(UPDATE: Milwaukee has officially signed Brian Skinner.)

As reported earlier in the day by Alex Kennedy of Hoopsworld.com, the Milwaukee Bucks have requested waivers on Darington Hobson.  In Kennedy’s story, he also says sources have indicated that Milwaukee will look to resign Brian Skinner, who was the final training camp cut prior to the regular season.  Milwaukee is reportedly still high on Hobson though, and may try and resign him this summer.  A hip injury left him unable to participate last summer on the Bucks Vegas Summer League team and eventually required surgery that will force him to miss his entire rookie season.

Andrew Bogut’s ever present injury problems, first with his elbow and now with his back, have exposed Milwaukee’s lack of depth at the center position over the past three games.  Back injuries and migraines are two things Bogut has battled already this season and neither or those injuries are entirely predictable.  If Skinner is resigned, it’s safe to assume he’ll absorb some of the backup center minutes that have for now been bouncing between Drew Gooden, Ersan Ilyasova, Larry Sanders and Jon Brockman.

Of those four, Brockman seems most likely to suffer a significant minute reduction, as he’s significantly undersized and not rebounding at the same amazing clip he was last season.

Bogut told JSOnline that he’s progressing in his return from the back spasms that have felled him of late.  In addition, he rest for his back may have done his elbow some good as well.

“I had an on-court workout for 45 minutes and felt decent,” Bogut said in a phone interview. “I’m going to the physio now and the key will be to see how it holds up tonight and tomorrow. It (the elbow) felt the best today since I’ve started shooting the ball. I was able to go with no tape or brace.”

Royce Young from CBSSports gives you his seven teams to watch as apart of League Pass Broadbanda. Guess which team makes the cut? (Hint: this is a Milwaukee Bucks website)

Charles F. Gardner writes about the Bucks desire for a loud and proud home crowd. “Sellout crowds of 18,717 attended Games 3, 4 and 6, and the Milwaukee fans were much louder than the crowds in Atlanta.  Now Jennings believes that same spirit can be duplicated during the regular season when it opens in two weeks, with the home opener slated Oct. 30 against Charlotte.  ‘That means now we’ve got to go out on the court and do what we’re supposed to do, and that’s play Bucks basketball,’ Jennings said after he scored 18 points Tuesday night in an open scrimmage at the Bradley Center.

Also from Gardner, Andrew Bogut might get back on the court finally this weekend. “And Bogut sounded optimistic after the session, saying he thought he would return Saturday at Memphis and try to play some time in back-to-back games against the Grizzlies and Timberwolves.  ‘The trainers are talking about playing 6 to 10 minutes on the first night and up to 12 on the second night,’ Bogut said. ‘Then the week after 20-plus minutes.’”

In “The Works” Bethlehem Shoals and Tom Ziller preview the Bucks. This excerpt is good, but there is much more so be sure to check it out.  “Bogut was out-of-this-world much of the past two seasons, carrying an otherwise pond-deep Bucks team to a .500 level. Not until John Salmons came aboard did the talent around Bogut become serious enough to aim for better things; adding Corey Maggette only helps.  But the Bucks need Bogut to be special to get there.”

Yet again, there’s talk that Yi Jianlian could do some things in this piece from Mike Prada of SBNation. Positive things he’s talking about. When will people learn.

Steve Kyler from Hoopsworld.com has some insight on the Darington Hobson situation.  What’s unclear in the story is why the Bucks would give Hobson a contract at all.  The story indicates that ownership had given Hobson the contract before realizing he was injured, but he didn’t sign his deal until September 3rd, well after he sat out summer league.

Brandon Jennings hits from way deep at last night’s scrimmage.

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

It has been a couple weeks worth of practice, three pre-season games and a boatload of injuries since the Bucks kicked off their new season.  Tuesday night though, it looked like this group had not spent much time together at all yet.  Milwaukee had their annual open practice which saw the team split into two teams and scrimmage.  It sounds a lot better than it looked.

Both teams looked out of sync and significantly sloppier than the Bucks have appeared in any of their first three pre-season games.  That’s saying quite a bit too, because Milwaukee turned the ball over 24 times in their exhibition opener.  It wasn’t even just the turnovers that seemed to be the problem for both Bucks squads, it was a lack of players being in the right spots.

Coaches were yelling from the bench on a number of occasions reminding players where they needed to be.  After the game, Coach Scott Skiles was vocal in his displeasure with where his team is at this far into the exhibition season.  After the game, Skiles was asked if the team had made an acceptable amount of progress yet.

“Not as much as we need to,” he said.  “But we’ve still got five games left.  On one hand we’re not that far into camp, on the other hand we don’t have that much time before we play real games.  It’s kind of both right now.  We’ve definitely got a ways to go, there’s no doubt about it.” Read more…

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…

Recently, the TrueHoop Network’s D-League blog D-League Digest polled the network to see what respective blogs thought about their team’s usage of the D-League as a development tool.

As far as the Bucks are concerned, I gave them a D.  Here’s a sample of my thoughts on the matter:

It’s tough to criticize the Bucks when talking about developing young players. Brandon Jennings and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute have been getting minutes from day one as draft picks of John Hammond. But why the Bucks didn’t use the D-League more with Joe Alexander or Meeks is a curiosity.

You can read more here, but I’m now wondering if I was too harsh.

Can I blame the Bucks for wanting to keep closer tabs on their young players instead of shipping them away and hoping for more development?  Milwaukee may feel that their coaches and system can offer better development than coaches who have little to no knowledge of the Bucks system and very little at stake with the players they are receiving.

Matt Moore made the point in the review that the Bucks use the D-League as a banishment system.  When they no longer have use for a player, they ship them to the D-League, never to hear from them again.  This is obviously a nod to the Joe Alexander experience.  After proving that he knew little about playing the game of basketball in his rookie season, Alexander mysteriously broke down with an injury at the start of camp last season and then played a few games in the D-League while still on the Bucks roster before his trade to Chicago.  Milwaukee wanted no part of him and sent him away not for development, but for the sake of separation.

But they’ve had success before, albeit with a different regime.  Ramon Sessions was a star in the D-League and Ersan Ilyasova was passable in his first go-round there.  I made the point on D-League Digest that Jodie Meeks could have used some regular shots that the D-League could have provided, but he did provide the Bucks with athleticism they did not have elsewhere in the early parts of last season.  Milwaukee often sees space and use on their roster for rookies.

This coming season should be the first when they have little space and use for their second-round-pick and will be an interesting test of their faith in the D-League system.  If Darington Hobson heads down and improves, this D could improve drastically and quickly.

Jeremy Schmidt writes the Milwaukee Bucks blog Bucksketball.com