The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

ESPN is reporting that Charlie Villanueva will sign a 5 year, $40 million deal with Detroit.

Honestly, I don’t see that working out so well for the Pistons. It might not do much for the Bucks either, but that’s another story.

I just don’t see Villanueva as that valuable a player for a team that needs him for 30+ minutes per game. He can do some great things on the court, don’t get me wrong. But when it comes down to it he is inconsistent and defensively challenged. Sort of like Ben Gordon, who the Pistons also signed tonight.

So the Pistons, who added 190 pound Austin Daye and the next Jud Buechler in Chase Budinger in the draft, just blew their $25 million in cap space and now go into the season with the following rotation:

Rodney Stuckey at point (okay start)
Richard Hamilton and Gordon at the two (Hamilton couldn’t handle having Iverson on his team, now he’s supposed to share the position with a guy who just got a 5 year contract for about the same money?)
Tayshaun Prince at small forward, backed up by Budinger.
Charlie V, Jason Maxiell and Daye
Kwame Brown and, if they resign him, Antonio McDyess?

Yikes! See what I mean about Villanueva being a great $4 million player and a lousy $8 million player? It sucks to lose him for nothing, but seriously, is he worth that?

Considering who the Bucks are — a 35 win team that is a long way away from being a title contender — I’d rather have Johnson given the contract situation.

Even though last year was seen as a sort of disapointment for Amir Johnson — he fouled way too much but he is young, a shot blocking maniac (even though he averaged about 8 fouls per 48 minutes, he also averaged a shot block per foul, compared to Charlie V’s 0.44 blocks per foul). Looking at +/- stats is a little misleading because Villanueva played more meaningful minutes than Johnson last year, but with Johnson on the floor the Pistons outscored their opponents by 5 points per game and were outscored by 2.3 ppg without him. The Bucks were outscored by 2.2 ppg with Charlie V and outscored by 0.8 ppg without him last year. Johnson has a reputation as not really knowing what he is doing on defense but having the athletic ability to make up for it. Charlie V has the reputation of not trying all that hard on defense. There is a difference. Give me the guy who is younger, cheaper and (incrementally) more athletic. Lets face it, it’s not like we are rooting for the Lakers or Cavs here. The Bucks aren’t trying to win the championship next year.

NBA.com is also reporting that Josh Childress will visit the Bucks. He is a restricted free agent who doesn’t want to return to Atlanta and a pretty nice player, and it’s possible that a sign-and-trade could be in the works here (Childress signed to a 5 year/$30 million deal and traded for Luke Ridnour and Mbah a Moute?) Atlanta is not over the salary cap and thus would not have much incentive to make a trade such as that, except that they would get something for Childress.

Childress will be 26 this year, so should be in his prime. I doubt anything will come of it, though, because of the damage that would cause to the efforts to get under the salary cap.

First of all, I want to thank all of the commentors who have given me crap for not writing much any more. Between work and having two young kids, I don’t have the time to write any more. It’s not so much the writing that is time-consuming — last year I only had one kid and was staying at home with him, so I had plenty of time to think about interesting things to write. This year, it’s totally different — I have responsibilities from about 6:30 am until 8:30 pm every day, and by then it’s all I can do to even watch a basketball game, much less think about something good to write about it. I really enjoyed producing an excellent blog last year (and the amount of writing I did was very helpful in that it kept my skills sharp for when I went back to work). I hate to be letting it go in the way I have, but I’d rather not write than just throw up some crap posts fairly regularly that are no more than glorified twitters.

Anyway, where is this team now?

Screwed in just about every way.

Lets see if I can recap:

– At full strength, this was an exciting team that had an outside shot at maybe the #5 seed and a chance to advance to the second round. Most likely, they were going to wind up with the #6 seed and could hopefully give Orlando a scare (a team which I have been completely wrong about for two years now. They are good).
– Then Michael Redd got hurt. For a well coached team, losing Redd was not a total disaster. Sure, it probably lowered the ceiling of the team from the #5 seed to the #7 (and getting blown away by Boston), but in the games Redd had missed the team had only averaged about 4 points per game less than with him. Most of his scoring could be picked up with relative ease by other players.
– Then Andrew Bogut’s injury turned out to be a stress fracture that will cost him the next two months. To be honest, I consider this diagnosis to be a positive one. I was starting to worry that his back issue might become one of those Tracy McGrady-style trick backs, where the guy is just perpetually questionable for the rest of his career. Fortunately, a stress fracture should heal.

This, however, leaves the team completely screwed. They have no chance at the playoffs with a frontcourt rotation of Gadzuric, Elson, Malik Allen and Villanueva. However, with Bogut and Redd signed to long-term contracts, just trying to dump salary doesn’t really make sense. The team would have no interest in trading away the two players who would likely garner the most interest around the league — Ramon Sessions and LR Mbah a Moute are fairly untouchable, and their contract status means they are both important to the Bucks and hard to include in other trades. Obviously, Dan Gadzuric has no trade value unless the Bucks take back something even worse in exchange.

What do the Bucks do? How do they make a big move without shafting themselves in the long run?

First of all, I would be more than willing to trade this years’ first round pick. The draft looks awful this year, and between Sessions and Moute, the Bucks have a couple of young, inexpensive players to fill out their rotation.

The best option is to try and trade for one of the superstar players who has an expiring contract after next year. Players like Bosh and Stoudemire have recently been rumored to be on the block, and should the Bucks be able to get one of them, they could be poised to make a 1-year run next year.

The deals?

1: Richard Jefferson, Charlie Villanueva, Luke Ridnour and Damon Jones for Amare Stoudemire and Jason Richardson. Phoenix would save $5 million on this deal, as Jones’ contract expires and Villanueva could be renounced after the season. Charlie V’s per-40 minute numbers compare pretty favorably with Stoudemire’s this season, and the trade would allow the Bucks to audition Alexander and Moute for the starting small forward position next year. It would also solidify Ramon Sessions as the point guard of the future. A starting lineup next year of Sessions/Redd/Moute/Stoudemire/Bogut with Richardson off the bench would be a nice group. It would likely only be a one-year run, though, as Stoudemire would be a free agent after the season, and with Redd, Richardson and Bogut owed $43 million in 2010/11, it’s unlikely Herb Kohl would be able to pay what it would take to keep him.

However, Stoudemire is pretty much known as a pain in the ass. What about Chris Bosh?

2: Bosh and Kapono for Jefferson, Alexander, Jones and a first round pick. It’s tough to come up with a reasonable deal with Toronto, since should they actually decide to deal Bosh, the Bucks don’t really have what they want. They wouldn’t need Jefferson and wouldn’t get much cap relief on the deal, and Joe Alexander and the likely-#15 pick in the draft isn’t a fair return for a perennial all-star. But if Bosh is going to walk after next year, maybe they would be willing. Not likely, though.

3: Jefferson and Jones for Shawn Marion. If Miami is serious about building around Michael Beasley, maybe they would be willing to turn Marion into a true small forward. This would kill Miami’s cap room after the season and would do nothing for the Bucks after this year, but would make a huge difference in the Bucks’ cap situation for the next two years and would clear up the small forward position as well. Marion is a prima-donna head case, but would probably put up huge numbers for the Bucks as he plays for his next contract with someone else. Losing Marion next year would make it easier to resign Ramon Sessions (and pick up Richard Hendrix out of the D-League. There I go again.)

