The Bratwurst - Milwaukee Bucks Blog

Now that Yi Jianlian is officially coming to Milwaukee, what can we expect from him this year?

First of all, I am completely convinced that he is 22 and not 19 years old. As baseball has proven for years, it is not uncommon for players to fudge their age. It is also a common practice in countries that place a lot of emphasis on international competition, as Under-21 World Championships are often hotly contested. It was rumored that Turkish authorities lowered Ersan Ilyasova’s age, and there is plenty of evidence that the Chinese have done the same with Yi.

As Bob Wolfley reported in the Journal-Sentinel, there is a Chinese social security office with a public record of Yi being born in 1984 instead of 1987, plus other evidence exists that Yi is 22.

So lets assume that where there’s smoke there’s fire, and that Yi’s age is more comparable to a college senior entering the NBA rather than a one-and-done freshman.

What was visible in the NBA Summer League? First the good: Yi is clearly athletic enough to get up and down the floor and move without the ball. His shooting form is solid and looks a little like Nowitzki’s. His body type is kind of Charlie Villanueva with shorter arms, so he doesn’t have Charlie V’s ballhandling ability but has a tighter looking jump shot. Yi shot poorly in the summer league but did a very nice job of getting to the line, where he clearly has excellent free throw form and will probably be 75%+ from the foul line.

However he does not seem to be too terribly physical on the boards, repeatedly being pushed well away from the basket by smaller, borderline NBA players. That is a red flag to me, as I believe that rebounders are born, not made.

In the Chinese league last year, Yi averaged 26 ppg and 10 rebs. How good is the chinese league compared to, say, NCAA ball? Lets say it’s similar to low-major D-1 college. Like the WAC, for example. Yi’s CBA numbers last season were pretty similar to Paul Millsap’s final season at Louisiana Tech (20 ppg, 12 rpg) and in 18 mpg Millsap’s 6.8/5.2 rookie NBA season was quite solid.

Yi wont be the rebounder that Millsap is, but should shoot at a high percentage and score much more.

So the next question is: how much time will Yi get on the court?

The problem with starting Yi and giving him big minutes is the Charlie Villanueva factor. Villanueva is a better player than Yi will initially be, and Charlie V’s intensity and attitude have been question marks in the past. For this team to win they need Villanueva’s head in the game and that means that if he deserves playing time he has to get it.

There has been talk of using Villanueva at the 3 in a Bogut-Yi-V frontcourt, but I don’t think that will work too well. Most of the NBA’s best players are at the 2 and 3 spots on the floor, and a combination of Michael Redd and Villanueva guarding the LeBron/Wade/Kobe/McGrady/Deng’s of the game would get killed on the defensive end night in and night out. Toronto tried the Bosh/Villanueva combo for one season before giving up on playing them together. I don’t think it will work here.

So that means about 20 minutes available for Yi (15 behind Villanueva and 5 at center behind Bogut). Back to my Paul Millsap comparison, Millsap only took 5 shots per game, and I’m sure Yi would double that and also get to the line more effectively. However I don’t see Yi as much more than half the rebounder that Millsap is.

So here’s my prediction: 20 MPG, 47% shooting (like Nowitzki at 22), 80% FT, 13 ppg, 4 rpg, much struggling on defense.

If he shoots that high a percentage then he’ll be a valuable backup on what should be a pretty competetive team.

The Toronto Raptors were the feel-good story of the Eastern Conference last season, and a large part of the credit for this improvement was given to the trade of Charlie Villanueva for TJ Ford.  There is no doubt that Ford had a much better season statistically with Toronto than he had with Milwaukee in 2005-06.  But was he a much better player or was he just in a better situation?  Did he really improve? Does his game still have much more upside?  Are the Bucks worse off with Mo Williams than they would have been with Ford?

I’m not so sure.

First the stats: Ford’s IPM took a huge jump.  In 05-06 he was a pretty pedestrian .7372, ranking as the #41 guard. In 06-07  he shot to the #12 guard at .9870 — all-star level.  His defensive IPM was solid as well (no doubt helped by having two excellent defenders in Rasho Nesterovic and Chris Bosh behind him) and is propelled him to the #10 overall ranking among guards last season.

