The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

In ESPN The Magazine, Bill Simmons has decided to campaign for the upcoming Bucks’ GM opening. To be honest, he’d be a pretty good hire. No better than hiring me, but better than hiring a retread who has already failed as a GM once (looking squarely at Rick Sund) or someone who has been jettisoned from all of his previous NBA positions for being so intense it bordered on mental instability (calling Doug Collins).

There’s no doubt Simmons knows the NBA. He has a good handle on salary cap economics, and seems to understand that anyone who is not going to be a starter isn’t worth a long term contract because cheaper help can always be found elsewhere (he did crack on the Charlie Bell signing right away).

He also proclaims himself to be an A+ judge of talent, mostly basing his I deserve the Bucks job claim on “because I said they should have taken Chris Paul over Bogut”. Well, that’s fine, but he also forgot to mention that he thought Orlando should take Okafor over Dright Howard , Houston should take Jay Williams over Yao Ming, and that when Boston drafted Gerald Green he was looking forward to watching “G-Money for the next 15 years”, and constantly hammered the Yi pick until he actually took the time to watch him play.

He does have some other excellent ideas, though (No more music during play? Sign me up!)

Obviously, just because he writes a well-read column doesn’t mean he’s qualified to be a GM. But he’s making a great point — why should the next GM come from Herb Kohl’s insider circle of associates? To Kohl’s credit, he has spent plenty of money on this team, but has not seen results. Why not try someone with a new perspective on things?

Now that the Bucks have run off a 3-1 stretch against playoff teams, capped by the spectacular ending to the Cleveland game, you have to wonder — has this team actually underachieved all year? Should this team actually be closer to 35 wins right now than 25?

Well, that’s pushing it — they are getting kind of lucky.

Going back to the New Orleans game before the all-star break, the Bucks have caught some favors from the schedule makers. The Hornets, Pistons and Nuggets were all coming into the Bradley Center in the second games of back-to-backs, while the Cavaliers were using only one player (LeBron James) who had been a starter for them just one week prior. With Ilgauskas out sick and Daniel Gibson injured, the rest of their starting lineup was made up of two new players (Ben Wallace and Delonte West) and two bench players (Anderson Varejao and Devin Brown — although Brown was quickly replaced with Wally Sczcerbiak). Lets just say that the Cavs weren’t very familiar with each other, kind of like a pickup team.

The good thing about this run is that they are now back on pace to grab a playoff spot, as I wrote earlier this month. After blowing two easy wins (Knicks and Clippers) I wrote them off for dead, but they have come back to win two games I had marked as losses and won one “toss up” game (five games which I felt they needed to go 3-2 in). Meanwhile Atlanta has slumped despite adding Mike Bibby and New Jersey and Chicago are struggling. The Bucks still have a shot at 34 wins, and that still might be good enough to get in.

If there is one huge compliment I can give Larry Krystkowiak it is this: after all the blowout losses early and after after the supposedly-contentious team meeting before the New Orleans game, this team has not given up.

But is Krystkowiak doing anything differently?

The first thing I thought is that Redd and Williams are getting more shots and the Bucks are playing at a faster pace. That’s not true at all. Redd and Williams may be getting a few more shots but they are playing more minutes as well — as a whole, the backcourt is still putting up about 40-45 shots per night. The Bucks haven’t picked up the pace, either. Their pace seems to be pretty consistently dictated by the team they play — not surprisingly the Denver game was the highest-paced Bucks game of the season, and the Cleveland and New Orleans games were relatively slow.

The biggest difference is that he seems to have said, “screw the front office, I’m not playing Yi any more.” It was as plain as day that Yi’s prolonged slump since New Years had been killing them, and the team is much better with Charlie Villanueva starting and paying attention for 35 mpg than floating through 20. I’m sure Yi isn’t complaining, either — with Yao out for the season and unlikely to be full strength for the Olympics, Yi will now be the centerpiece of Team China this summer. He’s going to have to work harder this summer than he ever would in the NBA — the rest of the Chinese National Team started practice for the Olympics a full three weeks ago. The only way Yi gets rest before next season is to get it now.

Krystkowiak has also decided to go for broke and bury his entire bench. This is an excellent move. There is plenty of statistical evidence to show that the Bucks’ bench has been the worst in the entire NBA this season, and remarkably as players like Bell, Ivey, Gadzuric and Simmons play less the Bucks record improves. Against Cleveland the entire bench played only 45 minutes and took three shots.