Three deals that wont happen. But that just illustrates the quandry the Bucks find themselves in right now — they are built to win now, but have an incredibly low ceiling with Bogut and Redd hurt.

Remember in my season preview I made a remark about how the Bucks were sunk if they lost Andrew Bogut for a long time? Well, looks like I was right.

While Bogut’s overall production has been a little disappointing this season, at least he has been a rebounding beast. With 20, 17 and 17 boards in the three games before the injury, Bogut was averaging a rather stellar 0.347 rebounds per minute — the 6th best rate in the league among players averaging over 20 mpg. Of course, the cynic says that Bogut had better rebound like that since he’s the only rebounder the team has. That is a good point.

In the three games he has missed (all losses) the Bucks have been outrebounded by 24. That was a major problem in the loss to Cleveland, which was able to use the triumvirate of Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Ben Wallace and Anderson Varejao to simply hammer the Bucks on the boards all night. That game was a hard-fought effort until the Bucks simply ran out of gas (to the best team in the league — 5 straight double digit wins).

It worried me when John Hammond did nothing to bolster the front line behind Bogut, but it is true that dominant rebounders are not all that easy to come by. So what can the Bucks do?

Play Dan Gadzuric until he fouls out every night. It may make you shudder to hear this, but Danny G is a much better player than Francisco Elson. Why would Gadzuric only get enough minutes to pick up a total of two fouls in the last three games?

Free Charlie V! Face it, he is a lousy defender, but he scores in bunches and actually rebounds very well (0.32 per minute). The Bucks need him on the floor. Mbah a Moute is a very effective player, but why have him playing power forward on a regular basis where he gives up 3-7 inches to every opponent?

Go big. Ramon Sessions may be the Bucks most effective point guard, but when you have the chance a lineup of Gadzuric-Villanueva-Moute-Redd-Jefferson may work for a brief stretch. If that team has a hard time getting the ball upcourt (likely) then Sessions will have to come back in, but a big lineup might create some mismatches — and if it doesn’t then it gets Jefferson (38 mpg) a little rest.

Will it work? I don’t know. But Scott Skiles needs to do something to keep the boards clear while Bogut is on the shelf.

When Scott Skiles was hired as the Bulls coach, the improvement was immediate. The Bulls didn’t win much more with Skiles at the helm at the beginning (he replaced Bill Cartwright mid-season) but they immediately looked better on the court. Much more hustle, a much more coordinated defense. 20 point losses became 6 point losses. They were simply better.

The same thing is happening with the Bucks.

It’s not quite time to start making playoff plans, as the team’s 3 wins have come against some of the leagues’ worst (Washington, OKC and the Knicks) but the product on the floor is so much better than last year — better with people rotating to help out on defense and better with Sessions and Ridnour quickly deciding what to do on offense instead of Mo and Redd pounding the ball and refusing to give it up until the shot clock wound down to 2 seconds.

I’ve posted the seasons’ first IPM update and season power rankings.

What do the numbers say? Lets take a look:

The Bucks have been the #10 team in the league, and the #6 team in the East. Given their rather lackluster schedule strength thus far (beating 3 of the bottom 7 in the league), I’d expect this ranking to fall once they play Boston, Phoenix and San Antonio in the next 5 days. But there are some good things going on here.

First: The Bucks are playing defense and it shows. Through the first 5 games, the Bucks have averaged a defensive IPM of 3.28, good for #8 in the league. That’s simply fantastic. The offense is a somewhat anemic 3.45, only #20, but the defense has been better than the offense — and that translates to wins. It’s hard to believe that the defense could make that much of a jump with Andrew Bogut the only dependable big man, so it will likely slip somewhat soon. But the difference in the way the team plays is obvious to the naked eye and is also borne out in the stats. Scott Skiles has made a huge difference already.

The players:

Charlie Villanueva, 0.918 IPM: Charlie V has mixed in some lousy games with a couple of really good ones, and the result has been a really nice IPM. He is averaging 22 points and 13 rebounds per 40 minutes, and a respectable 1.84 blocks+steals per 40, which is a huge improvement over the last couple of seasons. So why is he only playing 22 minutes per game? Obviously, Scott Skiles has major problems with Villanueva’s defense. I get the feeling that Skiles may be intentionally putting up with Villa’s defense just long enough to make sure he is feeling it offensively, and then getting him out of the game as soon as it appears he is going cold. An example is the Wizards game on Wednesday — the Bucks ran out to a 15 point lead with Villanueva in during the first quarter, where he only shot 2-8 but grabbed 6 rebounds and had 2 assists. But once he struggled in the third quarter — 4 minutes, 0-1 shooting, 2 fouls — he was benched for the game. The result here is that Skiles may be artificially inflating Villanueva’s IPM by only using him while he is on a hot streak, but maybe he’s found the best way to use a player who is sometimes unstoppable offensively but always a liability defensively.

After a horrible preseason, Ramon Sessions (0.9224 IPM) chose a great time to really turn it on. 18 points and 8 assists per 40 on 50% shooting is exactly what the biggest optimist would have predicted for him. The best part has been Sessions’ decision making — he doesn’t mess around (like Mo) when he brings the ball up. Either he swings the ball around, tries to hit a cutter, or heads for the rim. He still has trouble with his jump shot when pressured — his natural form results in an ugly shot that comes out of his hands with sidespin on it — but he has clearly been working on his form, as it looks pretty nice when he is left open. Luke Ridnour should remain the starter, as having a Vinnie Johnson-type like Sessions coming off of the bench is a huge luxury, and one the Bucks need, given the awful production from the rest of the bench. I just hope the shooting percentage can hold up — as it might not as players start laying off of him to cut off the drive and make him shoot.

Andrew Bogut (0.713 IPM): I guess you can justify the slow start somewhat for Bogut as the only real problem for him seems to simply be not getting many shots. He’s shot 67.5%, which, as I like to say, means one of three things — you are Wilt Chamberlain, you are a horrible offensive player who is smart enough to only shoot when wide open under the basket, or you aren’t shooting enough. Clearly the latter is the problem, but he seems to be having a hard time getting open. I think the problem isn’t with Bogut, it is either his teammates or Skiles’ offense (and probably a bit of both). With Bogut the only inside presence on the team it becomes very easy to double him the second he touches the ball because his teammates are always hanging around the 3-point line. As a result, Bogut’s turnovers are up a little more than you would like, but at least he is rebounding (11.6 per 40) and getting dirty on defense (8 blocks and 7 steals). However, the free throw shooting is becoming a real problem — is there any reason for an athletic 7-footer like Bogut to be 33% from the foul line? If he had a jump shot then he could distribute out of the high post and probably average 18 ppg and 3 assists in his sleep, but that’s wishful thinking at this point of his career. But the free throw shooting is a major, major problem that threatens to short circuit the Bucks season — their offense is predicated on getting him touches and freeing up someone else for jumpers, so what good is he if you don’t want him touching the ball late in games because you don’t want him getting fouled?

LR Mbah a Moute (0.669 IPM): I was wrong about him. I admit it. I wanted Richard Hendrix in the draft, so that clouded my judgement of Moute from the beginning. But his defense and ability to guard three positions is a major plus — the type that wins games. The problem with LR is that his IPM right now is significantly better than it was in college (0.577), and an increase when moving up to the next level is beyond rare. He has shot 60% and so far has made some big ones, but I’d expect his FG% to drop to the low 40′s by seasons end.

