I was out of town this past weekend, so I didn’t catch Friday night’s Bucks-Pistons game or Saturday night’s Bucks-Cavs game.  Even when I’m away, I try and keep an eye and a half on the game, just in case something major happens.  I hate missing games entirely, especially home games.  There’s always that chance something really cool might happen, something that makes you say, “Ah, I wish I saw that.”

Especially in April.

In meaningless April games, the court becomes wet with opportunity.  Rookies who typically wouldn’t be playing find themselves thrust into action, given a chance to show what they can do and veterans get the opportunity to either rest or work on parts of their games that they don’t showcase all year.  More importantly, guys get to gun for stats.

If a player gets even a whiff that he may be able to do something cool, you better believe he’s going to try and make it happen in April.  For everyone saying these games are meaningless, you’re half right.  In the grand scheme of things, yes, they are.  But in the small picture, they are huge opportunities for players to do outrageous things.

Being a Bucks fan has taught us that much.

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Milwaukee Bucks (Scott Skiles) 4-5
Inactive: Chris Douglas Roberts, Michael Redd, Darington Hobson

vs

Golden State Warriors (Keith Smart) 6-3
Inactive: David Lee, Louis Amundson, Ekpe Udoh

Date: 11/13/2010
Game Time: 7:30 PM (CST)
TV: FS Wisconsin / NBA TV

The Other Guys: WarriorsWorld.net

Point Guard

Brandon Jennings vs. Stephen Curry

Jennings is still working towards establishing consistency in his game, but he’s taken baby steps towards that with back-to-back solid games in blowout Milwaukee wins.  He’s been more aggressive in looking for his shots at times in each of the past two wins, but hasn’t been overbearing about shooting.  There’s an important distinction between the two.  It’s good for a point guard to be aggressive, but it’s bad for a point guard to be too shot happy.  At times last season, often because of a lack of talent around him, Jennings got shot happy.  That hasn’t been the case lately.  Of course, it helps when he’s making his shots too.  In the past three games, he’s connected on 8-14 threes.  Curry has gotten even better this season after a strong rookie year last year.  He’s shooting close to 50% and has boosted his percentage of field goals assisted on while he’s on the floor from 24.6% to 34.1%.  He gets the edge over Jennings for his seven fairly consistent games, but if Jennings keeps up the stellar play of late, this could easily be a push.

Advantage: Warriors
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From Charles F. Gardner JSOnline:

The Bucks completed a trade late Tuesday afternoon to acquire forward Corey Maggette from the Golden State Warriors in exchange for guard Charlie Bell and center Dan Gadzuric, according to basketball sources.

Gardner has since updated his post to include the Bucks receiving the Warriors 44th pick in Thursday’s draft.

I addressed some of the pluses and minuses of the hypothetical deal that’s suddenly turned very real earlier in my post about a few Bucks rumors. As is the case with many deals in the NBA, this one is financially motivated from the Warriors perspective. Here’s the table I had in my first post which breaks down the three players respective contracts.

The eye popping number here is that the Bucks are taking back a contract that has $30,786,207 left on it over three years. However, they’re shipping out contracts that add up to $15,199,685. This leaves the Bucks on the hook for an additional $15,586,522.

The question now is, with regard to their roster now and for the rest of the summer, where does this leave the Bucks?

Well, a friend of mine texted me minutes after the deal was made to let me know he’d heard Maggette already took 10 shots. He failed to mention that he attempted six free throws too. Read more…

Remember the ball movement, 3-point shooting and balanced scoring that thrilled home crowds at the Bradley Center last season?

It may remain just a memory if things play out a certain way in the coming days.

First, Lance Stephenson is reportedly in the mix at the 15th pick for the Bucks and would be even more realistic if the Bucks were to trade for a lower pick (that’s what I call trading down if I haven’t been clear on that) in the first round. Stephenson, um, wasn’t a great passer in his one season at Cincinnati. In fact, he wasn’t much of a passer at all, finishing 11th in the conference in shot percentage and possession percentage. That wouldn’t be all that striking, if not for the fact that Stephenson was a largely average offensive player last season, finishing 75th in the Big East in offensive rating and turning the ball over on nearly 20% of his possessions.

