot for me. And even then, I still don’t like the idea of moving Childress to another Eastern Conference team.

The bad news came later.  In the form of a comment from Sekou and then on his Twitter feed.

On the phone with Chils, he’s going back.

I’m bummed out about this, but not devastated.  Joe Alexander looked very good last night against the Kings.  I know it was a summer league game, but he didn’t look good in any of them last year, so this must be a step in the right direction.  He has all the physical talent in the world and looks like he’ll fit in nicely with Brandon Jennings.  Also with no Childress, it should result in more minutes for Luc Richard Mbah a Moute at the three, which is a much more natural position for him.  He was forced to play way too many minutes at the four last year and while it probably made him a better defender in the short term, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for the Bucks over the long haul.

The Bucks will likely thrust all of their focus for the next few days unto Ersan Illyasova.  He has until Wednesday to decide whether or not he’ll be staying in Europe or returning stateside.  His signing is more important than Childress’ was due to the Bucks lack of quality depth in the front court.  Once he’s resigned I’d imagine they’ll get more serious with Ramon Sessions, although they seem to be taking the “wait and see” approach rather  seriously with him.  Are they waiting for an offer sheet?  I sure hope not.  Letting other teams set the market usually goes a long way towards souring relationships between players and teams.  Don’t believe me?  Read about the recent Marcin Gortat fiasco with the Magic.  Does he sound like a happy guy?  We don’t want Sessions getting promised starter minutes somewhere else only to find out he’s coming back here to fight with Brandon Jennings and Luke Ridnour for minutes.

Nevertheless it should be an interesting few days.

• I had a prior engagement tonight that caused me to miss the first half, so I’m just tuning into summer league play for the first time.  First play I catch is Brandon Jennings harassing a King by helping off his man (Ty Evans) and forcing a steal that Amir Johnson picks up for a windmill jam.  Beautiful.
• Two possessions later Evans leaves Jennings behind him and gets to the hoop…only to be blocked by Amir.
• A Wes Matthews sighting as he is unable to convert a reverse layup.
• First half ends with the Bucks down 43-39.  Evans must have been beating Jennings up; he’s the Kings leading scorer.
• Upon reading David Thorpe’s tweets from court side I see Evans has six assists to go with his 13 points, impressive.
• Interesting point about PG’s from one of the announcers.  He thinks you can coach someone into being a passer ala Chauncey Billups.  To me, the problem with that is you won’t have that guy on your team by the time he’s ready to be a real NBA point guard.  That’s why Evans seems risky as a point project.
• I didn’t know exactly which guy on the court Jodie Meeks was until I saw him nail his first catch and shoot jumper.  It was clear then.
• I think the next step in Joe Alexander’s evolution will involve a haircut.  I’m sorry Joe, but you have Joey hair right now.  You don’t want to be a Joey.
• Wes for three!  Good to see.
• Jennings to Johnson for a MEGA lob.  Just inside half court, wonderful.
• And they hook up again, this time from much closer, but still a terrific looking hammer.
• By the time I finished typing that Jennings dished another assist for a dunk to Alexander.  He’s at 11.  I’m beginning to get a little excited for October.  He’ll at least make this season interesting, right?
• Jennings with a terrific steal and goes right at Evans for a layup.  Seeing him finish is exciting, that seemed to be a knock on him.  Evans isn’t a small guy either.  Five steals! 57-51 Bucks.
• Mbah a Moute misses a pull up jumper.  Not really his shot.  I’d rather see him planting himself outside the arc and shooting a three if he really wants to use this time to work on something.
• Jennings comes back down to Earth with a poor looking fade away airball that he had no business shooting.
• Meeks a nice kick out to Jennings for three.  That was a much better and more balanced shot out of him.
• Wesley with the and1.  Announcer says it’s his second of the night and he’s sitting at 14 points.
• I don’t know that Jennings is a bad shooter, he just sometimes takes real bad shots where his balance is off and he ends up on one leg.  If he could cut those out I bet his percentage would look even better.  I think once the season starts we’ll be seeing a lot less of those.  My gut tells me Scott Skiles head might explode if he saw a few of those in one quarter.
• Evans blows by Jennings.  He’s a specimen that Evans is.
• Meeks is ill, 7-10 with 17 points.
• I’m digging Mbah a Moute’s Baron Davis JR. Beard.
• JC Palacios is much less active than I expected.  I thought he might be flying all over the place making bodies move and grabbing rebounds.  I haven’t seen him do anything of note.  Nice dunk by Lorenzo Wade though.
• The amount of overreacting to Jennings that is being done on the BrewHoop thread is pretty incredible.  And I’m doing my best to help lead the charge.  How obvious is it that the Bucks haven’t been exciting for a while?
• Palacios and McNeal exchange crafty floaters.  Go Big East.
• Vintage McNeal: steal up top leads to a fast break where he fails to finish.
• Evans is so overpowering.  He’s over 20 as the Bucks are up 72-67.
• Jennings is back in and promptly misses a three.  Not too forced.  He’s 3-11 from the field, but I consider that irrelevant.
• Jennings with a layup, 78-74 Bucks.
• Alexander is getting to the line a lot.   7-8 for the evening on his free throws.
• Alexander creates some space for himself and hits a nice step back from the free throw line.  That seems about the correct range for that shot for him.
• For as much as it seems like Jennings shoots he is a very willing passer.  Left a nice dime for Amir who got hammered underneath.  82-78 good guys with three minutes to go.
• Jennings likes to really put pressure on guys in the back court, I don’t know how effective that’ll be during the year, but I like it right now.  He was just able to draw a foul on Ty Evans.
• After an airball by Alexander Evans knifed through the Bucks defense drawing a foul.  He does have a nice handle.
• Jennings drives and kicks to Meeks for three.  I hope I’m saying that a lot in the next few years.  Meeks has been VERY effective, VERY quietly.
• 87-84 1:00 to go.  Jennings forces nothing and finds Johnson for a layup.  Maturity.
• Johnson was fouled and hit one free throw.
• Evans gets fouled going to the cup again.  That guy is hitting the deck like he’s D-Wade or something, man.  He’s relentless.  He hits both FT’s and it’s 88-86 Bucks with 25 seconds to go.
• Jennings drills a one footed three with less than ten seconds to go.  Wonderful. Wonderful.  Wonderful.
• Evans final line: 33 pts, 9 rebounds, 7 assists, 8 TO’s, 17-19 from the stripe.
• Jennings final line: 13 pts, 14 assists, 7 steals, 4 TO’s, one dagger and a group of fans singing his praises.