Charlie Bell (0.29 IPM): I don’t know where that huge knee brace came from, but Bell might be better off staying on the bench and rehabbing for a while. He should not have started Wednesday’s game against Washington. He has shot poorly (30%) and turned the ball over far more than usual (8 times in 100 minutes played) while clearly not being able to play as physical defense as normal. He’s not right. The Bucks have been outscored by 16 points per game with him on the court and outscored the opposition by 12 ppg without him.

Overall, I would say this has been a very encouraging start to the season but one that is likely to hit a rough patch. The schedule gets a lot rougher in the next week, and then comes a long road grind. The record will slip, but as long as the team keeps playing like they have, I will be happy.

I have two very young children, so needless to say, pretty much all I do is work and … well … chase around the kids. So that means there isn’t much time to write up extensive reviews of the Bucks. So I’ve decided to give myself 10 minutes to write and two minutes to edit. If I can’t get it on the screen in that amount of time then it wasn’t a thought worth passing along.

– I grew up watching the MJ/Pippen/Phil Jackson Bulls teams, and I have decided that just about the most important skill that separates the stud coaches from the also-rans is the ability to install halftime adjustments. So it was so nice to see the Bucks come out on a run to start the third quarter. I can’t remember them doing that a single time under Larry Krystkowiak.

– It was funny watching the first half of the game because with all the foul trouble I kept thinking the Bulls were completely controlling the game but I would look at the scoreboard and see the Bucks trailing by one. It was pretty clear from the middle of the second quarter on that the Bulls were going to pull away later in the game because the foul trouble for Bogut, Villanueva and later Jefferson meant the game’s flow would favor the Bulls all night.

– 47% shooting certainly was a nice change from the preseason, especially with Villanueva only playing 9 minutes and shooting 1-5.

– Chicago: 40 rebounds. Milwaukee: 32 rebounds. Get ready to hear that a lot this year, especially in games when Bogut plays under 30 minutes.

– You can win a lot with a guy like LR Mbah a Moute playing 20 minutes in the middle of the game. You won’t win much when you are trailing in the fourth and a guy like LR Mbah a Moute is not only on the floor but playing a two-man game with Richard Jefferson. Moute taking 4th quarter shots is called “playing into the hands of the defense”. But it begs the question: down 10 with 5 minutes left, why wasn’t Charlie Villanueva in the game?

– Wow, Derrick Rose looks awfully good. And where did Tyrus Thomas get a jump shot from? I’m thinking of picking him up in my fantasy league already. Rose could do for Thomas’ career what Chris Paul did for Tyson Chandler’s.

14 minutes. Damn.

Now that the preseason has concluded, we can step back and take an honest look at where this Bucks team stands going into the season. Quite honestly, this preseason leaves me very nervous about whether or not the team has really improved.

The 1-7 preseason record is not a problem. In the preseason, obviously your best players don’t play a whole lot, and the teams’ performance will suffer. However, you want your best players to play well when they are in the game. I analyzed all of the box scores for the eight preseason games and calculated IPM’s for every player. I also calculated the team IPM score in order to objectively judge the quality of their offensive and defensive efforts. Obviously, the team IPM score is subject to the personnel on the floor, so players like TJ Cummings and Kevin Kruger had some influence. However, I think it is still something worthwhile to look at, since the numbers will indicate to a certain extent just how well the Bucks’ roster is complementary to Scott Skiles’ system.

IPM, in case you are not familiar with it, is my self-created player evaluation model. It attempts to summarize a players’ all-around contribution to his team and is boiled down to a single number, which stands for Impacts Per Minute. Think of an IPM of 1.0 meaning that the player makes positive contributions to his team equivalent to 1 point per minute on the floor. A player with an IPM over 1.0 is a superstar, above 0.9 is all-star level, above 0.8 is an above-average starter, above 0.7 is an okay starter, and above 0.6 is a decent short-minute player. Below 0.6 and you have problems. Team IPM sums up the whole teams’ offensive statistics and the statistics of the teams’ opponents to give an offensive and defensive score which, when subtracted from each other, gives a differential that correlates very closely to a teams’ actual record. A team with identical offensive and defensive IPM’s would have a differential of zero, and would be expected to be a .500 team. Team IPM’s typically range between 3.0 and 4.0 (higher is better for offense and worse for defense). More description of IPM is available here, last years’ player rankings are available here, and last years’ full-team power rankings are here.

The numbers for the preseason analysis, both for individual players and the teams, is available here.

On to my preseason analysis:

The Team: Yikes, what a display of god-awful offense. 40% shooting and 89 points per game will not get it done. The team suffered from a sort of mass shooting slump with only four players making over 40% of their shots (fortunately three of them were Bogut, Redd and Villanueva), so it’s not all that surprising that the offense was brutal.

The defense, on the other hand showed only moderate improvement from last year. They allowed 103 points per game and 48.5% shooting – pathetic numbers and it’s only because the defense was unbelievably bad last year that this would actually represent an improvement. The Bucks were only outrebounded by their opponents by a slim margin (39.9 per game vs. 40.15) and forced more turnovers than their opponents (16.71 vs. 18.58). Some of the defensive weakness can probably be attributed to Andrew Bogut only playing 5 games, but that underscores this teams’ biggest problem: since there is no banger big man behind Bogut, if he misses more than a handful of games this season, this team is sunk.

The Bucks’ offense managed an incredibly meager 3.26 IPM. Some of which can be attributed to the new offensive system being implemented, so many new players being integrated into the offense, and the best players being on cruise control during the meaningless games; but it is still a sign of a lack of team depth. After all, the teams the Bucks were playing weren’t putting out their best players or max effort either. Last season, a 3.26 offensive IPM would have been the worst in the league by a lot.

Defensively, the Bucks had an IPM of 3.85, which represented a small improvement from last years’ 3.99, but still isn’t amazingly good. The team simply isn’t athletic enough to do much statistical defensive damage. As I said before, they need Bogut on the floor and need to get rebounding help from someone other than Bogut and Gadzuric.

With the Bucks’ best players on the floor in the regular season I would expect both of their IPM numbers to improve, but they show how far the team has to go. The teams’ preseason IPM differential of -0.59 (3.26 minus 3.85) would have translated to about a 20 win team last season, placing them just ahead of the Grizzlies as the leagues worst. Last season the Bucks had the #23 offense (3.61 IPM) and #28 defense (3.99 IPM). A defensive IPM of 3.85 would have ranked #21 in the league. Should the Bucks have the same offense as last year and the same defense as they did in the preseason the differential of -0.24 would equate to a 32-50 regular season.

You would expect the teams’ numbers to improve on both ends of the floor in the regular season, but the numbers really show just how far this team has to go.

One bright spot is that in the two games the team played that had much more intensity and effort than a typical preseason game – the two in China – the Bucks actually outperformed Golden State in both. By IPM the Bucks won the first game by a 3.46-3.40 IPM score and game 2 by 3.81-3.67. By my observation, these games were played pretty hard and show that there is some room for improvement once the regular season begins. Perhaps a team capable of playing .500 ball is in place. Perhaps.