But Stephenson has been one of the most sought after prospect in the United States since he was a 15-year-old. Attitude and criminal concerns have been real problems for him and leave him staring the life of a second round pick in the eye. In the NBA though, talent generally wins out over everything. It’s possible that the Bucks have become enamored enough with Stephenson that they’d be willing to take a chance on an incredibly talented prospect. Chad Ford has this to say in his most recent mock draft:

It’s a long shot but Cincinnati’s Lance Stephenson has impressed in workouts and the Bucks have had their eye on him for a while. It seems like that’s a bit of a reach at 15, but John Hammond rolled the dice on a former high school phenom with a bad rep last year and it paid off. Will he do it again this year?

And now, from one suspected future jacker to a certifiable shot machine, the Bucks have reportedly been kicking the tires on Corey Maggette says Gery Woelfel of the Racine Journal Times. The deal that the Bucks would reportedly like to offer would include Dan Gadzuric and Charlie Bell for Maggette. Here’s the quick salary breakdowns of the three:

Maggette’s strengths? Getting to the free throw line and looking mean come to mind. Maggette’s averaged 7.1 free throws to 11.2 shots per game in his career. He’s one of the league’s best a finishing with contact and annually has a true shooting percentage hovering around or above 58%. Maggette would give the Bucks a lot of what they’d be missing if John Salmons does not return and does it for only $15 million more dollars over the next three seasons than it’s costing Milwaukee to keep Gadzuric and Bell. Maggette’s age, he turns 31 in November, is a concern, but as I’ve earlier said about Salmons, three years seems a reasonable commitment for a player of that age.

But with strengths come weaknesses. Maggette’s primary weakness being his inability to operate much without the ball. Maggette, a player who’s only been on one playoff team and has never made an all-star team, is 51st in the HISTORY of the NBA in usage percentage. Maggette will be shooting or he will be getting to the line, there’s a high probability those things will happen. Milwaukee has to think hard about whether or not they can live with that kind of player at the three. There’s no question he can score effectively, but at what price? Will he alienate teammates with his constant shooting? Even if the other players accept his offensive outputs, will is cause them to unintentionally lose interest on defense if they aren’t involved enough on offense? Maggette is the kind of player that can drive a wedge into a team without even being a locker room problem. Offenses are generally best when teams have a number of productive players that can score and move the ball. The Bucks had players that could move the ball last season, but lacked players who could score.

They may be sacrificing the latter to get the former if these two moves go down and that could just result in a sideways step for a team that seemed on the right track last season.

Check out the reaction by the Bucks bench. Priceless.

If it hadn’t been done before, and it’s probably foolish that it wasn’t, the word “can’t” was officially removed from the dictionary on the Milwaukee Bucks 2009-10 season. It’s uses were once prevalent. Milwaukee can’t get to the line. They can’t score inside without Andrew Bogut. Brandon Jennings can’t finish. The Bucks can’t hang with the Hawks in the playoffs.

Can’t, can’t, can’t, can’t. These Bucks seem to know not of this word. Every time the rest of the world decides they aren’t capable of doing something, they go on and do it anyway. Milwaukee shot 32 free throws Monday night. They outscored the Hawks in the paint 44-26. Jennings was 9-16 from the field and didn’t hit a 3-pointer.

And the Bucks tied up their first round series with the Hawks at two.

In front of a raucous crowd with only a few pockets of empty seats in a sold out Bradley Center, the Bucks squeezed every last drop of effort out of 10 different players and played as close to flawless a game as they have without Bogut. The Bucks, a team once known for their selfishness on the court and corrosive chemistry off of it, relied on the formula that’s been working for them all season: above average ball movement and a sense of togetherness I haven’t seen in Milwaukee.

Asked about this being one of those games the old Bucks used to lose, Jerry Stackhouse had a very appropriate answer after the game:

I don’t know any of them old Bucks teams.

Can’t? Not these Bucks, not yet. Read more…