However, this no-bench strategy begs one question — how long can they go before exhaustion takes over and Redd or Williams’ shooting arm comes flying off? That’s why I’m still nervous about their playoff chances. Don’t get me wrong, I think that riding Redd, Williams and Bogut as far as they can take you is the right thing to do (since everyone else has proven that they can’t shoulder the load). But I don’t know how long you can go by playing Redd, Williams, Mason and Bogut between 37 and 47 minutes a night.

The bottom line, though, is I’d rather they lose by running and gunning with their best players on the floor, not by using “defenders” who can’t defend. And if they can keep shooting themselves into games and steal a few more wins this way, all the better.

Without much new Bucks news to report, it’s tim to look at the rest of the league. The trade deadline this season brought several interesting moves that changed the landscape of this NBA season drastically. What happened to the whole “NBA GM’s are afraid to take any risks” label? It sure disappeared this season. But who won and who lost?

To try and put each teams’ moves in perspective, I looked at how the overall IPM’s of each team changed before and after each move. IPM (impacts per minute), in case you are not familiar, is my proprietary statistical player ranking method. It gives a good picture of how a player’s overall game influences his value on the court. The methodology is available here, player performance to date is available here, and team power rankings are available here. This information is always available through the links on the right side of this page, under the heading “IPM Data”.

To calculate the impact that trades had on a team, I averaged the IPM scores for each teams’ top 8 players both before and after the trade deadline. By calculating the percentage change in the data, one can surmise how a team’s prospects have changed. It’s not an absolute judgment, but a very good starting point.

On to the reviews:

The Losers:

Memphis: Pre-deadline IPM, 0.754; Post-deadline IPM, 0.678 (-10.1%).
Traded Pau Gasol and Stromile Swift for Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Assorted Beads and Trinkets, and Jason Collins.
While the Gasol trade was a total joke considering how little they got back, it was the right thing to do. They weren’t going anywhere with Gasol, so it was time to start over. Given the unstable situation this team is in, getting cap space and a bunch of draft picks is the best thing for them, since they weren’t in any position to try and win anything for years anyway.

Seattle: Pre-deadline IPM, 0.737; Post-deadline IPM, 0.711 (-3.6%).
Traded Wally Szczerbiak, Delonte West and Kurt Thomas for Francisco Elson, Brent Barry, Donyell Marshall, Adrian Griffin, and Ira Newble.
Impressive job by Sam Presti to manage to acquire only one player who would fit into their top 8 (Barry), and he was promptly waived. The interesting thing here is that Presti made deals that he didn’t have to (he doesn’t save significant money and will still have cap room coming) and he received players he didn’t need in order to help out San Antonio and Cleveland , the two NBA teams that have employed him in the past. Remember how Greg Popovich was whining that the league should have a “fairness committee” or something to strike down the Gasol trade? I don’t think he’s complaining any more.

Houston: Pre-deadline IPM, 0.842; Post-deadline IPM, 0.813 (-3.5%).
Traded Kirk Snyder, Mike James and Bonzi Wells for Bobby Jackson and Gerald Green.
I think the numbers lie here. Houston didn’t lose much. Credit Daryl Morey for taking the opportunity to rid his locker room of some headaches, even though the team has been playing exceptionally well. James and Wells were putting up decent per-minute numbers but weren’t playing all that much, and by adding Jackson they roll the dice on yet another backup point guard. Green is a good gamble, especially since he now gets to learn from the player he is most often compared to, Tracy McGrady (the jury is out on whether that turns out to be a good thing).

