Drew Olson at OnMilwaukee.com managed to find the clip of Andrew Bogut high-fiving the air after a made free-throw in Atlanta on Wednesday. I had watched it during the game and assumed I would never get to relive the moment, but thankfully someone caught it and put it up on YouTube.
What does it mean? Well it’s amusing to say the least. A lot of OMC commenters went back and tried to say it was because of Bogut’s remarks about NBA players over the summer. I don’t think that’s it. We would have seen that all season long if that were the case.
What could it be? How about the idea that Charlie V and Player X (I’m not sure who the player on the other side was) had simply zoned out? Isn’t it possible that after losing twice to the Heat in a week, having to go on the road to Atlanta, and falling behind early that the players had mentally checked out?
If you watch the video closely, you can see Charlie V turn his head as Bogut makes the free throw to watch Zaza run out of the game. Possibly some sound over the speaker system snapped him back to life, but not in time to high-five Bogut.
In short, I really don’t think this is as big of a deal as everyone seems to want to make it out to be. It wasn’t a personal dig against Bogut. It simply was just a case of a losing team losing on the road resulting in players not paying attention.
Players are going to do a lot of things on auto-pilot as a season goes along, I think this was one of them that just happened to be caught on camera.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Brett Boyer // Mar 30, 2008 at 5:00 pm
In the game at the time, besides Bogut and Villanueva were Awvee Storey, Michael Redd and Mo Williams.
Visible in the background is either Redd or Williams (I forgot who) talking to someone, most likely their backcourt mate.
It is possible that Storey wasn’t on the lane at the time.
I get the feeling that Bogut and Villanueva have never gotten along very well on the court because of Charlie V’s defense. I’ve seen Bogut yelling at him over screwups a lot.
Either way, this is an example of the team mailing it in for the season — not necessarily a personal vendetta against Bogut.
2 Jeramey Jannene // Mar 31, 2008 at 7:56 am
Yeah, I think you’re right on with it not being a personal vendetta.
I think Redd and Williams are both visible in the backcourt at one point in the video, so it must be Storey who was standing on the other side of the lane. How can you blame him? Has he ever been in the game when someone on the Bucks shoots free throws?
There definitely has been an awkward lack of connection between Bogut and Charlie V who one could expect to bond together sharing so many similarities (post player, third year player, labeled underachiever by the media).
3 MIL-ILL // Mar 31, 2008 at 10:17 am
I’ll agree that it wasn’t a dig at any one person, I’m sure if Redd was there, they would’ve left him hanging as well. However, this plays directly into the notion that they are lazy, have given up and don’t care.
This the NBA for god sakes; where one can become a rich superstart for playing a sport. These guys need to either appreciate or get shipped out. Aside from Redd and Bogut who perhaps are humble, everyone else is a punk that needs to go. Ghetto mentalities should be left far away from Business.
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