The players (reviewed in order from best to worst):

1- Charlie Villanueva (0.911 IPM): It was a big preseason for Charlie V, as everybody wanted to know how well he will fit in as a defense-allergic power forward for Scott Skiles. If he keeps filling it up the way he did in the preseason, he will do just fine. Villanueva averaged 26 points per 40 minutes on 49% shooting. Maybe going 0 for 8 from 3 point range will encourage him to finally give up that shot. His rebounding will have to come up from the 8.6 per 40 minutes he managed in the preseason.

In his two years with the Bucks, Villanueva has done a disconcertingly poor job of getting blocks and steals, which I always attributed to his injured shoulder not being healthy. In his first 101 games with the Bucks he had only managed 105 blocks and steals combined, for a thoroughly awful ratio of 1.03 per game. In the preseason, however, he averaged a much healthier 2.40 blocks and steals per 40 minutes, which likely reflects both improved health and commitment at the defensive end. Villanueva’s best game came in the second game against Golden State, when his numbers in 26 minutes of action would have prorated out for 40 minutes of work to 40 points, 12 rebounds, 4 blocks + steals and (just to prove this is still Charlie V we are talking about) 1 assist.

Villanueva certainly has the talent to put up a 0.9 IPM season, but whether or not he can play enough defense to make him a net-positive contributor is an open question. However, there is a lot of good stuff to see from his numbers in the preseason. If he scores 22 and grabs 8 boards all year but allows 18/7 at the other end, that’s still a positive contribution.

Of course, Skiles has been making implications to the media that he doesn’t intend to start Villanueva because of his defense, instead preferring some nonexistent better player. That’s funny, I must have missed where the Bucks traded for Tim Duncan in the last few weeks. Skiles does have a habit of doing that sort of thing, such as starting Chris Duhon over Ben Gordon for two years, but I can’t imagine anyone thinking that Malik Allen is that much better than Villanueva.

2- Luke Ridnour (0.911 IPM): Ever since coming to the Bucks, opinion about Ridnour has been somewhere between “he’s great” and “he sucks”. The answer is right in the middle – he’s average. Ridnour takes exceptionally good care of the ball and doesn’t shoot or defend all that well. Basically, he’s better than half of the other starting point guards in the league – which means that if he’s your worst starter that is good and if he is your second best player that is bad. Ridnour had a very good preseason, managing a 3:1 assist/turnover ratio and grabbing 9 steals in 6 games (28 mpg). He shot poorly, only 38.9%, which makes his sterling IPM even more impressive. He also managed to grab 4.26 rebounds per 40 minutes, over 1 more than Richard Jefferson (more on that later).

Ridnour overachieved in the preseason and will drop off but should still be a solid addition to the club. Expect his A:TO ratio to stay about the same, his shooting to improve a bit and his rebounding to slide. It’s a good thing he played so well and sealed his name as the starting point guard, because nobody else at that position stepped up.

There is no way that Ridnour will carry a 0.9 IPM through the regular season, but a 0.8 is not out of the question.

3- Matt Freije (0.864 IPM): Yes, Matt Freije was the Bucks’ 3rd best player this season. He did it through shameless gunning – 23 points per 40 minutes on 39% shooting, only 1.3 assists per 40. He did manage 2.62 blocks+steals per 40 against the sub-par preseason competition. He had a good preseason, but the problem is that everyone knows that he is not an NBA-caliber athlete. He could probably make a good living in Spain or Turkey, but his primary skill – scoring – isn’t really in demand from 12th-man types. The thing that is most vexing about Freije stacking up so well among the Bucks is that it doesn’t say much about the rest of the team – the better players on the squad should put up much better per-minute numbers than someone like Matt Freije.

4- Michael Redd (0.7243 IPM): The numbers are subpar, but I don’t see anything to worry about here. Redd has no reason not to coast through the preseason, especially after spending the summer on the Olympic team instead of resting. Redd shot 47.5% from the field and made 9 of 20 three pointers, so it appears he is good to go from a scoring standpoint. He also averaged 4 boards and 4 assists per 40 minutes against 2 turnovers. The only thing missing from Redd’s game was the seven free throws per game he usually averages – he shot 18 in 6 games – but there is no reason for him to try and seek contact in a preseason game. Redd should be back to his usual 0.9 IPM once the real games start.

5- Andrew Bogut (0.643 IPM): It was a pretty disappointing preseason from a numbers perspective for Bogut, as his regular season IPM was close to 0.9 last year. I’m sure Bogut, like Redd, was cruising a little after a rough Olympics, and he has apparently been trying to beat some nagging injuries. Considering Bogut wasn’t really playing as tough as he would in the season, it’s still impressive that he managed to block 6 shots and get 4 steals in 5 games (29 mpg) and average almost 11 rebounds per 40 minutes. Bogut didn’t shoot particularly well (47%) and was awful from the foul line (53%) so that’s some reason for mild concern, but he also shot poorly early last season.

Of bigger concern is that he means so much to the team’s success at the defensive end that they will be totally sunk if he misses any time this year. The three preseason games he missed saw the Bucks’ 4th, 6th, and 7th worst defensive showings and the only other Bucks to average over 9 rebounds per 40 minutes were Matt Freije, Dan Gadzuric and Malik Allen. There just aren’t enough tough big guys on this team. It scares me that John Hammond tried to build a win-now team (by adding Jefferson) but didn’t add any toughness up front.

On the bright side, and I’ve brought this up many, many times: Andrew Bogut is the same age this year that Patrick Ewing was his rookie year. This means that Bogut’s physical maturation at the most physical position in the game means that his career trend of modest improvement should continue. If he can average 11 boards per 40 without trying very hard in the preseason then he should be able to do that easily in the regular season. Bogut should average 18 points, 11 boards and 2 blocks this year and make the all-star team (admittedly that has something to do with there being no other good centers after Dwight Howard in the East).

6- Dan Gadzuric (0.620 IPM): I know, can you believe it? Dan Gadzuric was the Bucks’ sixth best player in the preseason? Maybe that doesn’t say much about the rest of the roster, but Danny G just pretty much did what Danny G always does – if there’s nothing to do but rebound and throw his body around then he’s pretty good for short bursts. It’s when he tries to score that things get screwed up. Last season I advocated playing him alongside Bogut many times, and hopefully Skiles sees the value of that this season. Gadzuric averaged 11 boards per 40 in the preseason, and by getting the Bucks’ two best rebounders on the floor at the same time occasionally is about the only way this team will out rebound anyone this year. To Dan’s credit he didn’t turn the ball over or foul much this preseason, averaging about 2 of each per 40 minutes.

7- Charlie Bell (0.615 IPM): Bell only played 2 preseason games and got a total of 40 minutes, so he has a really small sample size to work with here. His numbers in those two games looked a lot like last years, right down to the 6 of 17 shooting.

8- Ramon Sessions (0.596 IPM): Let’s put those “Sessions is a future star” stories on hold for a bit. After a dominant season last year, Sessions spent this preseason showing why he was a low second-round pick in the first place – he can’t shoot and he’s not much of an athlete.

Sessions shot 29.6% from the field in the preseason, and that’s while only going 0 for 2 from 3-point range. There’s a big difference between potentially playing for a starting job this season and lighting it up in 15 games that didn’t matter last year, and Sessions seemed to feel the heat. In 154 minutes of preseason action, Sessions only managed 4 steals and no blocks, an indication that his athleticism is suspect. He was also a turnover machine, averaging 5.45 per 40 minutes (although some of that can be attributed to the And1 nature of preseason games). However, he wasn’t exactly an assist machine either, only averaging 7.5 per 40 minutes.