Phoenix: Pre-deadline IPM, 0.828; Post-deadline IPM, 0.807 (-2.5%).
Traded Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks for Shaquille O’Neal.
When I first heard of this move I thought it was a mistake for the Suns. Now I’ve seen them play with Shaq, and I’m convinced it was a colossal mistake. A team-killing mistake.
The trade doesn’t work on so many levels. I don’t understand the logic of wanting to improve their defense and rebounding and cut payroll, so their method of doing this was to trade their best defender and second best rebounder for a player who cannot defend or rebound any longer and is paid more and for longer. Meanwhile Shaq has not been able to stay healthy for more than 10 games at a time for years, and he now goes to a team whose coach has been derided for using too shallow a rotation for years? Incredibly, the Suns now only have nine players who average over seven minutes a game! I know Marcus Banks is terrible, but now they have to give his minutes to DJ Strawberry. Is that an improvement?
The whole “Marion is a superior player to O’Neal at this stage” argument aside, there’s another thing: for the Suns to make a deep playoff run they will have to play about 50 more games. In a conference that is so tightly bunched that a 5 game losing streak might knock you out of the playoffs altogether, what are the odds that Shaq will be able to stay healthy and contribute in most of those 50 games? 30%? 40%? To be charitable, 60%? Meanwhile, there’s a 95% chance Marion would be around for whatever the team needed from him.
I understand that Phoenix wasn’t happy with the team chemistry and blamed Marion (which is funny because the problem with Marion is that he blames everyone around him for all kinds of stuff , real and imaginary). But it would not surprise me at all if Phoenix misses the playoffs this season because of this trade.

Teams that Didn’t Change Much:

Chicago: Pre-deadline IPM, 0.765; Post-deadline IPM, 0.751 (-1.4%).
Traded Ben Wallace, Joe Smith and Adrian Griffin for Larry Hughes, Drew Gooden, Shannon Brown and Cedric Simmons.
Sort of like Memphis, the Bulls weren’t going anywhere this season, and long-term this was a good move. The Ben Wallace signing was not working out and by trading his cap-killer contract for Hughes’, at least the Bulls now free up court time for Joakim Noah and Tyrus Thomas.

New Jersey: Pre-deadline IPM, 0.796; Post-deadline IPM, 0.786 (-1.3%).
Traded Jason Kidd, Antoine Wright and Jason Collins for Keith Van Horn, Devin Harris, DeSagna Diop, and Stromile Swift.
Actually, New Jersey did a pretty good job considering they were trading a superstar. While Harris is no Kidd, he’s an up-and-coming player who recently signed a pretty reasonable contract extension. He’s certain to be better than Kidd two years from now. Diop was a nice acquisition, making up for the loss of Collins’ defense. I’m sure that they are pretty disappointed they didn’t move Vince Carter as well, but there has to be something to make their master plan of being under the cap in 2010 (for a run at LeBron James) more difficult.

Atlanta: Pre-deadline IPM, 0.759; Post-deadline IPM, 0.750 (-1.2%).
Traded Shelden Williams and Other Assorted Spare Parts for Mike Bibby.
Hey, look! Atlanta did something! And they got a point guard! This trade only shows up negative in the IPM because Bibby was coming back from thumb surgery a little slowly. This was an excellent move by Atlanta, as they got the player they needed, traded away four guys they didn’t, and dumped a huge draft bust in Williams. This trade should solidify their playoff position and an opportunity to get hammered by Boston in the first round.

Dallas: Pre-deadline IPM, 0.811; Post-deadline IPM, 0.817 (+0.8%).
Traded Keith Van Horn, Devin Harris and DeSagna Diop for Jason Kidd and Antoine Wright.
Between Jerry Stackhouse’s big mouth, Devean George’s obnoxious agent, an unnecessary $10 million in extra luxury tax payment, maybe Mark Cuban should have gotten the message: God thinks this is a bad trade for the Mavericks.
Enough has been written about “Jason Kidd is a great leader, general, blah blah blah” so that everyone forgets that he whined his way out of Dallas 10 years ago because he and Jim Jackson both wanted to date Toni Braxton. He’s fought with every coach he’s ever had and brought his personal problems to every team he’s been affiliated with.
I know that everyone loves playing with him, but Cuban just gave up a lot to acquire a guy who is 35 and was complaining about his contract before the trade. Also, Kidd’s shooting, never a strength, has slipped to 36% this season. He was still rebounding like a maniac (for a point guard), but it remains to be seen how that will hold up now that he’s on a team full of great rebounders.
I have one other question , who is supposed to guard Tony Parker, Steve Nash and Chris Paul? Kidd couldn’t keep Parker out of the lane in the finals four years ago!
Honestly, the more I think about this trade the more I think that Jason Kidd offers such a marginal improvement to Dallas that they gave up way too much to get him.

