Another familiar face has joined the Milwaukee Bucks. From the team:

The Milwaukee Bucks have signed forward-center Brian Skinner (6-9, 255) to a contract, General Manager John Hammond announced today.

A 12-year NBA veteran, Skinner has played in 605 games and holds career averages of 4.8 points and 4.7 rebounds while shooting 49.4 percent from the field. Skinner spent the 2009-10 season with the Los Angeles Clippers, where he played in 16 games and tallied 1.6 points and 1.7 rebounds in 7.7 minutes per contest.

Those who rumble have been rumbling for some time that Skinner has been hanging around Milwaukee and working out with the team, so his signing doesn’t come as a total shock.  Any time a team with 19 guys under contract (15 and a half of those contracts for guaranteed money) signs another player though, it’s a little interesting.

Will Skinner merely be camp fodder?  The Bucks are heavy on guys who are tall, so it doesn’t seem like Milwaukee needs to bring in another body simply to get through the pre-season.  Marc Stein notes through Twitter though, that Skinner’s contract is non-guaranteed, which could indicate that he’ll be released upon the final roster trim down.  Stein also writes that this signing takes Milwaukee out of the hunt for Erick Dampier, which is a bit curious.  If the contract is non-guaranteed, I’m not sure why it would remove Milwaukee from consideration.  If Milwaukee suddenly were able to reach a deal with Dampier, they could just as soon release Skinner again.

It seems like Dampier’s situation played out separate and once Milwaukee realized they wouldn’t have his services this season, they went out and picked up Skinner, who at the very least works hard and knows how to get to the Bradley Center (two previous tours of duty with Milwaukee).

If Skinner does somehow manage to stick around into the regular season, the Bucks will certainly have the market cornered on creative facial hair, should he and Drew Gooden return to their classic beard growing ways.

For now though, that seems like a long shot.

Jeremy Schmidt writes the Milwaukee Bucks blog Bucksketball.com

We’ve all made our share of Chris Douglas-Roberts jokes this summer.  He had his share of problems with the Nets last season and his especially passionate style of Tweeting makes him an easy target.  On Media Day though, for the umpteenth time since joining the Bucks, he was swearing that he’s not who he has been portrayed as.  He’s moved past any perceived problems he had he says and has learned some important life lessons along the way.  Where exactly he learned the lessons though, is an interesting story.

“I remember watching an episode of Recess, it’s a cartoon,” said CD-R.  “T.J. Detwiler tried his best to get a guy to like him and it was just impossible.  He did everything to help him and it was just impossible.  So, from that episode, I learned everybody is just not going to like you.  You’re going to have people to dislike you, no matter what you do.  So, that’s how I look at it.”

It’s easy to forget sometimes, that basketball players can be pretty young guys.  CD-R is only 23, so it makes sense that he was tuning into Disney’s Recess years ago.  At least I’ll assume it was years ago, we didn’t exactly get that clear.  Though I wouldn’t put it by CD-R to be tuning into cartoons still.  As much as many may think a guy like Lebron James is completely out of touch with reality, that’s how in touch with reality, or something that resembles reality, CD-R seems to be.

Surely you’ve seen how much this guy Tweets.  He’s never stopping and he’s not afraid to say anything.  He took Mo Williams to task over his retirement comments (and he assured me he had no idea there was some ill will in Milwaukee with Mo, so it didn’t appear to be a move simply to garner favor with his new fans).  He’s dished out advice to fans on when it is appropriate and not appropriate to come and talk to players who are out and about.  He’s even not afraid of letting everyone know that he was among the league’s leaders in steals last season before the Nets cut his playing time.  CD-R has a fairly simple explanation for his Tweeting habits.

*** UPDATE *** for more on CD-R check out NBAPlaybook.

Read more…

So how does a team build on a surprise 46 win season?

How about by blowing things up and starting over.

Okay, so it wasn’t that drastic for the Milwaukee Bucks.  They retained most of their core pieces from last season.  Andrew Bogut is still in the middle (and don’t worry, everyone is saying positive things when it comes to his health).  Brandon Jennings is looking to build on a strong rookie season.  The Bucks established their core last season and spent the off-season strengthening the depth around that core.  Still, nine new players is a lot of turnover from one season to the next, typically something more common in a lottery team than a team that nearly won a playoff series.

Fortunately, it’s looking like the Bucks did their homework in making the commitments they made this off-season.  There is good reason to believe, for all the distress that some of the moves the Bucks made this off-season caused, these guys are going to fit well together and gel quickly.

Chemistry had a lot to do with the Bucks success last season.  Time after time, Coach Scott Skiles cited the harmonious locker room free of egos as a big part of the team’s willingness to play defense and show accountability.  Obviously Media Day isn’t a great barometer when it comes to figuring out what kind of chemistry a team will have in the upcoming season, but the players are saying the right things so far. Read more…

The Milwaukee Bucks have filled the assistant coaching position vacated when Adrian Griffin took a job with the Chicago Bulls.

General manager John Hammond announced today that the Bucks have added Anthony Goldwire as an assistant coach to the 2010-11 Milwaukee Bucks coaching staff. Goldwire, who has playing experience in the NBA, CBA and internationally, most recently served as an assistant coach for the 2010 Phoenix Suns Summer League team. Goldwire joins Jim Boylan, Kelvin Sampson, Joe Wolf and Bill Peterson on the coaching staff of Head Coach Scott Skiles.

Goldwire spent eight seasons with nine NBA teams, including two stints with Milwaukee in the 2003-04 and 2004-05 seasons, respectively. In 24 games during the 2004-05 season, Goldwire averaged 6.4 points, 2.1 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game for the Bucks. In 266 career NBA games, Goldwire averaged 6.3 points, 2.8 assists and 1.3 rebounds.

Jeremy Schmidt writes the Milwaukee Bucks blog Bucksketball.com

Jared Reiner.  Damir Markota.  Francisco Elson.  Dan Gadzuric.  Jake Voskuhl.  Primoz Brezec.

Finding a backup center for Andrew Bogut hasn’t been an easy task for the Milwaukee Bucks since their center was picked number one in 2005.  Now, finally, the Bucks may have the inside track on the reasonably priced, veteran big man they’ve been searching for all of these years.

Sam Amick of AOL Fanhouse is reporting that Erick Dampier is considering joining the Milwaukee Bucks.

Dampier would see significant time playing behind center Andrew Bogut. He was told as much by Scott Skiles, according to the sources, as he spoke with the Bucks coach recently about how he would fit and was pleased with the tone of the discussion.

Given the Bucks salary cap situation, the best they can do for Dampier is a veterans’ minimum salary offer of $1.3 million.  Read more…