The Bratwurst - Milwaukee Bucks Blog

Boy, has this division seen some changes this offseason. One team bolts town, another trades one of their best players for a second round pick, and another adds the #1 pick from last year. But one thing doesn’t change: Jerry Sloan is still on top.

1-Utah: After winning 54 games and seeing Deron Williams blossom into one of the top 4 point guards on the planet, there isn’t much reason for Utah to make changes. And change the didn’t. They seem to have given up on the idea of trading Andrei Kirilenko (probably a good idea) and are sticking with the plan that between CJ Miles, Ronnie Brewer and Morris Almond they must have one decent shooting guard in there (Miles might surprise some people this year). One thing about the Jazz’ record that makes last year seem as though it was no fluke was that they were a pretty mediocre 17-24 on the road — their dominance at home is pretty much a given and with a couple of lucky breaks there is room for improvement on the road as well.

Last year: won 54 games.

+2 wins because they will be better on the road this year.
+1 win from the “Carlos Boozer contract year” effect (he can opt-out after the season, but apparently the Jazz are trying to sign him to an extension).
+1 win from the continued dominance of Deron Williams.

This year: 58-24.

2-Portland: No offense to John Hammond, but I wish Kevin Pritchard was my GM. He has built one of the most talented teams in the league and is set to drop $35 million under the salary cap this offseason. Meanwhile, he adds last years’ #1 pick, Greg Oden, to the team this year and stole Jerryd Bayless from Larry Bird as well. I’m not much of a Bayless fan — I don’t see how his helter-skelter style fits in with the organized system Roy, Aldridge and Oden are suited for and it seems like dominating summer league like he did is usually correlates with not doing anything at the NBA level. That said, Jarret Jack is a nice player who doesn’t do a whole lot for me and I don’t think much of Brandon Rush at all. The Bayless trade was a good risk for the Blazers — they didn’t give much up and just because I don’t like him doesn’t mean anything. I’ve been wrong before. Meanwhile, I think Greg Oden will prove to be very similar to Dikembe Mutombo early in his career — capable of dominating games with his rebounding and shot blocking, despite being a little raw offensively. You add a defensive anchor to this team and a year of improvement and you get a big jump this year and most likely 60 wins and a title three years from now.

Last year: won 41 games.

+6 wins from the arrival of Greg Oden.
+2 wins from the improvement of the Roy/Outlaw/Aldridge nucleus.
-2 wins from weakness at point guard and difficulty integrating Bayless into the system.

This year: 47-35.

3- Denver: George Karl has never struck me as much of a coach. He pretty much rolls the balls out onto the floor and lets the guys do what they want. He needs a dominant personality on his team to be on the same page as him, and it’s no coincidence that he had success with Gary Payton in Seattle and then mortgaged the Bucks’ future by pushing to get him again. Meanwhile, financial concerns are all set to blow up this Denver team. Allen Iverson is starting to show his age, and it seems pretty much settled that Carmelo Anthony doesn’t have the game or attention span (He is well known as one of the biggest partiers in the league. OJ Mayo got in trouble with the NCAA for accepting tickets from Anthony, after Mayo joked around with him that he was staying out too late the night before a Lakers game) to get through a whole NBA season, and is better suited for short, Olympic-style tournaments. The Nuggets are hamstrung with horrible contracts to Kenyon Martin and Nene, and this offseason’s trade of Marcus Camby for nothing is a clear indication that the team is all set to give up, let Iverson’s contract expire after the season, and start over. George Karl has no chance to motivate this bunch.

Last year: won 50 games.

-5 games from the loss of their only defender, Marcus Camby.
-2 games from the decline of Allen Iverson.
+1 game from the theft of Renaldo Balkman from the Knicks.
-2 games from the inevitable breakdown from the $25.7 million combo of Nene and Kenyon Martin.
-6 games from the fact that George Karl is a horrible coach for motivating a bad team.

This year: 36-46.