Miami: Pre-deadline IPM, 0.752; Post-deadline IPM, 0.765 (+1.7%).
Traded Shaquille O’Neal for Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks.
I thought this move would propel Miami firmly into mediocrity (which is a big improvement from “laughingstock”) but at 0-5 since the trade, that sure hasn’t happened. I’m glad that Miami did this trade because it will give an interesting look at whether Marion truly is a great, underrated player (as most stats analysts have said for years) or just a product of the Phoenix system who was made great by Steve Nash. When you look at the ratio of dollars per minute played, though, this was a great move by Miami, and probably their last chance to get rid of Shaquille O’Neal before he could barely play any longer.

The Winners:

San Antonio: Pre-deadline IPM, 0.828; Post-deadline IPM, 0.850 (+2.7%).
Traded Brent Barry and Francisco Elson for Kurt Thomas.
Got to love Phoenix’s roster management. They trade away Kurt Thomas to get his salary off their books, and then decide they need to make a panic trade because Thomas was the only player they had to match up with Tim Duncan. Meanwhile, the Spurs nab Thomas for themselves, and now they are the ones with a fresh body to throw at Shaq, Yao, Chandler, Bynum and Camby in the playoffs.
The rich get richer.

New Orleans: Pre-deadline IPM, 0.772; Post-deadline IPM, 0.794 (+2.8%).
Traded Bobby Jackson for Bonzi Wells and Mike James.
This was a funny trade for Houston and New Orleans. The Rockets , a division rival — gave the Hornets exactly what they needed (bench scoring from multiple positions) and took what the Hornets don’t need (a backup point guard) in return. You almost have to ask: What’s the catch?
Looks like Houston sure was desperate to rid themselves of those guys, but when a team has a great point guard like Chris Paul to boost everyone else’s stats, that sort of locker room whining probably disappears in a hurry.
With the West so bunched up and every team a 5-game losing streak away from falling out of the playoffs altogether, the Hornets needed to make a move like this to ensure they have enough firepower. The surprise team of the regular season might be ready for a deep playoff run now.

Los Angeles Lakers: Pre-deadline IPM, 0.818; Post-deadline IPM, 0.848 (+3.7%).
Traded Nobody They Wanted and Two Draft Picks That Will be in the Late 20′s for Pau Gasol.
What’s amazing is that Kwame Brown was only the 12th best player on the Lakers in the first place, and they turned him into a multiple-time all-star. What more can be said about this deal? Once Andrew Bynum returns then this team is immediately one of the top two or three in the West. The only thing that should be able to stop the Lakers from at least reaching the Conference Finals would be Kobe Bryant’s injured finger becoming worse.

Cleveland: Pre-deadline IPM, 0.755; Post-deadline IPM, 0.803 (+6.4%).
Traded Larry Hughes, Drew Gooden, Donyell Marshall, Ira Newble, Shannon Brown and Cedric Simmons for Ben Wallace, Joe Smith, Wally Sczcerbiak, and Delonte West.
How bad was the non-LeBron portion of the Cavs’ roster before the deadline? Every player they added became one of their top 8 by IPM, and one of those was Ben Wallace!
It’s really incredible how pathetic that team was before the break, and amazing that LeBron was able to carry them to the finals this season. Now, even with Boston and Detroit in the picture, they might be able to get back there this season.
Suddenly their roster has become deep and well-composed. Wallace still has value as a team defender, Smith is a nice all-around player who is a good complement for Varejao, and Delonte West suddenly becomes a valuable piece with the injury to Daniel Gibson.
But Sczcerbiak is the key here , he’s the shooter than the Cavaliers have been seeking for years, and while he can’t guard a chair, he is surrounded by A-level defenders in James, Varejao, Ilgauskas and Wallace.

Thanks to the trade deadline, the Eastern Conference has three powers now.

Honestly, I wonder how the Denver Nuggets can ever lose a game. It seems like they have it all — dynamic scorers, a shot-blocking defensive presence, talented players coming off of the bench, and one solid power forward between the combination of Kenyon Martin and Nene.

But they do lose one out of three games. And thanks to a spectacular comeback by the Bucks, one of those losses came Saturday night.