The preseason raises some legitimate questions as to how good Ramon Sessions will be in meaningful NBA games. Hopefully he can maximize his talents – he’s a guard with a gift for breaking down defenses and getting to the foul line, and he’s big enough to at least be a solid if unspectacular defender – enough to prove to be a capable backup. But if not, then maybe the Tyronn Lue signing wasn’t that bad an idea after all.

9- Richard Jefferson (0.590 IPM): Uh Oh.

This is what John Hammond wanted when he added an extra $15 million in long term salary to take on Jefferson’s contract? 38% shooting and a whopping 3.17 rebounds per 40 minutes? Yikes. Just, yikes.

Yeah, Jefferson was awful in the preseason. Most of the lame numbers aren’t too alarming to be worried about yet (poor shooting early isn’t a big deal for someone who is likely to slash to the hoop more in the regular season) but I wonder about the 2.12 blocks + steals per 40 minutes. It means he was sticking his hands in less often than players like Charlie V and Matt Freije, and it makes one wonder just how committed he is to his all-around game, having spent the last couple of seasons as primarily a scorer.

But the real problem is the putrid rebounding. Much was made before Jefferson came to the Bucks about his declining rebound rate over the past several years, from over 7 per 40 minutes early in his career to about 4 last season. The optimists tried to explain that Jefferson had concentrated on scoring more because that’s what his team needed, but it’s starting to look like maybe he’s just not as good a rebounder since a major ankle injury a few years ago.

There are always explanations for poor numbers in the preseason, and I’m sure there are plenty of reasons to justify RJ’s preseason being only moderately better than Bobby Simmons’ 0.564 IPM last season. But the rebounding is a major concern for me because it has been clear all along that the Bucks would need him to help out in that department in a major way this season, and he should have been spending his preseason minutes concentrating on that part of the game.

Jefferson should improve significantly once the real games start, but if he doesn’t, we are going to be wondering how John Hammond couldn’t have gotten a pick back from New Jersey in return for taking on RJ’s brutal contract.

10- Francisco Elson (0.5645 IPM): Elson was brought in to be Bogut’s 10 mpg backup this season, and judging from his preseason, John Hammond may as well have kept looking. It’s not that Elson did anything bad, he just didn’t really do anything at all.

11- LR Mbah a Moute (0.560 IPM): Scott Skiles gave Moute the most minutes in the preseason of anyone by far, and Moute proved that he was as advertised: hustles on defense, has no clue on offense. Moute had a couple of incredibly bad outings (highlighted by a 1-12 shooting night in game 2) but acquitted himself well in the last two preseason games (0.87 IPM in them).

Mbah a Moute’s preseason looked a lot like Richard Jefferson’s except that he didn’t create quite as many shots and got over double the rebounds (averaging 7.57 per 40 minutes). He should be a decent spot player, but I fear a little Royal Ivey-ish – no matter how good he is defensively, he might not be good enough offensively to make up for it.

12- Malik Allen (0.552 IPM): He’s a “Skiles guy” and will be Charlie Villanueva’s primary backup. It’s a good thing that he averaged 9.62 rebounds per 40 minutes, because between that and consistently being in about the right spots on defense are the only things he brings to the table.

13- Joe Alexander (0.534 IPM): There’s not much here that screams “future star”. Alexander had two nice games in the preseason (playing a big part in the win against Golden State and a 17 minute, 0.97 IPM night against Chicago where despite shooting 2 of 9 he stuffed the box score with 7 rebounds, three assists, a steal and a block) but was otherwise really awful.

The book on Alexander is that he is supposed to be very athletic but raw, a product of having not played much high-level basketball to this point in his career. That’s all well and good, but the last person I heard that about was Jamal Crawford, and he’s turned out to be just good enough to kill your team. Not having much experience at a young age has to limit your ceiling as a player somewhat.

That said, Alexander did play much better as the preseason went along and put up some huge rebounding numbers in the last couple of games. He is a rookie and the jury must stay out on him for at least a year, but I really hate to see him being one of the least productive players on the team – especially in games that don’t mean anything and where he should be able to go out and hone his skills against guys who are about to get cut.

14- Tyronn Lue (0.495 IPM): Lue didn’t play all that much and didn’t do anything of note when he did. He played 75 minutes and managed three rebounds, no blocks and no steals while shooting 35%. He did, at least, have a 2:1 assist to turnover ratio. I’d still rather have another backup power forward than him.

15- Adrian Griffin (0.300 IPM): He only played in the first two preseason games and was a non-factor in them, totaling as many turnovers as shots (three). But the most discouraging thing? That Griffin, a shooting guard, averaged almost double the rebounds per 40 minutes of Richard Jefferson (6.22 vs. 3.17).

The bottom line here: It’s probably not all that unusual for players with secure roster sports to post poor preseason statistics, but the way it seemed to infiltrate the entire team worries me. It wouldn’t bother me as much if there was also a massive improvement in the defensive statistics, as that would tell me that the wavering effort level of the opposition renders preseason stats useless. But that didn’t happen – statistically, the Bucks played like a 2-6 team this preseason (and they should have been 2-6 – not only did they lose the second game on a lucky shot, I believe that Golden State actually didn’t get the ball inbounded in 5 seconds on the game winning play, nor did they get the shot off in time. But it made better theater the way it worked out).

There is no way this team is the 20 win team they looked like in the preseason, but I worry about how much upside there really is for this roster. Before training camp started I predicted 38 wins this year, and I stand by that. It seems to me that the best case scenario for this team is about 43 wins and the worst case (except for a barrage of injuries that renders them noncompetitive) is about 32 wins (the “this preseason’s defense and last years’ offense” that I alluded to at the beginning of the post).

So that’s my call: 38 wins. I don’t think that gets a playoff berth, but I’m still not a believer in what Indiana is up to – I think the Bucks escape the cellar in the Central Division.

I am pleased to announce that I have made an upgrade to my IPM rankings — thanks to the geniuses at www.82games.com, they kept track of charges this season and so I was able to add them into the ranking. I’ve been waiting for this. The rankings don’t change much (Andrew Bogut gets a little boost), but I still feel it helps with accuracy a bit. The rankings are available here.

But the real improvement is that I have added a defensive component to IPM, making this ranking truly unique — not only does it include charges, but also defense. I’m mighty proud of it.

The idea for a defensive ranking came from this article by Jon Nichols at 82games.com. His method — called Defensive Composite Score — ranked players by three categories, summed the rankings, and then ranked them by percentage to come up with a 0-100 ranking. His categories were athleticism ratio (if you are familiar with my draft preview, I also used it there. It is blocks+steals/fouls), Dean Oliver’s Defensive Rating (a single number developed and described in the book Basketball on Paper) and on court/off court differential.

I took Nichols’ DCS, tweaked it and took it a step further. First, I added charges to the athleticism ratio (blocks+steals+offensive fouls drawn/fouls committed). After getting the individual ratings, I took my team defensive IPM score in order to add a “team adjustment” to each individual. Then I adjusted for how much each player was responsible for their teams’ defensive IPM, by backing out each player to determine how much better or worse each team would be had he not been on the team. Finally (and I wish I didn’t have to do this, but the data demanded it) I inputted a position adjustment to reflect the fact that big men have much more difficult demands on their defense.

