And we’re off.

Draft day begins with a bang for Milwaukee Bucks fans. All week we heard the Bucks were itching to make a move, but not necessarily just dump salary. So that’s how we got here. Milwaukee is bringing in the talented, but volatile, Stephen Jackson along with Shaun Livingston and Beno Udrih and the number 19 pick in today’s draft. Out the door head Corey Maggette and John Salmons (much to the delight of Bucks fans I’m sure).

The salary info:

Over the length of all of the deals involved, the Bucks will save $8,238,357 and the difference between the salaries of the 19 and 10 picks.

But this isn’t just a salary dump.

Read more…

He’s the latest chunk of Milwaukee Bucks information floating in the sea of trade rumors.

Chad Ford with the apparently final information on a crazy deal:

Bucks get Beno, Stephen Jackson, Shaun Livingston & 19. Bobcats get pick 7 & Maggette. Kings get 10 & John Salmons.

Whoa … again.

***

Minutes after Gery Woelfel’s tweet on the Bucks and the Kings, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! tweeted the Bobcats would be involved in a three way deal. He’s now updated involving players:

Partial of deal: The Bucks get Stephen Jackson, Shaun Livingston, sources say. Charlotte gets the 7th pick and Corey Maggette.

Whoa.

***

First the Observer, and then this. Gery Woelfel has Tweeted a rather big piece of news:

Bucks appear to have deal with Sacamento for No. 7

No word yet on who is involved or the specifics.

***

Here’s an old one (and by old, I mean I added this and started this page roughly two minutes ago and it’s already irrelevant). This one’s from the Charlotte Observer:

There are definitely serious talks going on between the Charlotte Bobcats and Milwaukee Bucks. Don’t know all the particulars yet, but it sounds like the Bobcats could end with the 10th pick and maybe send No. 19 to Milwaukee.

The article goes on to mention the similarities in the contracts of Corey Maggette and Stephen Jackson. Do with that what you will.

Jeremy Schmidt writes the Milwaukee Bucks blog Bucksketball.com. Follow him on Twitter.

Part two, The Negatives, of Josh Hilgendorf’s Bucksketball debut breaking down Bucks forwards this past season.

Now that I am done squinting my eyes trying to find something positive about the Bucks forward play this season, I can relax a little bit and let the players do most of the work for me. This is possible because to be frank, the forward play from the team in the 10-11 season was despicable.

John Hammond looked at the 09-10 team, saw they needed to get to the line more and could use a true power forward, and went out and got Corey Maggette and Drew Gooden. On paper, those were perfect moves. But, as the cliché goes, NBA games aren’t played on paper. Let’s take a look at everything the forwards did wrong last year.

• The chemistry killer

One of the main reasons the Bucks made it to the playoffs in 2010 was the team’s chemistry. Everybody seemed to like each other, or at least could play well together. Veterans like Kurt Thomas and Jerry Stackhouse brought wisdom from many years in the League. Players bought into what Scott Skiles was trying to do and played with fire.

So what happened this year?

Thomas and Stackhouse were gone, that certainly played a role. But an even bigger chemistry killer arrived from the west coast. The man with the guns for arms and face like Xzibit arrived in a summer trade and was able to whittle away at any good feelings the Bucks may have had by January.

Maggette was brought to the Bucks for his scoring prowess and ability to get to the free throw line. Even if you just look at the numbers and don’t consider chemistry, Maggette’s addition was a failure. A team that finished last in free throws made in the 09-10 season made a measly move to 27th. Maggette failed to do what he usually did best. He made 460 of 551 free throws his last season in Golden State. While his percentage remained almost the same in Milwaukee, his attempts and makes plummeted. He converted only 271 of 325 attempts form the charity stripe.

Look closer and you will see the culprit. Maggette played 10 less minutes per game this season compared to last. And why did he not get on the court as much? He never truly grasped what Skiles was trying to do and could not gel with the rest of his Bucks teammates. While stories leaked out throughout the season about the toxic atmosphere found in the locker room, you only had to look at Maggette’s on court demeanor to understand what was going on. Whether it was lowering his shoulder to barrel through a defender instead of passing to a wide-open teammate or appearing aloof during crunch time, it seems clear that Maggette’s heart never arrived in Milwaukee with the rest of his body. Read more…

Yesterday, there were two.  Today, there are three.  Meet the second of Bucksketball.com’s new contributors, Josh Hilgendorf.  Josh has been spreading the gospel of Bucks in Madison since the team’s distant memory of a sprint to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2001.  He writes constantly and will now be doing so more about the Bucks than he has ever before here at Bucksketball.

- Jeremy Schmidt

It is hard to find many positives on a team that failed to meet almost a single person’s expectations in the 2010-11 season. It is even harder to find positives among a group of forwards that were constantly missing games due to injury. Even if healthy, there was not a lot of consistency to be found here.

For every great Luc Mbah a Moute stop, we had to watch Drew Gooden’s clueless attempt to rotate on defense. For every Carlos Delfino 3-pointer, we were forced to witness Corey Maggette’s head down, “I’m not going to pass the ball even if my life depended on it,” one-man wrecking crew attempt at getting to the rim.

However, no matter how bad a team is, if you look hard enough, you are bound to find something to get excited about.

• Luc Mbah a Moute’s defense

Bucks fans have known since Moute’s rookie season that he could man up on the League’s premier offensive players. From the beginning he was guarding players of all shapes and sizes. Whether it was Chris Bosh, Paul Pierce or LeBron James, Moute secured playing time that first season because of his effort, and often success, on defense.

After bursting on the scene as a second round surprise, it seems like Moute got lost in the shuffle this season. However, those paying the closest attention saw him still guarding the team’s best player, whether that be a small forward, power forward or even center on occasion.

Read more…

Ersan Ilyasova

Continued to scrap
One of the walking wounded
Lost his long ball touch

Every NBA player needs a card to play that makes him unique.  Ilyasova’s appeared to be his combination of scrappy play with a solid touch from three-point range.  After last season, Coach Scott Skiles talked of his hopes that Ilyasova would turn into a 37-38% shooter from three.  That didn’t pan out.  Ilyasova took a step back as a shooter, falling to sub-30% from deep.  Going forward, that’ll be where Ilyasova must straighten himself out.  He was among the team’s leaders in charges taken, but he’ll never be the defender Mbah a Moute is at the four, and his rebounding is no better than average.

Brandon Jennings

Question of import:
Did his development stall?
Most pressing issue

Watching Chris Paul terrorize the Lakers is frustrating as a Bucks fan.  Size wise, Paul is no bigger than Jennings.  Maybe he’s a bit thicker, but he seems to have a sense ingrained in him about what to do and when to do it.  Jennings may not have that, but he could still be an effective player.  Some are jumping ship on him already, others are giving him a bit more string.  But after his third year, we’ll probably have a fairly good idea about whether or not Jennings is the right guy at the point guard position for the Bucks.  This will be a huge off-season for him.

Corey Maggette

On a losing team
Designated driver was
Pulled over as well

Brought in to even out the Bucks free throw numbers, Maggette largely did his thing.  Per 36 minutes, he attempted 8.4 free throws per game — in line with his 8.7 per game numbers per 36 for his career.  But he had trouble earning consistent minutes down the stretch, as Skiles went largely exclusively with John Salmons and Carlos Delfino at the wings.  Maggette had his moments before that — the game at Golden State comes to mind — but for whatever reason, he could never earn his coach’s trust.  Milwaukee may look to move him this summer, but it doesn’t appear that he’s pressed the issue just yet.  He was largely regarded as a positive teammate and got praise for just being a good guy.  In the NBA though, that’s not enough.

Read more…