I suppose it’s only fair for me to point out that on this night Krystkowiak proved me wrong about almost all of my compaints about him. These would be:

Slowing the game down to play a “defense first” game. This might have had more to do with Denver forcing the tempo and the Bucks having to fight back from a 23 point deficit, but the Bucks finally have started running an offense that puts the ball in the hands of their best offensive players — Redd and Williams — and lets them run and fire away at will. If any of their teammates want shots they have to hustle to keep up. This type of offense wont win championships and will sometimes lead to ugly losses when Redd or Mo never heat up but keep firing away. But it gives the Bucks the best chance to win any given game — and it means that they are never all the way out of a game. Maybe this is a result of the rumored team meeting before the All-Star break, or maybe Krystkowiak opened the offense up on his own initiative. Either way the results are clear — a 2-2 record in their last 4 games against 3 playoff teams.

Never playing Gadzuric and Bogut together. When Villanueva struggled mightily in the first quarter, I was happy to see Krystkowiak bring in some rebounding help for Bogut with Gadzuric instead of the knee-jerk move of subbing Yi in. I have a feeling that Coach K was most interested in avoiding a Yi-Kenyon Martin matchup than thinking about Gadzuric’s position, but no matter what the motivation it was the right move. In that stint, Gadzuric played nine minutes, grabbed 4 rebounds, blocked 2 shots and only took 2 shots. Perfect.

Using Charle Bell as a late-game “defender”. Even as the Bucks were charging back into the game I was telling everyone around me that Krystkowiak had to get Bell out because he wouldn’t be able to stop Carmelo Anthony one-on-one. On this night, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Not only did Bell do a great job on Anthony (holding him to two shots and 3 turnovers in the final 6:30, despite touching the ball on every posession), he also hit the 3-pointer that gave the Bucks their first 4th quarter lead. I still don’t think that using a 6’3″ player to defend small forwards is much of a percentage play, but it worked great on Saturday.

Is it time to get excited about a playoff push? I don’t really think so. Lets wait until the Bucks beat up on a few bad teams first. But you have to like what we’ve seen recently.

Also, one other thing I noticed during the Nuggets game — Kenyon Martin sits on the bench with his arms splayed out over the backs of empty seats on either side of him, and refuses to make room for teammates checking out of the game. Seems like a really good guy, doesn’t he?

Two games against one of the best teams in the league. Two completely different results. What does the last two games agains Detroit tell us about this Bucks team?

On Wednesday, the Pistons were ripe for the picking. With three players having played in the all-star game and coming off of a blowout loss the night before, the Pistons were tired and lifeless. The Bucks, reversing a season-long trend of not playing well against teams that they should hammer, jumped all over the Pistons early, salting the game away enough that a 16-point lead with 4 minutes remaining was enough to withstand a game-ending Pistons rally.

Friday nights game was closer to what one would expect from a Bucks-Pistons game, as a beautiful first quarter in which neither team could miss gave way to a slugfest second quarter that featured 17 Piston free throws and Detroit runs of 13-0 and 12-0.

It’s funny how two games against the same team can give such different results, and it’s also interesting how both games highlight what the Bucks need to address this upcoming offseason:

It’s clear that this team needs more athleticism. You can talk about strategy, effort and “playing within the system” all you want, but the bottom line is that talent wins. In addition to having the most stable starting five in the league, the Pistons can depend on boosts from bench players like Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson. The Bucks, on the other hand, have a hard time figuring out which bench player will be able to score on any given night. Athleticism makes fluke plays go your way, and that turns games. Given the choice between two equally good players, I’d always go for the more athletic one. I think that is why the Bucks have had so much trouble with poor teams this season — those teams are likely to have a lot of great athletes who aren’t necessarily great basketball players. But against the Bucks the one-on-one skills of players on teams like the Knicks and Sixers are allowed to shine.

Another thing that would be nice — but isn’t the most important thing — is to become better at getting to the line. On Friday night, when the referees had a quick whistle, Chauncey Billups was able to get to the line on seemingly every trip down the floor. Nothing new there, he’s the best in the league at that. But the Bucks had a hard time answering at thie other end, getting only five free throws in the second quarter to the Pistons’ 17. The Bucks only have one player who is particularly good at getting to the line, Michael Redd. That’s not enough. The beauty of being able to draw a foul when you really need to is that it upsets the other teams’ offensive rhythmn and stops them from going on runs, as well as extending your own runs.