Ford’s stats:

05-06 with Milwaukee: 35.5 mpg, 41.6% shooting, 75.4% FT shooting, 12.2 ppg, 6.6 apg, 3 to

06-07 with Toronto: 29.9 mpg, 43.6% shooting, 81.9% FT shooting, 14 ppg, 7.9 apg, 3.1 to

So why did his IPM (and PER, if you have Insider) jump so much?  His per-40 minute numbers show much more improvement because he basically raised his game a little in every way while playing fewer minutes.  Per 40 minutes he scored almost 5 more pp/40 and had 3 more ast/40.

Defensively, I always felt TJ got a sort of bad rap because of his height.  Sure, he’s vulnerable to being posted up, so he looks bad on a couple of posessions a game when a 6′4″ guy goes right over him.  But with the direction the NBA has gone recently, you can’t use any physical defense on the perimeter anyway, and Ford is more than fast enough to stay in front of almost anyone. 

So TJ was better offensively, fine defensively, the team was winning.  So what’s the problem?  Why were Raptor fans in February making the same complaints about him that Bucks fans had made the season before?  Namely, that he shoots too much, dribbles too much, can’t run an offense, and the team runs more smoothly with the backup in (in this case, Jose Calderon).

Lets look a little deeper into the stats, courtesey of the real experts at 82games.com:

TJ Ford’s 06-07 stats

TJ Ford’s 05-06 stats

In 05-06 35% of his shots were from “in close” (non-dunks from 5 feet or closer) and he had an effective FG% (including free throws) of 47.7%.  In 06-07 only 31% of his shots were from in close, and he improved his eFG to 52.5%.  That’s not much of an improvement when you consider that he shot free throws about 7% better — he got to the line a little more and made more.  But that’s still not a great percentage from in close.  Steve Nash, for example, has an eFG of 67.7% from in close.

But what jumps out at me is that TJ still shoots too early in the shot clock way too often.  46% of his shots were taken in the first 10 seconds of the shot clock, and he only had an eFG of 47.8% on those shots.  That’s actually an improvement on 05-06 when TJ shot fully 53% of his shots early in the clock (with a 47.7% efg), but it’s still too many low-percentage shots.  A point guard will get his share of early-clock shots on fast breaks, but the other early shots are a problem.  To compare with Steve Nash again, Nash took 42% of his shots early in the clock at an eFG of 64.2%.

So TJ didn’t shoot much better or reduce the bad shots much.  But what about the assist rate?  There is definite improvement there, right?

Once again, I’m not so sure.  He went from having a rookie Andrew Bogut and Jamaal “stonehands” Magloire as his frontcourt to a highly efficient all-star Chris Bosh and Rasho Nesterovic (who shot 55%).  Doesn’t it seem like any point guard would get one more assist a game by tossing it to Bosh instead of Bogut and also get one more by tossing it to Nesterovic instead of having it bounce off of Magloire’s hands?  Also Bosh and Ford were close friends growing up in the Houston area.  The chemsitry between them could also account for 1 more assist per game right there.

So maybe it was the same old TJ Ford transplanted into a better situation for his game, not that he really improved all that much.  To his credit, though, he has now played 2 full seasons and gone to the playoffs both times, while the Bucks have missed the playoffs last year and when he missed 04-05.

But is he really improving to the point that he will be an all-star this season?  Probably not.  Are the Bucks better off long term with Williams + Villanueva than with Ford?  Probably so.

In a stunning development, the Bucks signed Yi Jianlian today. 

The Bucks brass met with Yi and Chen Haitao and got the deal done.  No comments from Yi or his people in the Bucks’ press release, but my guess is that Dan Fegan’s days as Yi’s agent are numbered.

The Bucks have announced a 9 am press conference to formally announce the signing.

The Boston Herald is reporting that the Celtics — in their quest to find remotely capable bodies behind their big 3 — are looking at Ruben Patterson.