• Summer league basketball!!  Here are box scores from Friday’s game and Sunday’s game.  You’ll notice things look much better on Sunday’s, especially for Brandon Jennings.  Jennings got into a nice rhythm in the second half on Sunday and ended up canning half of his eight three-point shots.  It’s likely he had some first professional game jitters heading into things Friday, so it makes sense that he was able to turn things around rather quickly.  What doesn’t makes sense?  Joe Alexander.  He currently sits at a tidy 5-25 heading into the Monday night game against Sacramento.  Ugh.  This sounds like the guy who had trouble with Chris Otule from Marquette and not the guy who began looking more comfortable at the end of last season.
• David Thorpe from ESPN.com had been tweeting during summer league games the past few days but left before the Bucks started on Friday.  He stuck around for the first half Sunday.  He is not a fan of Jennings form on his jump shot.
• The Las Vegas Sun was impressed with Brandon.
• Frank at BrewHoop had an eventful weekend, live blogging Friday and Sunday in addition to having a chat with John Hammond.  Hammond says the Josh Childress situation is a “wait and see” type of thing, but they can only wait so long as Childress must make some sort of declaration by July 15 as to whether or not he will be returning to Europe.  Ditto Ersan Illyasova.  I expect Wednesday to be busy.
• Some stuff about Jennings in a Day 3 roundup of the Vegas league at TrueHoop.  Apparently David Thorpe has faith in BJ after all.
• The Bucks remaining Vegas schedule: Monday vs. Sacramento @ 9:30pm (all times central), Wednesday vs. Chicago @ 5:00pm, Thursday vs. Toronto @ 3:00pm

Frank is live blogging the Bucks summer league over at Brew Hoop.  Since David Thorpe called it a night before the Bucks got started (sigh) Frank has zero competition here.  Good stuff.