I absolutely hate position adjustments, and feel that if you have to use them then there is a flaw in your methodology because you can then just change a players’ ranking by changing their position — even though they don’t always play the same position. It’s a major flaw that also crops up in the “Wages of Wins” school of thought, but that’s a whole other story.

Anyway, I then had an adjusted score that I could convert to IPM, and by combining IPM with the Defensive IPM I obtained a final, all-around ranking. Because the rules of basketball are slanted toward offense I weighted the combined rankings as 75% IPM and 25% defensive IPM. Basically, I figured that since a 25 ppg scorer would likely score 35 points against the worst defender but about 20 against the best defender, you can’t truly assume the two systems are equal. A great defensive player will still allow enough scoring that he has to at least be able to pick up a little slack at the offensive end.

The ranking are available here.

What does the defensive ranking component tell us?

The most interesting thing is that it says that in the case of top players, they usually bring the goods at both ends of the floor. It makes some sense — logically great players like LeBron, KG and Kobe are so superior athletically that they can dominate at both ends. So the players who don’t have their overall rankings changed very much when defensive IPM is included tend to be the best players (or, like Matt Carroll, they just suck at both offense and defense).

What was also interesting was looking at the players who had their rankings changed the most by adding defensive IPM. It clearly shows that there are some “winning”, “intangible” skills that some players bring and that some lack.

It doesn’t come as much surprise that the players who had their rankings improved the most were the known offensively-challenged defensive specialists: Shane Battier, Ben Wallace, and Anderson Varejao types. But what was interesting was that of the 40 players who had their rankings improved by the most (among those who averaged 20 mpg), 30 of them made the playoffs this season. At the other end of the spectrum, among the 40 20mpg+ offensive specialists who were hurt the most by incorporating defensive rankings (Eddy Curry, Ben Gordon, Hakim Warrick …. Charlie Villanueva) 30 of them missed the playoffs. Coincidence? I think not.

What does this ranking system tell us about some of the Bucks?

Charlie Villanueva must go. While Charlie V’s offensive IPM was decent (0.7756, #116 overall) his team-worst 0.508 defensive IPM dropped his overall ranking 58 spots to #176. Quite simply, Villanueva is a pretty average offensive player who doesn’t defend well enough to make him a net-positive player.

Michael Redd should stay. Redd suffered through an awful offensive season by his standards and had a pretty lousy defensive IPM to boot, but when it was all said and done his overall ranking dropped by 19 spots. However, Redd is good enough offensively to score 25 a night and get to the line 10 times, while attempting to replace him would likely lead to a replacement who is moderately better defensively but much, much worse offensively. And Redd is likely to be better on offense next season.

Mo Williams should go. Mo’s 0.625 defensive IPM lowered his overall ranking by 25 spots, which pretty much negates all of the strides his offensive game has made. Added to that is the way Mo’s decision making seems to make the game harder on his teammates, and he winds up looking like a real drag on the team.

Andrew Bogut should sign that extension. When charges were added, Bogut’s IPM rose to 0.910, which is borderline-all-star level. At his age, there is still plenty of time for Bogut to mature into a solid contributor for a good team. Bogut’s defense was also the best on the team, which suggests that once Scott Skiles beats some defensive responsibility into his teammates, he should be able to become the centerpiece of a pretty good defense.

Yi was … good defensively? I don’t know about this one. Yi’s defensive IPM was pretty good, but I think that Yi gets a big assist from Bogut here. Bogut would always guard the oppositions’ best big, and Yi’s on/off court differential looks a little better than it is because he got hurt a little before the team really cratered. Yi has a lot of work to do next year — and he owes it to Bogut for making his numbers look good this season.

Thank God Royal Ivey is gone. Having a defensive specialist can be a good strategy. However, Ivey was so bad offensively that even great defense couldn’t make him a net-positive player. But Ivey, despite maybe looking good here and there, was lousy defensively as well — his 0.523 DefIPM was the second worst on the team. Charlie Bell’s DefIPM was awful as well, but he gets a pass because he was thrown to the wolves at small forward way too often. How can a 6’3″ player be expected to guard LeBron James straight up?

Ramon Sessions isn’t as good as the numbers say. While Sessions had the best offensive and defensive IPM on the team, don’t forget that his 17 games played amounted to 450 minutes of extended garbage time. Nobody was very serious about guarding him and there wasn’t much incentive for him to play much defense beyond gambling for steals. He’ll be a good backup, but he’s not nearly as good as the numbers think.

And there’s my two cents for John Hammond.

In an interview with the Journal-Sentinel, Charlie Villanueva says that he feels that he’s the odd man out with the Bucks and will probably be traded soon. No big news there, it seems pretty obvious that he would be on the trading block.

But what can the Bucks get for him? It’s actually kind of tough to come up with good Villanueva trades because of his salary. Basically, he can only be traded for players who make a similar amount of money to his $3.5 million, which means that most of the people he could be traded for are either overpaid benchwarmers or valuable young players who would never be traded by their current teams.

So I went through the league and came up with 12 potential trades. Most of them are highly unrealistic, a couple of them are just plain dumb, and most of them aren’t really what you would call “blockbusters”. But it just goes to show you how difficult it is to actually come up with a good trade that both teams might do.

Here they are, in reverse order of how realistic they are:

REALLY DUMB IDEAS:

Phoenix: Shaquille O’Neal and the #15 pick for Redd and Villanueva. I only include this because in Phoenix’s twisted world of luxury tax avoidance they would see this trade as saving them money. Phoenix loses the 2yrs/$20 mil on Shaq’s deal, saves $1 million next year and $1-$5 mil the following season if they let Villanueva walk. However they then pick up Redd’s $18 mil 2010/11 contract , it makes no sense but that’s the same financial logic they used in the Shaq-Marion trade. Shaq’s game has slipped to the point that the Bucks would laugh at a proposal like this, and I’m sure that he would come to Milwaukee and instantly get “hurt” anyway, so it’s pointless to continue speculating. But it’s kind of fun to imagine the in-his-prime 1999 version of Shaq on this team.

Indiana: Danny Granger and Travis Diener for Villanueva and the #8 pick. Strange deal that doesn’t really work for either team. Granger is the Pacers’ best player (so no reason for them to trade him away) but he’s eligible for an extension soon (so the Bucks would be grabbing the right to give him $12 mil a season). And it costs the Bucks a top 10 pick. Just an all-around bad idea. I only included this trade because having 12 trade ideas sounds better than just 11.

Chicago: S&T Luol Deng + Kirk Hinrich for Redd, Villanueva and the #8 pick. No way on earth this trade happens , both because it is inside the division and John Paxson isn’t going to trade Deng and Hinrich to Scott Skiles , but it makes some sense if the Bulls take Derrick Rose.

Toronto: TJ Ford and the #17 pick for Mason and Villanueva. Talk about irony , Villanueva and Ford traded for each other again? This trade would clear room for Toronto to commit to Jose Calderon as their starter and would save them money once Mason’s contract expires. Obviously, if Toronto wanted Villanueva they wouldn’t have traded him away in the first place, though.