I took a look at how many free throws everybody in the NBA takes, and the results were interesting. Among the Bucks’ major players (Bogut, Yi, Villanueva, Mason, Simmons, Redd, Williams) only Redd excels at getting to the line (7th best shooting guard), while nobody else is in the top 25 at their position. However, if each player got to the line one more time per game (adding two free throws) they would all be propelled into the top 20 at their position, with Williams and Bogut into the top 10.

One thing that I found interesting is that there isn’t all that much correlation between free throw rate and winning. I summed the free throw rates of each teams’ 8 players who play the most and the results were interesting (on second page of file linked above). Of the five teams who shoot the most free throws, only two (Utah and Washington) are currently in the playoffs (the others are New Jersey, New York and Sacramento). The bottom five include non-playoff bound teams Milwaukee, Seattle, Indiana and Minnesota but also New Orleans. Clearly it is nice to have players who are great at drawing fouls, but it’s not the most important thing to try a build a team of foul-collectors across the board. If one Bucks player — specifically, Yi — was to become much better at drawing fouls it would be a huge help. But it’s not like the Bucks need a new point guard because Mo draws a below-average number of fouls.

It’s pretty clear what this team needs (you don’t need me to write it). An athletic small forward who can draw fouls. Those type of players don’t come by every day. But that’s the key to the long-term improvement of this team.

According to the New York Daily News, Larry Harris is trying — he can’t give up pining for Zach Randolph, but Herb Kohl isn’t buying it.

“…a league source told The News that the Bucks’ owner, Milwaukee Sen.Herb Kohl, yesterday rejected a trade that would have sent Randolph and either Fred Jones or Jared Jeffries to Milwaukee for a package including Bobby Simmons, Charlie Bell and Dan Gadzuric, who all have long-term contracts.

Milwaukee GM Larry Harris, who may be let go at season’s end, is eager to make a deal to help his struggling team and presented a similar package to Kohl in January. However, Kohl is reluctant to approve any trades Harris brings to him.”

Looks like Harris is pretty desperate. Granted, that deal would rid the Bucks of their three worst contracts and open a backup guard spot for Ramon Sessions, but they wouldn’t gain any cap flexibility because Randolph’s contract has one more year on it than Simmons’ (and if the deal included Jefferies, they would be actually adding salary and taking back a contract as bad as Gadzuric’s). Also, why would you bring in Randolph if Yi is your power forward of the future?

This proposed deal shows what happens when GM’s know they are headed out of the door. Harris is proposing a trade that might shake up the roster enough to boost their performance this year, but most likely it will just cause more problems than it would solve. And, because it would involve the Bucks taking on a huge long-term contract, if it doesn’t work it will have negative reprecussions on the franchise for years to come. But Harris doesn’t care about that any more — because if he doesn’t make any trades he’s gone anyway and if he tries this trade and it doesn’t work he knows he wont be around to clean up the mess.

Herb Kohl is doing the right thing by not allowing Harris to make this trade.

Of course, this does beg the question: if Harris is as good as gone then why is he still around? Hopefully, it is because Kohl wants to take a pragmatic approach to finding a new GM, and might be interested in someone who currently has another job. I pray that this doesn’t mean he wants Doug Collins. I hope he’s planning on actually looking outside of the organization and his immediate circle of friends.

Does Larry Harris have any power left in the front office? Is he as good as gone? The answer will come today when the trade deadline passes, and if the Bucks are quiet then it’s a pretty strong sign that the Bucks’ front office will look very different right after this season ends.

We have learnd that the WTMJ-4 piece about The Bratwurst that was originally scheduled to be shown on Monday night has been postponed until Sunday, February 24 during the 10 pm news.

Apparently election coverage was more important than our little ‘ol website. I guess that’s forgivable.

Don’t forget to vote.

With 29 games remaining, Bucks fans can pretty much forget about a playoff run, especially now that Atlanta has brought in a real point guard in Mike Bibby and it appears that the Jason Kidd trade has fallen apart for New Jersey. I suppose that it’s possible for this team to run off a long home winning streak (they do have 18 home games left), but to think that they can leap over four teams is a bit of a long shot.

So what else would I like to see over the rest of the season?

Choose an offensive identity and stick with it. All season long, I have expressed my frustration with Krystkowiak’s strategy of slowing the game down in an effort to improve the team’s defense. Of course, the net result is that the Bucks’ offense has gotten worse while their defense has stayed equally bad. There are indications that Krystkowiak now wants to open up the offense more, leading to more shots for Mo and Redd at the expense of Bogut. As far as I’m concerned, the faster a pace the Bucks play the better — if they are blessed with anything it is several high-percentage scorers, as their top five players all shoot better than 43.5% (and Redd is uncharacteristically low at that number). I’d much rather see this team trying to outscore teams rather than beat them with defense.

