The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

In Kevin Garnett’s introduction press conference he mentioned the fact that Paul Pierce has four different phones that he had to call to get a hold of him.

What can one man do with four phones?

Ray Allen apparently manages only with two.

The Director of the Chinese Basketball Association, Li Yuanwei, will come to the United States in the coming days to end the stalemate between Yi and the Bucks.

What that will actually result in, no one seems to really know.  No hinting at what Li’s actual intentions might be other then he will be ending the stalemate.

Regardless of what happens, at least the distraction that is Easy Yi will be over.

As a side note, the article on the People’s Daily Online states how people in China now think Larry Harris is a “liar”, because at some point he agreed to go to China and now hasn’t gone.

“Obviously, he is a liar, he didn’t honor his commitment,” Liu Yijun, a 23-year-old basketball fan, told the China Daily at the Tianhe Gymnasium, venue of the Stankovic Cup.

The article seems to a paint a picture that the only thing that is preventing Yi from joining the Bucks is Harris getting on an airplane. 

The People’s Daily Online clearly thinks that Yi is going to tear it up in the NBA, but between you and me, I think that’s pretty far from the truth in the short-term future.  I think Yi is going to be laughed at for at least a year before he possibly shows actual skills worthy of the buzz he is generating.

Let’s just hope that this will bring an end to the insanity.

The headline on the Boston Globe website: C’s get Garnett.

According to the Globe, the trade is Garnett for Al Jefferson, Gerald Green, Theo Ratliff, Ryan Gomes, Sebastian Telfair and two first round picks (one of which actually originally belonged to Minnesota and went to Boston in the Ricky Davis/Wally Szczerbiak trade).

The trade will probably take a couple of days to complete and be approved by the league office, since Garnett will most likely be negotiating a contract extension with the Celtics first.  But that doesn’t keep me from offering an opinion on the deal:

What a slam dunk for the Celtics.

This deal has been rumored for months, and the sticking point has always been Boston’s refusal to give up Al Jefferson, and rumors just a few hours ago said that Jefferson was not part of the deal.  But how much playing time would Jefferson supposedly get behind Garnett?  He’s not going to get better by sitting behind Garnett for 3-4 years and it would ruin his career.  So finally Ainge woke up and realized that to get something he has to give up something and with Garnett he doesn’t need Jefferson.

Boston gets the most versatile player in the NBA — a great defender, ballhandler and rebounder.  Garnett’s only flaw — go-to scoring ability is completely unnecessary on Boston.  My own player ranking system — which I call IPM (and will be discussed in a later post) had KG ranked as the fifth best player in the league last year. 

What does Boston give up?

Al Jefferson: a solid, young player with All-Star potential.  Statistically, Jefferson could become a perennial 20/10 guy like Garnett, but he will never have the defensive impact of KG.  I have Jefferson as the #39 player last year.  He’s good, maybe even an all-star one day.  But he’s no KG and never will be.

Gerald Green: Supposedly a T-Mac clone who may develop into a guy who can score at will.  However, after two seasons McGrady was showing some signs of greatness while Green (besides winning the slam dunk contest) has shown nothing more than low percentage shooting (42%) and no interest in defense.  The fact that Green only played 22 mpg on a team that was basically trying to lose is a major red flag to me.  Why not develop him with more time?  That says to me that the Celtics were trying to hide his flaws as they shopped him around.  He was the #271 player last year, and while he has loads of potential, I think the odds are growing long that he ever reaches it.

Ryan Gomes: a workmanlike, undersized backup tweener forward.  He’s a decent energy guy who has overcome his lack of size to become the 228th best player in the NBA.  Too bad Minnesota has a better version of him in Craig Smith.

Sebastian Telfair: He’s awful.  The 310th best player in the league.  Can’t shoot.  Can’t play D.  Character and entourage questions.  Boston gave up the farm for him last year and then announced that he would never play for them again after the season.  What’s most interesting about Telfair being included in the deal is that Kevin McHale couldn’t force Boston into including Rajon Rondo instead.  Rondo is a better player in every way, and now Boston is able to retain a point guard to fill out their 3 Amigo’s lineup.

Minnesota will also receive 2 first rounders — one will be Boston’s, and will probably be pretty low, and the other will be Minnesota’s.  However that pick may wind up in LA, as they owe the Clippers one for allowing them to steal Sam Cassell for Marko Jaric a couple of year ago.  How does McHale still have his job again?

It’s simple: this trade makes Boston the Eastern Conference favorite.  Injuries should be the only thing that could derail this.  A lineup of Perkins, Rondo, Pierce, Garnett and Allen will be very tough to stop and fun to watch.  I think they will be right there with Chicago in the end.

It’s a pretty horrible deal for Minnesota, but probably the best they could manage.  Jefferson is a somewhat able replacement for Garnett and in 2 years they will be set to have some significant cap room and (finally) some draft picks.

