The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

Meet the newest member of the Milwaukee Bucks, and a potential candidate for Scott Skiles new best friend, Jon Brockman. Hopefully he can flourish into a Big Baby Davis type body who can provide solid minutes off the bench.

This t-shirt from Philly Phaitful features Dr. J, Dr. Julius Erving, twirling the ABA ball on his finger.

The more amazing thing is that I still want to buy this shirt despite Dr. J being involved in one of the weirder situations ever in Bucks’ history. I’ll let Wikipedia summarize…

When he became eligible for the NBA draft in 1972, the Milwaukee Bucks picked him in the first round (12th overall). This move would have brought him together with Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Instead, the 6′ 7″, 210 pound Erving signed a contract with the Atlanta Hawks before the 1972–73 season.^[1]

As attorneys tried to reach an agreement among three teams in two leagues, Erving joined Pete Maravich and the Hawks’s training camp, as they prepared for the upcoming season. Erving enjoyed his brief time with Atlanta, and he would later duplicate with George Gervin his after-practice playing with Maravich. He played three exhibition games with the Hawks until, because of a legal injunction, he was obliged by a three-judge panel to return to the ABA Squires. The NBA fined Atlanta $25,000 per game for Erving’s Hawks appearances because Milwaukee owned his NBA rights.

So yes, Dr. J could have made everyone feel the high-flying deer. Who knows, maybe Lew Alcindor can’t leave town if Dr. J is around and the Bucks win 5 titles. Or maybe Dr. J blows out his knee, and this t-shirt is never made. Oh the possibilities!

What if LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh formed a boy band instead of a basketball team (the minimum-salaried vets would sing backup of course)? It would probably look just like this.

There is some absolutely excellent anti-Lebron James clothing out there. My personal favorite has to be this shirt about “The Decision” on ESPN.

Hat tip to SlideRuleJockey on RealGM for linking me to a whole collection of anti-James shirts.

By now you’ve seen the infamous, “Bango on the stairs dunk”, but have you seen Kenny, Charles, and Ernie try to do it themselves?

Enjoy! It’s a lot easier to watch when it’s full screen, for what it’s worth.

The latest “Protect This House – I WILL” commercial from Under Armour features Young Buck’s journey from Rome to Milwaukee, and the work he’s put in. Along the way there are plenty of images of Milwaukee, including the skyline, a nasty smokestack, and 9th Street entrance to the Milwaukee County Courthouse under MacArthur Square. Unfortunately the airport code for Milwaukee’s General Mitchell Airport is MKE not MIL. The Bucks three-letter code in the NBA is MIL.

It’s time for another edition of everyone’s favorite infrequently posted blog segment, the NBA Clothing Spotlight. With the Bucks recent hot play, this item is centered around one of the deer that should be feared.

Moute Kicks Boute

Luc Richard Mbah a Moute is the silent assassin on the Bucks. He typically has to defend the best offensive player on the other team, be it Dirk Nowitzki or Kevin Durant. As a reward for his hard work, Mbah a Moute never gets a single play called for him. So how does he post a career average of seven points a game? The offensive glass. Despite being undersized as a starting power forward, Luc Richard yanks down over two offensive rebounds a game. Those rebounds usually go straight back up and result in two points for the good guys.

How can you honor a defensive stopper who is arguably the hardest worker in the league? Buy his t-shirt.

Past Editions of NBA Clothing Spotlight

• Zombie Sonics

In order to take a charge, Bogut has to establish position — think of him turning himself into a column that “owns” the vertical space from the floor to the ceiling. In order to commit a charge, the offensive player must head-on violate that space that the defensive player has now claimed as his own. Think of it as the offensive player must knock over the column that the defensive player has just created. The offensive player must start in front of the defender and wind up in the same spot where the defender once was.

In this case, Kobe was going at an angle, striking a glancing blow against the “column” that Bogut had created, but not “knocking it over”. Kobe wound up beside the space Bogut had claimed, not behind it. This meant that Bogut (who had initiated the contact by establishing position on the floor and preventing Kobe from continuing his drive across the lane) had fouled Kobe.

I’m not sure about the claim of a travel beforehand, but the rules were clearly redefined this year to give players two steps and a jump rather than the previously wishy-washy (and physically impossible) 1 1/2 steps and jump. Kobe can go 7-8 feet without traveling.

For all the complaining about the officials, the bottom line is that the Bucks had 3 free throws that would have won or at the very least forced a second overtime. They missed all three.

This was an example of two teams being evenly matched, but one team having better players than the other.

As long as I’ve been a basketball fan, people around me have always claimed the refs were against “my” team. High school? The refs were against us because our team was mostly black and the other teams in our conference were all suburban white. University of Illinois? The refs were against us because Bobby Knight had them all scared of him. DePaul? The refs … I don’t even know why. The Bulls? Okay, nobody complained about the officiating when they were winning every game by 20 per night. The Bucks … small market paranoia. Every fan base thinks the officials are out to get them. It’s a problem endemic to basketball because of the speed of the game and the ambivalent definition of so many of the calls. Replay wouldn’t help block/charge calls because the explanation would have to be accompanied by dictionary definitions and telestrator analysis that still wouldn’t make half of the viewers happy.

It was a great game. The Bucks’ execution wasn’t as good as it needed to be. There may have been a free throw imbalance, but if the Bucks had made 87% of theirs like the Lakers did, the outcome would have been different. Too many long jumpers early in the shot clock. Redd shot 2-8 on three pointers. Jennings took one that apparently got him benched. You can’t expect Kobe Bryant to miss two game winning shots from the same spot in the floor when he’s being guarded by a guy who is 6’3″. I would have rather seen Mbah a Moute on him late, although Bell did do everything he could against him. You can say that if a team blows a 6 point lead in overtime then something is wrong, but remember in the Bucks’ last game against Portland, the Blazers did the exact same thing … twice.