4-Minnesota: Give Kevin McHale some credit — he found the only GM in the league who is worse than him in Chris Wallace and stole Kevin Love and Mike Miller in exchange for the next Larry Hughes in OJ Mayo. This all came after McHale spent the pre-draft period talking about how badly he wanted a center so that Al Jefferson could go back to power forward and Ryan Gomes to small forward because as a center and power forward the two of them were the worst defensive tandem in the league. Then McHale did the smart thing and got the best player available instead of messing around with drafting for need. And he stole Mike Miller. And got rid of Antoine Walker and Marko Jaric in the deal. Nice move. However, the whole plan almost fell apart two weeks ago when Blake Ahearn fell into Al Jefferson’s knee. They say he will be back in two weeks and I’m basing my projection on this being true. But I hate to make assumptions like that about knee injuries.

Last year: won 22 games.

+4 games from Al Jefferson’s improvement.
+3 games from Kevin Love’s presence, who should pay immediate dividends.
-3 games from Al Jefferson being forced to play center. He’s as bad as Eddy Curry defensively at that position, but at least it’s not from lack of effort.
+3 games from Mike Miller’s presence, which really says more about how he will keep other T-Wolves (particularly Rashad McCants) off of the court than what Miller will do on it.

This year: 29-53. Still not good, but an improvement.

5- Oklahoma City: There isn’t much to say about this team. They don’t care about their record, only about amassing draft picks and cap room. They should concentrate on the picks, since they can have all the cap room in the world but wont be able to sign anyone of note in the sprawling metropolis of Oklahoma City. The team has a budding star in Kevin Durant and a couple of interesting players in Russell Westbrook and Saer Sene (not too excited about Jeff Green, though) but not much interest in anyone else on their own roster. The fans are excited for NBA basketball and all, but they aren’t going to see much of it from their own team.

Last year: 20 wins.

+3 wins from the improvement of Kevin Durant.
+3 wins from moving from the angry fans of Seattle to the college atmosphere in OKC

This year: 26-56.

The Milwaukee Bucks added four new players for training camp (on top of dramatically reshaping the roster during the summer).  Clearly Scott Skiles wants to get bodies in camp, but with 19 he’ll still be short a player to play two games of 5-on-5.  Perhaps he’s planning on having Joe Wolf suit up for practice?

Anyway, here we go, four names you can read once and forget.

T.J. Cummings - 6-9 forward, Terry Cummings son and former UCLA player, spent last season in Korea after  doing time in the D-League
Matt Freije - 6-10 forward, actually spent time in the league, but not much
Ron Howard - 6-5 guard, former Happy Days star, disgruntled because he doesn’t have a riverwalk statue, played for Valaprasio
Kevin Kruger - 6-2 guard, son of UNLV coach Lon Kruger, played for both UNLV and ASU, D-League experience

Tonight at the Season Subscriber Autograph Party, the Milwaukee Bucks unveiled a new alternate jersey that they will wear an estimated 15 times next year.  It will be the first time the team has had an alternate jersey since the 1996-97 season back in the purple and green glory days.

The new jersey pays homage to the real glory days, the early 70s.

For those of you that don’t remember, the 96-97 jersey looked as such…

And in case you’re missing the reason behind this, it’s not because Danny G likes to dress differently every so often.  This is all about having another product to sell, so go buy one.

Time to take a few minutes off from watching our economy melt away and instead focus on the Southeast Division. This division is a good example of the “if you aren’t getting better then you are getting worse” principle.

1 - Orlando: I don’t understand what the deal is with Orlando’s front office. They just hate power forwards and shooting guards. They spent last season with Rashard Lewis playing out of position and got a career year from Hedo Turkoglu, so they used their mid-level exception on … Mickael Pietrus? Based on his new salary, there aren’t many more overrated players in the league (except for Chris Duhon, Darko Milicic … forget I said that). Pietrus is still getting by on his “great defender with an MJ body type” mystique dating back to before he was drafted, but has never done anything to live up to it. So now Orlando has another small forward, mans the power forward with Tony Battie and Brian Cook, and will still give Keith Bogans big minutes at shooting guard. Meanwhile, Dwight Howard will get better but there’s not much chance of Turkoglu doing what he did last year. This team isn’t better, and they overachieved last year.

Won 52 games last year.
-3 games because they overachieved last year.
+2 games because Dwight Howard is still getting better.
-2 games because Turkoglu had a career year and Rashard Lewis is quietly slipping

This year: 49-33

2- Washington: It was strange, after losing Gilbert Arenas, all you heard was how the Wiz’s chemistry was somehow better without Arenas dominating the ball. Yet, that didn’t stop the Wiz from signing Arenas to a 6 year extension, despite the fact that he will now be out until December following another knee procedure. I think that one has to wonder if Arenas will ever be the same.