Well, it’s about freaking time!

Patterson is coming off of his best season in the last 6 (which, at his age, is sort of a red flag) but he was the Bucks’ healthiest and most consistent player all season.  He was solid on both the offensive and defensive ends of the court (.8404 offensive IPM and .8138 defensive IPM, which are both solid rankings).  The character issues, which had dogged him throughout his career, seemed to stay in the background (remarkably, in the last year of his contract, though).

Another advantage to Patterson is that he is strong enough to play a little power forward in a small-ball lineup and the self-styled “KobeBuster” can even guard shooting guards (but don’t expect him to shoot).

With the C’s already in luxury tax territory they will only be offering him a contract at the veterans minimum, so the relatively small investment in Patterson will also serve to keep the potential character problems in check.

Patterson will be a much better fit for Boston than the other players they are apparently chasing now that Reggie Miller figured out that he has no business suiting up any longer.  James Posey is a moderately better defender than Patterson but nowhere near the offensive player, and Dahntay Jones has no business being in the NBA.  He was the worst player on Memphis last year, which really says something.

Good luck to Ruben. Hopefully he winds up on Boston in the role he was supposed to have on the Bucks — providing multi-position backup help on a winning team.

UPDATE: The Celtics signed James Posey for a large portion of the midlevel, which will probably end their pursuit of Patterson.

Morons.

Posey has had 3 pathetic seasons in a row, is nowhere near the offensive player that Patterson is, and is a worse defender.  If it’s always a red flag that a player has a great year in the last year of his contract, is it an even bigger red flag when a guy has an awful year in his contract season and is even suspended by his team for being out of shape?

(IPM is available here. This article references the file “IPM-DCS Combined Rankings�)During the past several years I have developed a player ranking system that attempts to measure and compare the relative value of NBA players. This system – which I call IPM (Impacts Per Minute) attempts to equate the value of each different statistical category with each other and come up with a single number that can be used to compare one player to another. The system (and results) is similar to John Hollinger’s PER. Recently I found this article at www.82games.com and have been able to use it to add defensive rankings to my system, making IPM a somewhat unique product.

By taking the defensive rankings in the DCS article, adjusting them for team factors, and converting them to IPM scores I was able to come up with an “overall� ranking (IPM) and a “defensive� ranking. By combining the two (80% IPM and 20% Defense) I arrive at a single number that I feel gives a good representation of how a player performed vs. his peers.

With a few exceptions I feel that the rankings give a great picture of player performance.

One problem is that because I am giving per-minute numbers, the fewer minutes a player plays then the less accurate they become. It’s not very realistic to assume that because a guy played 8 min a game at a high level then he would become a superstar at 35 mpg. So those players’ rankings have to be taken with a grain of salt. There are a few cases where a players’ teammates might be affecting the defensive rankings a little as well – guards who play with dominant big men seem to have their rankings boosted, for example. But overall I feel that IPM gives a great starting point when comparing one player to another.

The full rankings, along with more detailed descriptions of how the calculations were made are available here. A typical superstar ranking is 1.0 IPM, All-Star is around .85, and solid starters are above .75.

Applying IPM to analyze some of the major additions that some teams have made:

Charlotte - added Jason Richardson:

When I first heard about this move I was skeptical, but now I think that Michael Jordan may have seriously improved the team here. Richardson’s .7758 combined IPM only ranked #32 against other guards but J-Rich had to come back from a broken hand, which probably slowed him somewhat. However, Richardson is a pretty adept defensive player – something that Golden State actually had in abundance last year, which is surprising given how bad their team defense was – and he should fit in well as a replacement for the undersized Brevin Knight and limited Derek Anderson.

Most importantly, though, the addition of Richardson and resigning of Gerald Wallace pushes Adam Morrison deep down the bench. Morrison was one of the worst players in all of basketball last year – a low percentage shooter, poor rebounder and passer, and lousy defender. It’s no coincidence that the Bobcats’ strong finish in 06-07 coincided with Morrison sitting out the last 10 games. Richardson is easily a 30% improvement over Morrison and with J-Rich in and Morrison out then Wallace can concentrate on his natural small forward position.