Do the officials favor, or at least “respect” star players more than others? Yes, I don’t think there’s much doubt about that. But there is a chicken vs. egg argument about that. The best players are the best players, so they create more situations where the benefit of the doubt goes their way. That’s why I like the future of Brandon Jennings — once he starts getting some calls then he might become Iverson-esque unstoppable. That’s why Redd not being 100% makes his value pretty low, because he isn’t driving and drawing fouls like he used to. But the game isn’t fixed.

As I left the game last night, my friend said to me, “You know, after a loss like that, it almost feels worse than a blowout.” Then he thought for a minute and said, “I guess it could have been 110-80. That would have been a lot worse.”

Great game. I can’t wait to go back.

The Lakers just finished off the Bucks on a last second shot by Kobe Bryant in overtime, and as one could predict, the Bucks hashtag on Twitter is a alive with allegations at the NBA is rigged, or at least Bryant is heavily favored. The call the anger is centered around is a blocking foul called on Andrew Bogut that turned into a three-point play for Kobe Bryant putting the Lakers down one.

So the question stands, is the NBA rigged against Milwaukee? I have to say no. I just can’t believe it.  Maybe it’s denial because I simply love the NBA too much, but I think there is also plenty of evidence to support that the NBA is not rigged against Milwaukee.

The Lakers in Milwaukee routinely brings out a large number of casual fans. Enough that it annoys Andrew Bogut (a tweet from last year that I believe started his progression towards making Squad Six). Those casual fans are going to judge a book by its cover, and tonight was the night for which they’ll likely base their opinion of the NBA for the year (with the exception of watching highlights of Jennings’ 55). Regardless if that’s right or wrong, there are a few things they will certainly miss.

1. The Bucks routinely give up more free throws than they take. Yes the spread was a lot tonight, but the Lakers are good team that can get to the line. The Bucks, as a product of their Scott Skiles style of defense, are a team that commits a lot of fouls. The stats on 82games confirm that through 22 games the Bucks have committed 100 more shooting fouls than their opponents which results in at least a 200 free throw deficiency.  The Lakers taking 16 more free throws than the Bucks isn’t that astounding, considering that usually give teams at least 9 more free throws a game. Not to mention how many times the Bucks get in the penalty early in a quarter, turning non-shooting fouls into free throws. No sign of the game being rigged because of the free throw discrepancy.
2. The Bucks had chances to win, despite any rigging by the refs. Bogut could have made the free throw near the end of regulation. Michael Redd could have had a better shot selection. Ersan Illyasova could have made at least one of his free throws in the closing minute.
3. The block/charge call is the hardest call for a ref to make.  It just has to be. It’s often enough a split second decision, not to mention a call that quickly result in a five-point swing (two points the other way vs the three point play). It’s simply not a call you can make correctly every time down the court.

I think the ref made the wrong call on the play, but I don’t think the game is rigged. It’s simply a call refs get wrong, frequently.

But does the casual fan care? Probably not. It’s easy to pass off that the game is rigged in the post-Donaghy era. It’s easy to hate the NBA if you live in Milwaukee right now, the Bucks haven’t been a great team for a lot of reasons since 2001. And famous ESPN writers are suggesting the series against Philadelphia to get to the NBA Finals might not have been completely honest.

Brandon Jennings gave the casual fan in Milwaukee a reason to care this year, just enough of a push to finally leave home on a frigid night and see the Bucks take on the defending champs. With that, the Bucks still couldn’t fill up the arena, drawing only 16,309. The casual fan in Milwaukee has been so put off by the team’s struggles of the past few years that the Bucks couldn’t manage to sell out the arena against either of the game’s biggest stars (drawing 16,625 against Lebron). Disheartening for a team that has given fans so many reasons to care this year. So many reasons to believe things are headed in the right direction.

Unfortunately the casual fans that came out for their first game of the year tonight were treated to what had to be the nightmare scenario for Bucks’ management, a closing seconds lost after a couple close calls. One has to assume it would have be better for future sales had the Bucks been blown out by 20, but Brandon Jennings matched Kobe basket-for-basket.

The complaining about the refs and the NBA playing favorites on Twitter are pale compared to the choice words I heard on my way out of the stadium tonight. Fans vowing never to come back, and asking themselves why they paid attention to the NBA at all this year seemed to be everywhere to be found. This depressed attitude amplified by the fact that they live in a city where it’s a Wednesday night with a temperature below 20 degrees, nearing the end of a Christmas shopping season where more people than ever in my lifetime don’t have the financial wherewithal to buy something for their loved ones.

And it’s a shame that there is a good chance they won’t come back. Now more than any season since Andrew Bogut was drafted, the Bucks are holding up their end of the bargain. Night-after-night they’re playing hard, looking more and more like a complete team, and giving fans a reason to come to the Bradley Center. In a city that can’t seem to get its act together around schools, transit, or jobs, the Bucks are finally providing a welcome escape. In a city that’s bitterly cold every winter, the Bucks are providing a welcome distraction.

It would be a shame for the casual fan to miss this year’s Bucks team because of a bad call. The game surely wasn’t officiated at a level that is the pinnacle of the profession, but it’s certainly not the world Tim Donaghy says it is.

See you at the Bradley Center.