Last year: 43 wins
6 more wins from the return of Gilbert Arenas
-5 wins from the return of Gilbert Arenas
-2 wins from the decline of Antwan Jamison
1 more win with the return of Etan Thomas

This year: 43-39

3- Miami: Any doubts about Dwyane Wade’s health were removed in the Olympics, and this team now has a really solid core. Add to that the fact that Shaq wasn’t really helping them this year, and this team should make some noise right away with Michael Beasley.

Last year: 15 wins

+16 wins from a healthy Dwyane Wade.
+9 wins from a contract-year Shawn Marion.
+3 wins from Michael Beasley.
-2 wins from downgrading from Shaq/Mourning to Haslem/Blount.
+1 win from Mario Chalmers.

This year: 42-40.

4- Atlanta: I don’t like the idea of Josh Smith getting paid. He’s one of the most unique talents in the game today, but he doesn’t get along with the coach and got jerked around by his team in his free agency. That sounds like a perfect time for a new contract hangover. That said, this team has a pretty good young core of improving players, but I think they take a small step back this year.

Last year: won 37 games.

-2 wins from Josh Smith getting paid by a team he didn’t want to get paid by.
-1 win from the loss of Josh Childress.
2 more wins from a bounce back season from Joe Johnson.
-2 wins from a declining Mike Bibby.
+3 wins from an improving Al Horford.

This year: 37-45.

5- Charlotte: I’ve always felt Larry Brown was overrated. He gets all sorts of credit for “turning teams around”, but his big turnarounds always either coincided with a superstar just entering his prime (Allen Iverson, Reggie Miller, pre-knee Danny Manning) or a major influx of talent (David Robinson and Sean Elliott). The Pistons were ready to win a title before he got there, and he managed to blow the 2004 Olympics by burying LeBron James, Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony on the bench. Meanwhile, Michael Jordan didn’t do anything else to improve his team in the near-term. He drafted a short point guard despite already having a short point guard, and used his other first round pick on a raw, raw player who was playing 5 minutes a game in the French “C” league or something last year. They re-signed Emeka Okafor, but otherwise didn’t do much to improve or address their black hole at power forward.

Last year: won 32 games.

0 change from their personnel moves (re-signed Okafor, welcomed back Adam Morrison)
-2 because Larry Brown will jerk around their young point guards to no end. He hates young players, especially point guards.

This year: 30-52.

Sure, I know training camp hasn’t even started yet. But you know what? It’s still time to bring forth my thumbnail preview of the 08/09 season. I kind of liked how I projected the Bucks’ record a few posts ago, so I did it for the rest of the league. Today, I’m going to cover the Atlantic Division.

1 - Boston: After ending a career of frustration for Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, one has to wonder just how aggressively they will go at it this season. It’s only natural – you bust your ass to reach the top of the mountain and realize that, hey, it’s the NBA, we could have won 20 fewer games and still made the playoffs. Shaquille O’Neal’s teams were well known for using the regular season as an extended playoff warm-up, and a little of that attitude will cause the same thing for the Celtics this year. However, barring injury, they will still be really, really good.

Last year: won 66 games.

This year:
-4 wins from a general “I got mine”-itis.
-2 wins from age-related declines for Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce.
-3 wins from Ray Allen’s decline. Nobody seemed to notice last season that Allen had really dropped off last season, and at his age he is not going to get any better. Eddie House is Allen’s only backup.
+2 wins from continued improvement from Rajon Rondo.
-2 wins from the loss of James Posey. The Celtics bench still has Big Baby and Leon Powe, but after losing the valuable Posey (who played big minutes when Allen had to sit) they took flyers on Patrick O‘Bryant and Darius Miles. Yuck.

Celtics final record in 08/09: 57-25.

2 – Philadelphia: According to my numbers last year, the Sixers were for real last season, and actually underachieved a little. They didn’t lose anyone and added Elton Brand, a perfect complement for their roster. They need shooting, but have plenty of athleticism to make up for it.

Last year: won 40 games.