I know one thing: there’s no way I’m missing Boston’s first trip into the Bradley Center this year.

It sure is early to start predicting next season, but from looking at offseason moves, I’m going to take a crack at the Central Division for next season.  This is by far the strongest division in the Conference, so I’d still say that Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit are locks for the playoffs with Milwaukee having an outside shot.

1: Chicago Bulls: I still believe that the Bulls were the best team in the East last year, and would have represented the East in the finals if they would have had the #2 seed instead of Cleveland.  Of course, that didn’t happen so my opinion and 50 cents is worth a cup of coffee.  Anyway, the Bulls are the only team in the Central to have improved themselves this offseason with new additions.  Their only loss is PJ Brown, and they replace him with Joe Smith and Joakim Noah.  At the very least this is a lateral move.

The Bulls already were probably the deepest team in the league last season, and with the added size of Noah they only get deeper.  They already have a very young core, as Hinrich, Gordon, Ty Thomas, and especially Luol Deng are young enough to continue getting better with age.  People will look at Ben Wallace as their weak link, but the presence of Noah will allow them to limit his minutes below the 35 he played last year.  The other complaint about the Bulls is the lack of a post presence, which I feel is an overblown concern.  Between Deng, Thomas (whose offensive game will make a leap, I believe), Noah and Smith there will be enough post touches to go around.

The Bulls are the best the Central has to offer and, should the KG-to-Boston rumors die down, probably the best in the East.  I honestly this this is a 55-60 win team, and their superior depth should keep them resistant to injuries.

2: Cleveland.  As the worst team to ever make the finals, the Cavs are in a rather disturbing spot.  They had no draft picks this year and are probably going to be stuck paying the luxury tax.  They have no fewer than 4 horrendous contracts on their books this year ($33 million this year to Ilgauskas, Hughes, Snow and Damon Jones).  This completely handcuffs their efforts to get any better.

It’s not so much that Ilgauskas is a bad player, but that because of age he cannot play enough minutes to justify his contract.  In fact, LeBron and Hughes were the only players on Cleveland to play over 30 mpg this season.  This kind of sums up the Cavs’ roster — after LeBron, it’s a bunch of players who are paid superstar money for pedestrian production.

The cap issues have led to another problem — both their starting 2-guard and second best player (Sasha Pavlovic and Anderson Varejao) are restricted free agents.  Should they retain them both then their payroll will be well over $70 million this season and they will have to wait until 2011/12 to have any major cap room — and by that time, LeBron will be a free agent again.

They are counting on big things from Daniel Gibson and Shannon Brown this year but the bottom line is this: There isn’t much difference between the rosters of the Lakers and the Cavs, which in the East was good enough to make the finals and in the West barely makes the playoffs.  They are depending on big contributions from big men who are on the downside of their careers in Ilgauskas and Donyell Marshall and have question marks at every non-LeBron manned position.  Lebron is good enough to get you into the playoffs.  He’s not good enough to get you past the Bulls.  50 wins.

3: Detroit. Well, Chauncey Billups finally got paid.  However, Detroit still has one of the oldest teams in the league, with 3 starters over the age of 30 (Billups, Wallace and either Webber or McDyess), one at 29 (Hamilton), and Tayshaun Prince at 27.  Outside of Jason Maxiell they don’t bring anyone young off the bench, either (while Aaron Affalo and Rodney Stuckey may contribute down the road, it’s hard to depend on anything from them this early).

The problem with old teams is twofold — players need to cut their minutes and they become more injury-prone.  Billups, Prince and Hamilton continued their ironman ways, playing 36+ mpg and 70+ games.  Wallace was durable as well, logging 32 mpg and Webber surprisingly so, at 30 mpg.  But I am hard pressed to believe that this can continue.  Where will the bench production come from?

Detroit seemed like a very tired team to me in the playoffs — world-beaters against Orlando and in games 1-3 against Chicago, but old and exhausted in games 4-6 against Chicago and against Cleveland. 

At some point the Darko-over-Anthony/Bosh/Wade pick will come back to bite them.  And that point is this season.  I see them cruising into the playoffs in a weak Eastern Conference with 43-47 wins and stumbling once there.

4: Milwaukee. Last season’s injury-riddled debacle overshadows the fact that the Bucks are putting together a deep, young roster that has only scratched the surface of its potential (except for Michael Redd).  The starting 5 of Williams, Redd, Simmons, Villanueva and Bogut are all under 30 and should continue improving.

The combination of Simmons and Desmond Mason should offset the overachievments of Ruben Patterson last year, and I’d expect Mo Williams to continue his improvement.  Point guards often take several years to reach their potential.  Compare the statistics of Chauncey Billups’ first 4 seasons with Williams’ – they are remarkably similar.  While I’m not saying that Mo will become an all-star or lockdown defender, he can continue his slow, steady improvement for several years (it’s also worth noting that Billups’ defensive ratings were pretty poor until he arrived in Detroit and had Ben Wallace behind him).