I feel that Charlotte is one player away from potentially making a huge leap in the Eastern Conference and that player is Anderson Varejao. Power forward is a question mark for Charlotte, and while Sean May had a great season last year (.8953 IPM) it came in only 35 games. Charlotte is currently about $8 million under the salary cap (depending on Matt Carroll’s contract). They have a great opportunity to offer Varejao (with a defensive IPM of .9331, he was the 8^th best defensive forward last season) a contract along the lines of 3 yrs/$27 million that Cleveland, who is right against the luxury tax line, would be hard pressed to match.

A starting lineup of Okafor, Varejao, Wallace, Richardson and Felton would be a balanced, talented squad ready to make noise in the Eastern Conference right now.

<Orlando – added Rashard Lewis, lost Darko Milicic:

It’s obvious that Lewis is better than Milicic (.8537 IPM vs. .7577), but the problem is that high scoring, below-average defenders are easier to find than average centers. The combination of Ariza and Turkoglu is only a little worse than Lewis but replacing Milicic with Adonal Foyle is a huge step down. Lewis simply isn’t worth max money – he was only the 26^th best forward in the game last year, and while he’s not old he’s not really going to continue improving much. I guess that the logic was that since Howard plays center almost exclusively now that Milicic was never going to be fully utilized as a power forward for the Magic so letting him walk makes some sense. But I feel that pursuing a trade for Corey Magette instead of Lewis could have resulted in an equal player for a much smaller commitment, and could still have left more flexibility to add a power forward.

Boston – added Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen:

At this point in his career, Ray Allen is probably somewhat overrated. While still putting up All-Star numbers offensively (.8780 IPM) his defense is poor enough that his offense has to be on fire to make up the difference. Kevin Garnett, however, is another story – he’s still at the top of his game, ranking as the #2 player overall (1.102 IPM) and #1 defender (.9515 defensive IPM) in the entire NBA. Boston gave up a pretty nice player in Al Jefferson to get Garnett but the difference is that while Garnett is about 20% better than Jefferson; his defensive prowess can also carry over into making defense easier for his teammates. And his big-name teammates need the help. Allen was one of the worst defenders on Seattle last year and Paul Pierce was quietly atrocious at the defensive end as well. Kendick Perkins and Rajon Rondo had very good defensive IPMs last year, though, leading me to believe that the presence of Garnett will create a lineup with the talent to be an exceptional defensive unit next year. Whether or not Doc Rivers’ coaching style allows that to happen, though, will be another story (as Golden State showed last season – it’s possible to have a very bad defensive team with very good defensive players).

Bottom line is that Boston will have such a thin bench that they will need an exceptionally injury-free season, but if they get it then this team will have a very high ceiling.

New York – added Zach Randolph:

I just can’t figure out how this is supposed to work. Randolph and Eddy Curry have such similar games – demand a lot of touches, good at getting easy shots, shoot at a high percentage, not very quick, don’t block any shots or get any steals, slow getting back on defense. They are both the sort of players that make the game very difficult for their teammates as they both need other players to work hard to get them the ball where they want it and also don’t offer any help on defense.

Randolph’s offensive IPM ranked him as the #8 forward but his defense was so bad that in knocks his overall ranking down 10 spots (to .9276). But here’s the thing about Randolph’s supposed “bust out season� last year – it really wasn’t any better than he has been in the past.

Sure, he set a career high in scoring at 23.6 per game but while his shooting percentage (46.7%) was an improvement over the previous two years – when he was hampered by knee problems – it was below his 50% shooting from 2002-04. His rebounding also simply returned to pre-injury levels. He does deserve some credit for returning from his knee surgery so well, but the real difference for Randolph this year was that he got tons of shots. As the only offensive option on his team he touched the ball on nearly every possession, getting 3 more shots and 3 more free throws per game than he ever had before. That explains the increase in his scoring right there. And that is an issue when you consider that by going to the Knicks there simply aren’t going to be as many touches or shots available to him since Curry needs his, and Marbury and Crawford take plenty of their own.