PRETTY DUMB IDEA:

Denver: Carmelo Anthony for Williams, Villanueva and the #8 pick. While rumor has it that Denver would entertain offers for Anthony, if they were to take an offer like this then you’d have to wonder what is so wrong with Anthony that Denver would accept it. Anthony has spent years replacing his reputation as a clean-cut kid who makes the players around him better with that of a sullen, me-first scorer who doesn’t play defense, is known as one of the league’s hardest partiers, and recently picked up a DUI at 4am. This trade also leaves Denver with the smallest backcourt in the league in Mo and Iverson.

NOT ALL THAT DUMB, BUT STILL WOULD NEVER HAPPEN:

Atlanta: S&T Josh Smith for Simmons, Villanueva and the #8 pick. It seems unlikely that the Hawks would let Smith get away, but you never really know with them. There have been stories that they don’t want to pay him big money because of his personality and they may want to get a top 10 pick (their pick this year goes to Phoenix) but it’s very unlikely that anyone would let a player that talented get away.

Philadelphia: The #16 pick for Villanueva. The Sixers are $15-$20 mil under the salary cap, and if they like what they currently have then they may be more interested in adding a player than in risking a bust in the draft. It’s unlikely, though. This trade would have to be consumated after the draft.

Cleveland: Wally Szczerbiak for Simmons and Villanueva. Interesting trade , not for the on-court ramifications, but the off-court ones. Szczerbiak has one year on his contract ($13 mil) and Simmons and Villanueva two ($15 mil in 09/10 if Villanueva signs the 1 year qualifying offer). Basically this trade would allow Cleveland to postpone a big salary coming off of their cap next offseason until the following year, when LeBron will be a free agent. The Bucks would save $10-$14 million in 09/10.

MAKES A LITTLE SENSE:

Dallas: Josh Howard for Mason, Villanueva and the #8 pick. Just how serious is Dallas about making wholesale changes? Howard’s contract is relatively low risk (2 years plus a team option) and I’m sure the Bucks would jump at this deal. The Mavs would have to be seriously disillusioned about Howard (after his stoner comments and poor playoffs) to consider a deal like this, but if there’s a player in the draft who they really want they may be willing to make the splashy move.

Memphis: Brian Cardinal, Hakim Warrick and the #5 pick for Mason, Villanueva and the #8. This trade would give Memphis some cap relief (Cardinal has 2 years remaining on his contract, and Mason only one) and keeps them in the top 10 in the draft, while pretty much assuring the Bucks a shot at Kevin Love. If Memphis is interested in trading down, this would be fair.

New Jersey: Stromile Swift and the #10 pick for Charlie Bell, Charlie Villanueva and the #8. If New Jersey sees a player they want they may be interested in moving up a couple of spots to get him. Swift’s contract has one year left, and should the Nets then resign Villanueva to a 1 year qualifying offer, then he would be gone the following year and this trade would help New Jersey’s master plan of being under the cap when LeBron opts out of his contract in 2 years.

Orlando: Brian Cook and the #22 pick for Villanueva. While Cook is pretty much useless, this trade should land the Bucks in the perfect spot to get Richard Hendrix while still allowing them to keep their other two picks. Orlando gets a player who can help them now (instead of risking that their draft pick doesn’t pan out) and the ability to move Rashard Lewis back to small forward without losing a key contributor.

What does this show you? While Villanueva has talent, he’s not exactly going to command much of a premium around the league. He’s not so good that he can command a valuable, inexpensive player in return; nor is he so valuable that he would be much of an incentive in packaging him with one of the Bucks’ bad contracts for a really good player.

John Hammond has his work cut out for him. Of all of these trades, the only one I could see the other party likely to do is the one with Orlando, and I’m sure Hammond thinks he can get more than the #22 pick for a guy who was the runner-up ROY a couple of years ago.

In the Racine Journal-Times, Gery Woelfel wrote an interesting piece about his asking around the Bucks locker room before Scott Skiles was hired to get the players’ opinions on him. He said that one player was definitely not enamored of the idea of playing for a coach that actually insists on running an offensive system and playing hard on defense.

“There was one player, however, whose face began to cringe almost in a painful manner when I mentioned Skiles. His look spoke volumes.

It was amply apparent he wasn’t a Skiles’ guy, and it was equally apparent he wasn’t looking forward to playing for him.

The player went on to say that he had conversations with several members of the Chicago Bulls, whom Skiles coached until being fired last December “” on Christmas Eve, of all times.

What this particular player heard from some of the Bulls about Skiles was anything but complimentary. To some Bulls, Skiles was condescending, egotistical and insensitive. And, no, they weren’t sad to see him fired.

First of all, Skiles wasn’t fired — he resigned. But that’s semantics.

So who is the mystery source? Lets speculate:

With the NBA being a fairly small fraternity, most players would have some familiarity with each other regardless of whether or not they have played together, so my speculation is pretty thin. But lets see what connections the Bucks players might have with the Bulls players.

The only Bull (as of Christmas, when Skiles left) with a recent history with the Bucks is Joe Smith, but he was only with the Bulls for a few months, and doesn’t seem like much of a complainer.

I doubt Woelfel’s source was Jake Voskuhl, Michael Ruffin, Royal Ivey or David Noel, as their contracts expire and they most likely wont be on the team next year. Awvee Storey is a Chicago native, but also won’t be here. It wouldn’t make sense for Ramon Sessions or Yi Jianlian to be the source.

One would think that Andrew Bogut would welcome Skiles, and since everyone already knows that he can’t stand NBA players, there’s no reason for him to talk to members of the Bulls.

Dan Gadzuric and Charlie Bell have spent their entire careers with the Bucks, and neither of them seem like the sort of player to object to Skiles.

Desmond Mason’s connection with the Bulls would be that he was teammates with PJ Brown for one year in New Orleans, who played with Chicago in 06-07. But Brown was on the Bulls were winning, and I’m sure everyone got along just fine then. It certainly doesn’t sound like Mason to complain about a coach he doesn’t know.

I can’t think of any connection between Mo Williams and any Bulls players, but I could be wrong.

This sort of reaction doesn’t seem like something Michael Redd would do, although apparently he and Smith had a pretty good relationship. Redd was also an Olympic Trials teammate with Kirk Hinrich. Still, it doesn’t sound right for Redd to say something like that, even if that’s what he was thinking. He’s a little more media savvy than that.

That leaves Bobby Simmons and Charlie Villanueva.

Simmons is a Chicagoan who most likely spends time with the Bulls players that stay in the area in the summer (many NBA players work out at Tim Grover’s gym, and the South Side summer pickup games are legendary). Simmons also was traded to Detroit in the Jerry Stackhouse-Richard Hamilton trade (and was cut before the season started), so he was a teammate of Ben Wallace for a short time. Wallace and Skiles did not get along from the beginning. Simmons has complained in the past about the Bucks’ coaching turnover.

Villanueva went to college with Ben Gordon, another player who always chafed under Skiles. Gordon had an issue with his minutes and never liked coming off of the bench, while Skiles had an issue with Gordon’s defense and shot selection. One could say that every coach would have the same issues with Villanueva.

So it seems most likely that Woelfel’s mystery “Skiles hater” is either Villanueva or Simmons. That’s convenient, since those are the two guys least likely to still be on the team next season.

Sounds to me like a non-issue.

Continuing my season review, today I am concentrating on the three mid-priced players that were complete enigmas for the Bucks this season.