The Bucks have one fatal flaw which will keep them behind the big boys of the conference: rebounding.  They are going to need Andrew Bogut to bust out into a rebounding machine this season to make a big leap.  Maybe that can happen — young big men often blossom in their 3rd season as their bodies mature — but I’m not counting on it.  From a rebounding perspective, power forward is also a question mark since Charlie Villanueva is coming off shoulder surgery and nothing about Yi says that he can rebound — or that he will even be on the team.

I forsee a frustrating 41-win season that sees many close losses in which the Bucks are outrebounded by double digits.  Should Charlie V be slow to recover from his shoulder problems then this could be another ugly year, but, honestly, if the rebounding question works itself out then this could blossom into an exciting, high-scoring team with close to 50-win potential.

5: Indiana. The Pacers are looking like a team that wants to rebuild but doesn’t have a decent plan about how to do it.  It began with last years’ bizarre Harrington/Jackson for Murphy/Dunleavy trade in which the Pacers came away with the less talented, more expensive players in the deal.  The trade also cost them this years’ first round pick which they had sent to Atlanta to acquire Harrington.  Now they are in luxury tax land  for a couple of years and basically have nobody good around Jermaine O’Neal; who has been the subject of opt-out and trade rumors for several months.  Oh, and they fired their overachieving coach, Rick Carlisle, who had only been good enough to get them into the playoffs in the season that Ron Artest, Jackson and O’Neal were all suspended for 20+ games.  Makes sense.

The Pacers hired Jim O’Brien as coach and their big offseason splash was to sign Travis Diener.  Nice.

Outside of O’Neal — who has already requested a trade — Indiana really doesn’t have much going for it.  Dumping Steven Jackson (who had a host of off-court problems but produced on the court for a fairly reasonable price) for players like Murphy and Dunleavy (average players who don’t particularly excel at anything but either have local ties or a big-college pedigree and are … well … white) smacks of a trade that is made as a PR effort rather than one that wins games.  O’Brien runs a “do whatever you want on offense as long as you buckle down on defense” system that doesn’t really fit this roster, which is filled with (after O’Neal) slower, not terribly creative offensive players.

I see the Pacers spending this season in a whole-hearted effort to blow up their roster, save money long-term, and chase a top-5 pick in the draft, with the prize being Indianapolis product and Indiana University Freshman Eric Gordon.

Knicks Center Eddy Curry was robbed at his suburban Chicago home this morning in a situation very similar to the recent robbery of Antoine Walker in downtown Chicago. What would I do if I’m an NBA player living in Chicago? Get the details from Curry and Walker, hide the jewelry, and pull up the draw bridge for a while. This is getting out of hand.

• My dream of seeing Ray Allen and Allen Ray play on the court at the same time won’t happen. Allen Ray has taken a contract with a team in Europe.
• Gilbert Arenas is on a crazy quest to make 100,000 shots.
• Smush Parker has gone to Miami. Lakers fans actually seem happy about this.
• Caron Butler owns a Burger King now. Make that 18 of them between a group of pro athletes.
• Matt Geiger wants to build a helicopter pad on his house, his neighbors don’t want him to.
• Advice on how to cover a point spread if you’re a ref.

I sure hope this isn’t some sort of omen.  Just two days after signing his new contract with the Bucks, someone broke into his car, getting away with about $3,000 of A/V equipment.

That’s a shame, but as always is said in situations like this, at least nobody was hurt.

 

You would like to think Larry Harris and Herb Kohl had something to do with bringing Mo Williams back to the Bucks, but it could have had more to do with Pat Riley scaring him away.  Sure, Riley was turning on the charm at the time, but Mo shares a mutual agent with two Heat players (Antoine Walker and James Posey) who were both deactivated at times during the past regular season for “poor conditioning”, which is something no one seems to be buying.

Perhaps Mo’s agent Mark Bartelstein isn’t motivated by money as much as we thought, and has an genuine interest in the happiness of his players.

Pat Riley’s leave of absence during the Heat’s struggles last year was also a little weird, don’t you think?  There is also the whole Stan Van Gundy firing thing, that is a little bit shady.

Milwaukee looks pretty good in the long-term compared to the aging Shaq and crazy Pat Riley.

ESPN’s Chris Sheridan lays out a timeline for what is to happen to gambling referree Tim Donaghy.  It’s an excellent article because it details the process Donaghy will likely go through and how we probably won’t know what games he actually bet on for years.  No speculation of which games they were, no opinions from other sources, just Sheridan laying out a simple timeline.
One can only hope that Commissioner David Stern continues to be honest with NBA fans as to what he knows.

Yahoo has a story up on how China (because China is Yi’s sugar daddy) is going to let Yi play for the Bucks now.  After all this back and forth, I’ll believe it when I see it.