Defensively, the Knicks are going to have the most pathetic frontcourt in the league, as both Curry (.6065 defensively) and Randolph (.6519) are quite subpar. They also already have the worst defensive backcourt as Marbury (.6038) and Crawford (.6218) rate as two of the worst defenders in the entire league.

There are other problems with Randolph, namely the character and entourage issues. From legal issues to embarrassing behavior around Randolph with Portland, his entourage – which calls themselves the “Hoop Family� – has been an even bigger problem. Apparently he is a good guy from a tough upbringing who is surrounded by some bad people, but he’s supposed to perform in the media capital of the world now – and they are already wondering where he is.

Oh, and his presence takes minutes away from David Lee, who was the Knicks best player by quite a bit last season.

I just don’t think that Randolph on the Knicks solves more problems than it creates.

And that sums up how I feel about the major player additions to the Eastern Conference. Feel free to look at my data and draw your own conclusions.

With apologies to The King, I don’t like the news that Harrah’s is going to be building a new, 20,000 seat Vegas arena with an eye on attracting an NBA and/or NHL franchise.

The arena is supposed to begin construction in 2008 with an anticipated opening in 2010.  The arena doesn’t really face many hurdles to it’s construction: the site is on Harrah’s-owned land (behind Ballys and Paris), Harrah’s is privately footing the bill, and is technically outside of Las Vegas, so the Mayor of Vegas (who wants a downtown Arena) can’t really affect it politically.

One has to look at the Bucks as a Vegas ownership group’s prime target. 

The Sonics aren’t moving to Vegas, Clay Bennett’s group seriously wants to move to Oklahoma City and given that they are major conservative donors would probably object to the Vegas lifestyle anyway.  Sacramento could be another potential tenant, but I doubt that the Maloofs would move to an arena owned by their main Vegas competition.  The only other potential movers are serious dark horses who aren’t currently rumored to be on the move — Atlanta (because nobody in that city cares and their ownership group is a shambles), Charlotte (because they ran one owner out of town and attendence has been underwhelming this go-around) and Minnesota (they did lose the North Stars a few years back) might come up on the Vegas radar, but none of those scenarios are on the table right now.

The Bucks have some real problems here.  They were 23rd in attendance last year and are always near the bottom in total revenues (2005 data from Forbes).  I’m sure that last season fell short of expectations and, judging from how agressively the Bucks season ticket sales staff has been trying to retain and upgrade me (no price increase, concession incentives, deep discounts for increasing the number of seats) they aren’t expecting next year to be much better.

Meanwhile, every year the whispers get louder that Herb Kohl is looking to divest himself of some of his business interests, and that selling the Bucks is at the forefront for him.  The story is that he will only sell to an owner who commits to keeping the team in Milwaukee, but how long is that promise supposed to last?

Obviously the arena question needs to be rectified in Milwaukee — either a new stadium or a massive overhaul of the Bradley Center, in conjunction with a long, long lease.  But most importantly, should the product on the court be worth the fans’ time and energy then they have to turn out.  That will be the ultimate determinant of whether the team stays or goes.

I hope they stay.

The Bucks are holding auditions for new members to their Hoop Troop and Rim Rocker teams dedicated to providing in-game entertainment.  Auditions are September 10th for the Rim Rockers and September 11th for the Hoop Troop.  The team has provided a PDF file with more information.

It’s been a wonderfully quiet 10 days since this blog has mentioned the Yi farce, and I apologize for interrupting my constant diatribe about how the Bucks need to find a power forward who can rebound with a mention of the draft pick who doesn’t rebound.

But there is a pretty interesting article about the Chinese perception of the Yi-Bucks stalemate on www.spot-on.com written by Beijing-based Milwaukee native Johnathan Ansfield.

