The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

Well, the Bucks had their annual open practice, and here are my thoughts:

First of all, I’m not going to go into much detail here because I think that as an early practice there really isn’t much serious analysis one can make. That said here there was a few questions I had about the team and some impressions I got:

The one interesting thing about the makeups of the teams for the scrimmage was that they put Yi and Charlie V on the same team (the other team had Bogut at center and Gadzuric at power forward). This staves off a few rounds of questions and overanalysis about who should start, who is ahead of whom, and whatnot. After all, it is just a practice, and only Yi’s third one at that. So the Yi vs. V question remains unasked, thankfully. Enjoy it while it lasts, because that’s probably going to be the subject of 75% of the Bucks related articles and blog posts this season.

Oh, by the way, I left at halftime of the scrimmage. Unless I missed any injuries (besides Yi getting smacked in the face) then I had seen all I needed to see.

First impression: Great crowd turnout for a beautiful Saturday afternoon, which also coincided with the Wisconsin-Illinois game (ILL ….). The Bradley Center turnout was easily more than double that of last season’s open scrimmage. Interest in Yi must play a part but could some people be excited about this teams’ potential? All the lower level sections between the baselines were basically packed, with plenty of people in the corners as well.

Second impression: That Streetlife band that they have had there for years put out the worst version of the national anthem that I have ever heard live in my life. Overlong, pretentious singing backed by what sounded like an assortment of lounge music that had nothing to do with the song. Honestly, if I was to buy the Bucks the very first thing I would do is fire that band.

Third impression: After a summer of being tortured by the horrendous soft pretzels at Miller Park, it was a pleasure to get a good one at the Bradley Center. Honestly, what is so hard about keeping soft pretzels decent? At Brewers games I was subjected to one pretzel with a frozen middle and another that was so hard it could have doubled as a prison shiv. Always a pleasure to get them at the Bradley Center. Considering that I’m gushing about something that, when done correctly, kind of tastes like salty drywall, I can’t believe that it’s so hard to get a good one.

On to the basketball:

Is Bobby Simmons back? He looked great. Probably a little smaller than a couple of years ago, he moved fluidly and went to the basket pretty hard. He was matched up with Desmond Mason and clearly won the battle between them.

How is Charlie V’s shoulder? Looked excellent. He went inside and didn’t seem to be shying away from contact, which I think is a great sign.

Andrew Bogut’s weight and hair? Bogut cut his hair, and he’s got the it-was-bald-now-i’m-growing-it-back look. I had read all sorts of reports about his offseason — he was up to 275 lbs, had worked on building up is lower body, etc … — and he doesn’t look bigger in a fat way at all. His arms looked bigger to me, with more definition. That’s a good sign. He also looked quick, drawing contact for 3 point plays on a nice pick-and-roll (which I don’t think the Bucks ran for him one single time last year) and after shaking his man for a dunk. Unfortunately he was being guarded by Yi, so the good news about Bogut’s moves may be tempered by the weakness of his teammate.

Who is this Ramon Sessions guy? Sessions looked much better than I expected. He looked bad on one play (making the classic blunder of leaving his feet without knowing what to do with the ball, then flinging a pass to Yi that almost got within 6 feet of him, while Yi stood there wondering if he had just been transplanted back to receiving passes from the guards on the Chinese National Team) but pretty decent overall. That hitch in his jumper that I keep hearing about — I didn’t see one, but I was pretty far away from the only one he fired.

The money question: How did Yi look? Unfortunately, Yi looked exactly like how I thought he would: a long way away. He’s legitimately 7 feet (clearly 1-2 inches taller than Charlie V) and legitimately skinny. That tall, that thin — he looks two-dimensional in a jersey. He has excellent straight-line speed and is clearly very athletic for his size (he had one nice play where he was being boxed out by Danny G, but the rebound caromed to the floor right by their feet. Yi was athletic enough to reach down and save the ball — that’s a tough athletic move for someone so tall). He is clearly pretty slow laterally as Bogut went around him at will. His shooting motion has been compared to Nowitzki, but it’s not like Dirk. It is a longer and slower motion, which looks great in warmups but is a pretty streaky way to shoot because under pressure it become easy to rush the motion and short-arm the shot. He got smacked in the mouth late in the first half and had to come out for some attention from the trainers (which sucks but is a lot better than Bogut sustaining a knee injury in the preseason scrimmage last year). Get ready for some growing pains with this guy.

And that pretty much sums it up. The team looks interesting.