This year:
+6 wins from the addition of Elton Brand.
+2 wins from budding stud Thaddeus Young.
-1 win for signing Royal Ivey.
+1 win because they underachieved last year.

Sixers’ final record this year: 48-34.

3 – Toronto: While TJ Ford blossomed with the Raptors, Jose Calderon will make them forget about him in a hurry. Overall I like the Ford-O’Neal trade for the Raptors, with the assumption that O’Neal will be able to play at least 70 games and will be healthy for the playoffs. Other than that the Raptors pretty much stood pat this offseason.

Last year: won 41 games.

This year:
+5 wins from a full season of Jermaine O’Neal (and the corresponding banishment of Andrea Bargnani to the bench).
-3 wins since the odds that O’Neal wont get hurt and miss at least 20 games are about 50:1.
+1 win because the TJ Ford/Jose Calderon sideshow has finally been decided.
+3 wins because Chris Bosh is continuing to get better and better.

Raptors final record this year: 47-35.

4 - New York: Lost in all of the “Mike D’Antoni is a coaching genius” hype is this little fact: in the two seasons that D’Antoni has not had Steve Nash as his point guard, he has a 35-76 career record (0.315) which would rank as the 17th worst career record among coaches with over 100 games of experience (one spot ahead of Larry Krystkowiak, incidentally). I have my doubts about D’Antoni’s system without the unique collection of talent he had as his disposal. He simply ignores defense, so the only way the Suns were able to stop anyone was through the incredible athleticism of Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion. The Knicks roster is pretty much the worst possible collection of “talent” that D’Antoni could find for his system – slow, lazy plodders like Zach Randolph and Eddy Curry and, even worse, shot-happy chuckers like Jamal Crawford and Nate Robinson. I can just see Crawford telling D’Antoni: “You want a shot in seven seconds or less? I can get one up in three seconds, no problem!” I foresee Crawford firing up 500 pull-up three pointers with 20+ on the shot clock this season. It’s going to be ugly in NY. On the bright side, at least D’Antoni will actually try to coach the Knicks this season, unlike what Isiah Thomas did last year.

Last year: won 23 games.

+14 wins by having a coach that cares.
-8 wins from having the worst imaginable collection of talent for D’Antoni’s system.
+2 wins from the nights that Jamal Crawford is hot.
-6 wins from the nights that Jamal Crawford is ice cold – but that’s never stopped him from firing away before.

Knicks final record this year: 25-57.

5 – New Jersey: Don’t you just feel bad for everyone involved here? The organization is obviously trying to clear cap room for their 2010 run at LeBron, meaning that most of the players (everyone except for Devin Harris, Brook Lopez, Sean Williams and maybe Yi Jianlian) know that they are only there as salary cap-filling bookmarks. Vince Carter is sure to either be traded or pull his “Half Man/Half Invisible” act he perfected in Toronto. Devin Harris is blossoming into an excellent player, but the Nets are going to be completely irrelevant for a couple of more years.

Last year: won 34 games.

-6 wins by not having Jason Kidd, Richard Jefferson, or Vince Carter (whether he is on the court or not).
+2 wins from the growth of Devin Harris.
-4 wins from “trying to develop the youngsters and/or 25 year olds masquerading as youngsters” as Lopez and Yi get minutes they don’t deserve in the name of “player development”.
-4 wins from most of the team realizing that there is absolutely no “team concept” ‘at work here that includes them, so they may as well just gun for their own stats.

Nets final record this year: 22-60.

It’s an interesting division. Boston clearly remains one of the top four teams in the conference (assuming the big three, and particularly Garnett, stays healthy) while Philadelphia and Toronto should be interesting for all the right reasons. The Knicks should remain a sideshow (but not quite the comical one they have been).

Up next: the Southeast.

With the OKC Thunder purchasing the Tulsa 66ers, the Bucks have a new NBDL franchise — the Fort Wayne Mad Ants!

The Bucks will share affiliation with the Pistons and Pacers in the sprawling metropolis of Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Mad Ants are coached by Jaren Jackson, who in a 12 year career played for nine different NBA teams. Who better to mentor guys who are trying to catch on with the fringe of the league?

Despite having a name that sounds like a 1950’s “B” movie title, the Mad Ants have a great logo. I almost bought this shirt yesterday before containing my excitement.