One interesting mention is how the very name Milwaukee is affecting some perception of Yi’s NBA destination:

What the draft really afforded Team Yi was a launchpad to tap new fame and fortune in the American market. But now the biggest bonus seems to be going to Old Mi-er-wa-ji (pron. “MEE-arh-wah-jEE”), as Milwaukee is transliterated in Chinese. Chinese media call it “Mi City” (密城) for short. The character for Mi ( 密) mean “confidential” or “secret”. Thus Milwaukee, to Yi and his compatriots, is the “Secret City”. For now it is.

His conclusion is that soon enough Yi wil sign with the Bucks.  And, to satisfy the Chinese way of seeking to save face, someone will take the fall.  It won’t be Dan Fegan representing Yi in the end.

Last week I posted that the Bucks should obtain Dee Brown.  Well, they sort of took my advice, signing a player who is originally from Chicago, went to a High School with “Proviso” in the name and attended the University of Illinois.

However, instead of Brown, they signed Awvee Storey.

I remember my first experience with Storey, in his one season at U of I before transferring to Arizona State, thinking that there was no way he could get minutes on a team with final 4 aspirations, and it was odd that he bailed on a team which had all 5 starters graduate from it.  Well, apparently he has a little more game than I thought.

I like how the Bucks’ press release describes Storey’s 06-07 season:

During the 2006-07 season, Storey saw action in 16 games for Braunschweig of the German League and averaged 10.8 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game. Before signing with Braunschweig in early 2007, Storey played in three games for the Dakota Wizards of the D-League. As a Wizard, he averaged 9.3 points and 6.0 rebounds per game.

No mention of the sucker punch of teammate Martynas Andriuskevicius in practice that got him booted from the NBDL.

On the flipside, Storey is a guy who has pulled himself up from a difficult upbringing to college graduate. 

Storey managed to finagle a multi year deal out of the Bucks (I assume for only two years at the minimum).  How does he fit in?

Storey is a 6′6″ guard/forward who played limited minutes in one season with Washington.  Despite finishing college in 2002, he is already 30 years old.  He played a lot of power forward in college and his scoring stats were rather pedestrian with only one season registering in double figures.  However he did distinguish himself as a rebounder, leading the Pac 10 in boards in 00-01 (just ahead of Dan Gadzuric).  Storey has made the adjustment to small forward/shooting guard by improving his shooting dramatically.  Only 2-9 on 3 pointers in college, he shot 42% on them in 05-06.

Is he better than David Noel … Uh, I doubt it.  Maybe he can back up Michael Redd a little better than Noel could, but Storey played almost exclusively small forward with Washington.  Noel’s 06-07 numbers are almost identical to Storey’s 05-06 numbers and Noel is only 24.  Also, while Storey shot the ball a little better than Noel, David is the much better free throw shooter (80% vs. 55%) which tells me that there is room for improvement from Noel.  There is a decent chance that Noel will get a little better, while Storey is pretty much guaranteed to stay about the same.  Quite honestly, I don’t see much value coming out of this signing.

If you are going to take a flyer on someone that nobody else wants, how about Michael Sweetney instead?  At least he fills a need — #3 power forward, rather than #4 small forward.  He’s such a risk to eat himself out of the league that nobody else will throw more than the minimum at him, but while playing at any weight between 270-350 lbs he has always rebounded well.  Besides, you never know — maybe “the light will go on” and he would capture some of the potential that made him the #9 pick.  Seems like he would be worth a minimum investment more so than Storey.

The NBA has announced the 07-08 schedules, and the Bucks’ is available right here.

They start the season with two road games — Oct 31 at Orlando and Nov 2 at Charlotte.  The Home opener is Nov. 3 against Chicago.

They also close the home season on April 14 against the Bulls.

The schedule looks pretty favorable to me.  December and January will be tough, as they have one 5 game west coast trip and another at Lakers- at Phoenix- at Utah stretch.

However the final 3 months of the season is heavily home-weighted, with 21 home games to 14 road games.

One unfortunate thing is that Milwaukee fans have to wait a while to see Oden, Durant, or Garnett-Pierce-Allen.  Portland, Seattle and Boston all don’t come to the Bradley Center until March.