Rest Yi. Yi Jianlian has clearly hit the “rookie wall” and needs a break. The problem is that with Olympic duties looming this summer, Yi isn’t going to get much rest this summer. I wouldn’t mind if Yi comes up with a “sprained ankle” or “sprained shoulder” that keeps him out of a few games. Let him get some rest now, because the last thing we need to hear in training camp next season is how he’s tired from the summer.

Lots of playing time for Charlie Villanueva. Either at power forward or small forward, Villanueva needs to be in the starting lineup, playing big minutes, and showcasing himself for an offseason trade. Not counting the game in which he sprained his ankle, Charlie V averaged 17.6 points and 12 rebounds in his three starts. He is never going to start at power forward for this team (Yi is too important to the financial future of the franchise to ever be moved) so either we have to see if he can play small forward or move him. He’s about the most desirable trade chip this team has, so if he puts up big numbers in the final two months of the season he should garner some interest around the league.

Get Michael Redd some better shots. For any number of reasons, Redd has been suffering through a poor shooting season by his standards. To the casual observer it looks like he takes a ton of bad shots, but I think the problem is that he has been having trouble getting open. I believe that part of this is that he has been spending far to much time at small forward — where his size is negated by his lack of strength and quickness. But the rest of the offensive strategy has to bear some blame for not getting him open as well. You would think that the Bucks would run a steady diet of pick-and-rolls with Redd and Yi (only with Yi fading for a jumper than rolling to the basket).

But this brings me to something else I have noticed all season — is it possible that Redd is freezing out Yi? While Yi does not post up enough, I don’t think that I’ve seen Redd toss a post entry pass to Yi all year, and I’ve definitely seen Redd pass up on feeding Yi several times. I hate to think something like this about somebody like Redd, but could he be refusing to involve Yi because of jealousy over Yi’s profile in the recognition? Does Redd have a problem with not being the face of the franchise as he used to?

I’ve noticed this all season, but really started to wonder after the December 22 game against Charlotte, when Yi scored 29 points on 14-17 shooting. Yi had 25 after 3 quarters, and suddenly Redd started firing up shots from anywhere in the fourth, taking nine shots to Yi’s four. You could almost hear Redd saying, “No way this guy’s leading us in scoring tonight.” And while the Bucks led that game by 22 late in the third quarter, Redd’s decisions to pull the trigger early in the shot clock so many times contributed to the final victory margin only being four points.

It pains me to suggest this, but it does remind me of the 2002 Bulls when Jalen Rose openly refused to pass to Jay Williams. There’s absolutely no evidence to support what I’m saying, but it bears watching — I think that Redd’s next post entry pass to Yi will be his first.

Either extend Larry Harris’ contract — or don’t. For all of the complaints about how Harris has done as GM, the truth is that he has done about as well as he could in running a franchise that had been short-circuted by the mismanagement of Ernie Grunfeld (as he had traded away the Bucks’ 2004 first round pick in 2000 and had somehow managed to trade their 2003 pick along with Ray Allen for a two month rental of Gary Payton). Now Herb Kohl has a decision to make — either let Harris try to continue building the team, or to hand the reigns to someone else. My guess is that the answer will be someone else — and if the Bucks are silent on the trade front between now and the deadline, it will be a stong sign that Kohl has tied Harris’ hands and that he will be gone before the NBA draft.

Stop getting blown out by good teams! As the Dallas and New Orleans game showed, there was no reason for the incredible early-season run of 20+ point blowout losses to good teams. This is probably the single biggest indictment of Larry Krystkowiak’s coaching philosophy — good teams have chewed up his gameplans in minutes. This team may not be a championship contender, but it also has no business getting blown out at a pace similar to that of the worst teams in NBA history.

I don’t think it’s too much to ask for. I don’t want them to tank games for draft position (this years’ draft looks to be full of busts to me). I just want this team to play hard, not to quit on their coach, and to be competitive through the end of the year.

WTMJ-4 is scheduled to run a feature about The Bratwurst on Monday, February 18th during the 10pm news.