Charlie Villanueva ($2.71M, 0.766 IPM): The deck was clearly stacked against Charlie V from the get-go this season. Coach Krystkowiak was telling the media that energy in practice and defensive intensity would determine playing time, but everybody knew that Yi had already been promised the starting power forward position. So even though there was nothing that Charlie V could do to get more playing time (especially since it would take Krystkowiak 60 games to try playing V and Yi together), Krystkowiak’s early position made it look like Villanueva was simply too lazy to earn court time.

On the court, Villanueva make an admirable recovery from last seasons’ shoulder injury to at least regain the form of his first two seasons, but he hasn’t really improved upon his rookie season at all. His game has stayed the same , he shoots too much from outside, rebounds pretty well (nine double-doubles in 31 starts), passes well for a big man, turns it over too much, doesn’t quite get as many blocks and steals as you would like, and is easily overpowered on defense.

Villanueva is wildly inconsistent on the court, simply not showing up every night. Just recently, he followed up a 2 point, 4 board, 1-6 shooting night against Boston with 38 points and 12 boards the next night against Toronto. It’s incredible how often he has a great game followed by a complete head-scratcher.

Often people look at that sort of inconsistency and thing; “Just wait until he figures it all out!” I look at it differently , Charlie Villanueva is the 6’11″ version of Jamal Crawford: Half the time he’s awesome, half the time he’s awful and it all averages out to a completely average player. Guys like that don’t change , you don’t just suddenly become “consistent”.

Fortunately Villanueva has the tantalizing talent, relatively low paycheck and track record as former ROY-runner up to make him a reasonable bargaining chip in an offseason trade. It’s very difficult to win with a player like him, as he is such a unique athlete that he creates matchup problems wherever he plays , for both the opponents and his own team , and you never know if All-Star Charlie or Putrid Charlie will show up on any given night.

Villanueva was misused this season by Krystkowiak. He’s much better than a 15-minute bench guy as he was treated early in the season, but he’s not a dependable 35-minute workhorse either. Winning with a guy like Villanueva on your team requires the coach to have a lot of imagination about how to use him, willingness to yank him when he’s doing poorly, and probably a double-standard regarding his practice habits because you need his head in the game. Krystkowiak failed on all counts regarding Charlie V.

Responsibility for Coach K’s dismissal: 10%

Yi Jianlian ($2.77M, 0.618 IPM): Hope for the best, fear the worst. After a season where Yi’s play got worse and worse and excuses started to mount around him, I worry.

The most enduring image of Yi’s rookie season, besides his picture-perfect jump shot, will have to be that of him flailing his arms after getting his shot blocked. According to 82games.com, he finished the season having 36% of his “in close” shots blocked, and only made 31% of those tries. As the season went on, this inability to convert clearly started to wear on Yi, as he began barking at the officials after every time he got stripped. He simply had a horrible time adjusting to the physicality and athleticism of NBA big men. Despite being a pretty legitimate 250 pounds and having a decent vertical, he is just awful at taking contact.

There’s really no reason to believe that he’s 20 years old any more as baseball’s experience has pretty much proven that once a player is rumored to be older than his listed age then he most likely is. So since we have to assume that he’s more like 24 years old then we have to assume that he’s pretty much not going to change all that much as a player , he’s not going to develop a crossover dribble or gain 30 pounds of muscle. As for the rumors that he has three point range and can do a 360 dunk , well, he shot about 20% from the international 3-point line his last year in China, and I remember hearing rumors when Eddy Curry was in High School that he could do a backflip. I’d pay $100 to see Curry try that now. Just because something is rumored only means it’s a rumor.

So just how good is Yi? Well, in his best month this season he averaged 12 ppg and 6.6 rpg. I think he can beat that for a full season, but I don’t think he will ever play physically enough to be a 20 ppg scorer. However, this could change if the next coach simply does a better job of getting him the ball. It seems that the Bucks should have been running a pick-and-pop play 25 times a game for Yi, but that never seemed to happen. In fact, it seemed to me that Yi rarely even got the ball in the post when he would call for it , almost as though his teammates were freezing him out. Strange.

Young superstars may take some time to blossom, but you almost always get a glimpse at their talent by then end of their rookie season. You can’t say that about Yi , it seems more like he’s got an air of “okay player when things go right” about him instead of “All-Star”.

There is also the issue of the amount of rest he will get in the summer , while much was made over him being tired after playing all of last summer, he will play in the Olympics this summer, the Asian games the year after than and the World Championship after that. Adding to the problem is that Yi’s Chinese handlers see his NBA experience as training for his summer international competition, so it’s not like they will take it easy on him in the summer.

I guess I’ve done a pretty good job of making it sound like Yi was a really bad pick, but that’s not true. For how incredibly deep the 2007 draft was supposed to be, it now appears that there weren’t that many great players available after the top 3. It looks like the only players taken after Yi who the Bucks may one day regret passing on could be Thaddeus Young and Brandan Wright, and even at his advanced age Yi still has about as much upside as them.

Of course, there are also the financial implications of Yi’s presence to consider. Yi caused the Bucks to play several games that were viewed by as many as 1 billion people worldwide this season, and was also the reason for the sale of several prominent ads at the Bradley Center. The money that cam from Yi this season is probably the difference between the Bucks making a losing money this year , and probably the reason that Herb Kohl was willing to spend enough to hire John Hammond away from Detroit and to apparently have a blank check available for the next coach.

However, it’s an open question as to how long the Yi cash flow will continue. He has to be good for anyone back home to care about him much longer. While Hideki Matsui and Ichiro are still superstars in Japan and have dozens of Japanese media still following them, it is long forgotten that Kaz Matsui arrived in New York with similar hype. While there is no way to conceive of potentially trading Yi because of the money he brings in, if he doesn’t start bringing it on the court next season then that cash flow will dry up quickly. One interesting note is that earlier in the season several of my posts about Yi were translated into Chinese and posted on a major message board there. That all stopped around mid-January, so after his struggles maybe the interest in him in China is already starting to wane.

In the end, it was a very disappointing season for Yi as he hit the wall in January and his play got worse and worse from there. After how his season ended with such a whimper it’s hard to even remember that he was a solid enough contributor early in the season. It’s a shame for Larry Krystkowiak that he was essentially forced to give Yi the starting job (compromising his whole “earn playing time through practice” message in the process) only to find Yi unable to carry the load.

Responsibility for Coach K’s dismissal: 15%

Jake “Invisible Man” Voskuhl ($3M, 0.587 IPM): What a strange season for Voskuhl. He took over as the backup center early on (after Dan Gadzuric got benched and Michael Ruffin got hurt) and played pretty well, posting a 0.69 IPM as of January 6. Suddenly he stopped playing, and when he did play he was awful.

He never went on the injured list but must have been hurt, as he started getting DNP’s even in blowouts. It’s too bad, since once Yi started struggling, Voskuhl was their best offensive big man on the bench. He always dressed for the games, but rarely saw action beyond running onto the court at timeouts telling his teammates to keep their heads up after allowing yet another 12-0 run.

His $3 million expiring contract means that we wont be seeing him in a Bucks uniform again, which is too bad because it means he wont be around for anyone to ask him where he went for the second half of the season.

Responsibility for Coach K’s dismissal: 0%

Up next: the Aussie and the Flintstone