It is the dawn of a new era at Bucksketball. Today’s post is the very first from one of two new contributors, Ian Segovia. Ian was once one of the finest 12-year-old spellers Wisconsin has ever known, and has turned that innate ability to spell words like “Parallel” into the ability to construct sentences about his favorite basketball team, the Milwaukee Bucks. As he hopes and prays Brandon Jennings can turn into some sort of Kevin Johnson clone, he’ll deliver his Bucks related thoughts here at Bucksketball.
We’re rolling out a three part series today reviewing Milwaukee’s pluses and minuses this season at guard forward and center. Ian starts today with guards. Up first, the positives. Later, the negatives. Next week we’ll look forward to the off-season and figure where the Bucks most pressing needs will be.
- Jeremy Schmidt
It was a tough year for the Bucks guards. Since the Bucks are such a perimeter-oriented offense, the guards deserve much of the blame for the team’s offensive struggles. Plus, it isn’t clear how much credit they deserve for the team’s stellar defense. The defensive standouts for the team were located in center and forward spots. And often the best defense against a great opposing guard was to funnel them to Andrew Bogut. Yet, the guards still had their silver lining.
John Hollinger’s PER rankings has Earl Boykins at 17.62, best among the bucks and good for fourteenth among all point guards. Obviously, this is ridiculous, but what PER does show is that Boykins was the perfect deep bench role player.
He dropped thirteen in the fourth quarter against the Lakers. He rang in the New Year with twenty-six against the Mavericks and then ran around like a chicken with its head cut off to drop in the game-tying bucket against the Heat. I haven’t kept track of anyone else’s third-string point guards, but I highly doubt any can boast as much.
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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.
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I told a friend last year that I’d received an e-mail from a noted, yet controversial, member of the basketball community. He replied by asking me if the e-mail was written in wingdings. That’s the sort of crazy some people are, that you’d expect them to write exclusively in wingdings, because they are speaking a language few of us understand anyway.
I kind of think the remainder of this post should be written in wingdings. Yeah, that’s where I’m heading.
Because the more I think about it, the more I start to justify this Bucks season as one that simply got away early and couldn’t be reigned in. When I write that, I’m speaking to the power of Milwaukee’s defense and how much leeway it gives a problematic offense. But it seems fair to ask if an offense could ever become more problematic than the one the Bucks trotted out this season. With that in mind, I wonder if this season was a fluke.
The more I think about it, the more I think this team, almost as presently constructed, isn’t very far from being way better than average.
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Let’s do some comparing and contrasting.
Player A averaged 18.3 points two years ago, but has never been within two points of that total for any other entire season of his career. He came into the league as a point guard but quickly moved over to the wing in his rookie season. His career assist percentage is 15.5, so he’s seen as a guy who keeps the ball moving on offense. Solid is the word that most often describes his defense. He’s not a bad guy to have around and he can occasionally carry a team.
Player B is a serious scoring threat. Per 36 minutes, he’s averaged 20 points for his career. A stat-geek’s best friend, his true shooting percentage and PER are always better than league average. Though he’s traditionally not a strong outside shooter, he’s made better than 36% of his threes this season. With each new stop, his defensive reputation precedes him and he’s seen as selfish offensively, despite a sterling locker room reputation.
Player A has played at least 30 minutes in all but six games he’s played in this season, while Player B has managed only 13 such games this season, his most recent coming February 11.
By now, you know I’m referring to John Salmons and Corey Maggette. At least you probably know, and you probably knew immediately. But you’re probably wondering why I’d be comparing these two. Salmons has spent the majority of his season at the two, while Maggette is more a three. Whenever Carlos Delfino has been healthy this season, he’s been Maggette’s main competitor for minutes, not Salmons. But this isn’t about competition. It’s actually about last season and how sample size affected the Bucks.
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Oh, what a tease.
After months of injuries, underwhelming performances, failures to execute, missed shots and fourth quarter collapses, most people feel like they have a pretty good handle on this Bucks team. But Wednesday night’s 104-98 victory over the Toronto Raptors certainly didn’t fit the profile that’s been established.
Recent gruesome losses featuring very poor fourth quarter performances were still fresh in the minds of Bucks fans when Toronto turned a 85-80 deficit into a 88-87 lead with 4:48 left in the fourth quarter. But this time, the Bucks were able to use the same fight they had against the Bobcats and mix in enough made shots to flip the script. 35 seconds and three offensive rebounds after an Andrea Bargnani layup would put the Bucks behind, Carlos Delfino responded with a three from the corner to conclude a possession in which the Bucks went one for four with three offensive rebounds. It wasn’t so unlike the final possession against Charlotte, but it was TOTALLY unlike that final possession, in that the Bucks found a way to finish it out.
Milwaukee would feature plenty of Drew Gooden to hold the Raptors, as Gooden’s touch from long range was alive and well, but the Bucks even mixed in an Andrew Bogut right-handed hook from the paint to keep the Raptors at bay. Multiple players making shots when the Bucks needed them to be made? This group didn’t resemble the Bucks of the past week.
That’s the beauty of playing Toronto though. Milwaukee’s victory left them with a 3-0 lead over their Canadian counterparts this season. In each game Milwaukee’s offense was able to do virtually as it pleased. So when I say this game seemed a bit of a tease, I keep the Bucks-Raptors series this season in mind. The long since banished to the end of the bench Corey Maggette logged a double-double in the Bucks first trip to Toronto, a game I think of when I see Gooden score 22 points and grab 11 rebounds. Will Gooden always get looks good enough to end up six of eight from 20-feet out? Probably not, even though he’s been a good shooter on long two’s this season (45% from 16-23 feet).
So forgive me if I see this game as less proof of what a healthy Bucks team can do and more an indictment of just how bad Toronto is. That said, it’s still fun to see a victory and a team that’s working hard get a reward for their efforts.
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