The Bucks-Hornets game on Wednesday was a very entertaining, generally well-played game by both teams. Lets be honest about this teams’ prospects — they aren’t going to the playoffs, so all there really is to root for are exciting, hard-fought games that go down to the wire. They took on one of the best teams in the league last night — an athletic team that matches up poorly against them — and made it interesting.

While the heat seems to fall on Michael Redd for not getting a better shot up with 5 seconds remaining, unfortunately it must be said that the real goat was Dan Gadzuric. His 8 shots were peppered with four missed layups and a blown dunk. Once again, I don’t understand why he is backing up Bogut. Wasn’t Voskuhl playing 20 mpg a few months ago? Without Villanueva available, Gadzuric should be playing his 10 minutes a game alongside Bogut so that he never gets any touches outside of offensive rebounds. I don’t really understand how Gadzuric can get the ball so much that he puts up 8 shots in 15 minutes (only one off an offensive rebound) while Bogut can only manage 8 shots in 33 minutes.

One logical explaination for using Gadzuric at center is that Krystkowiak wanted a better athlete matched up with Tyson Chandler, but Chandler was out of the game for 9 of Gadzuric’s 15 minutes.

But the bigger news is that the Bucks held a team meeting on Tuesday, and according to details posted on RealGM (and then on the Journal-Sentinel message boards), the results weren’t very pretty. The essence of the posts are that the Bucks aren’t very happy with Krystkowiak’s comments after the Knicks game, aren’t happy with Krystkowiak’s game management, and aren’t very happy with Mo Williams’ play or attitude.

First of all, with all due respect to the RealGm poster who goes by “Europa” and first developed this story, it’s important to take all of this with a grain of salt. It’s one thing to hear details about something from a reporter who has well-developed sources (and who should have confirmed his story with multiple people), and another thing from someone who puts something up on an anonymous message board. While the details that “Europa” posts may be accurate or true, there is no way to know. This meeting hasn’t been mentioned in any other media outlets — it may even have never happened. Since one would assume that a meeting like this would only be attended by players and coaches, then logically his source is a player, coach or one of thieir close confidants. This source may, for example, have some sort of a personal issue with Mo, and would try to portray him in a negative light.

But this meeting probaby did happen. What do I think of it? It’s great! I’m very glad to hear that the players understand that the teams’ performance has been awful and is mad about it. It seems like they realize that they have underachieved better than management does. And then they follow up this “horrible, divisive meeting” by losing by four to one of the best teams in the league? Wonderful! At least somebody seems to think that Krystkowiak’s coaching strategies are more suited to a college than a pro team. I’d much prefer that they get mad and start fighting versus simply becoming indifferent.

Look, no matter what walk of life you are in, whenever groups of people are involved in something that is going badly they start hating each other. Poorly-run businesses have politicking and back-stabbing all the time. Divorces happen in families that have had a run of bad luck. It’s normal. It’s part of life. And in professional sports (probably in basketball more than others, because the small roster size makes each individual more important) closed-door meetings and infighting happens with every single team when things aren’t going so great.

Portland’s turnaround has been credited to a single practice that had turned into a series of cheap-shots and fistfights. Just because a few insults are thrown doesn’t mean that teams are torn apart.

Thanks to my season ticket rep, my wife and I sat courtside in the corner by the Bucks bench for the Hornets game. I spent a lot of time watching the bench to see how much the team seemed to be in the game, and I was pleasantly surprised. Everyone (even Villanueva and Sessions, in street clothes) was paying attention for the whole game. After Gadzuric came out of the game in the first half (after missing four layups) several players came over to console him and tell him to keep his head up (leading me to crack the incredibly obvious joke, “I’m surprised he connected on that high-five”). I had a lousy view for the final play because the members of the bench kept on standing and walking onto the court to see it for themselves. It was clear that the team was working hard throughout the game at both ends of the court.

Even Mo’s much-maligned defense almost turned the game for the Bucks when he tied up Chris Paul at the end of the third quarter, leading a frustrated Paul to pump-fake throwing the ball at the official for not calling a foul (drawing a technical but probably deserving an ejection).

The Bucks didn’t lose on Wednesday because their effort was lacking, they lost because they played a better team that is exceptionally good at getting high-percentage shots. All the team meetings in the world won’t change that.