The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

• Ramon Sessions on the Wikipedia
• Ramon Sessions on NBA.com
• Ramon Sessions on ESPN.com

The Malik Allen deal makes some sense in that the Bucks save some money. They certainly couldn’t have found some more interesting guys to pick up in the deal.

The Bucks got Sonny Weems and Walter Sharpe in the deal. Weems will likely get bought out — his contract only has $175,000 guaranteed. Weems is a highly athletic guard who apparently could potentially wind up in the NFL should his hoops career peter out. According to his former coach, George Karl, it’s headed that way:

“Sonny is an athletic player that’s got to learn how to play basketball,” Nuggets coach George Karl said. “At times it looks like he’s taking that step, and then at times it doesn’t look like he’s taking that step. He has 10 days here at summer league. He’s going to have to figure out his niche. He’s got the talent to play in the league. The question will be: Does he have the mind to play in the league?

Since the Bucks need to eliminate someone from their roster in order to make room for Brandon Jennings, Weems is clearly as good as gone.

Walter Sharpe is another story.

Despite being a 2-year veteran, he is a total enigma. He is supposed to be a highly athletic 6′9″ power forward who was originally drafted by John Hammond at Detroit. He had been traded to Denver this offseason in a cost-cutting move by the Pistons. Along with Amir Johnson, I’m seeing a trend with Hammond’s player evaluation style — he wants to stockpile athletic big men, hoping to eventually mine a mini-Kevin Garnett.

He’s supposed to have lottery talent. However, to say Sharpe had a checkered college career would be an understatement, as his resume includes:

– Getting kicked off of the Mississippi State team for transgressions that included missing team flights and practices, and being academically ineligible.
– Winding up at UAB.
– Before playing for UAB he was arrested along with 4 teammates for disorderly conduct and, in a really bizarre incident, shot with a small-caliber bullet in the abdomen — an incident which he tried to hide from the police and medical workers.
– Playing half a season for UAB before being declared academically ineligible.
– Being diagnosed with narcolepsy, which actually explains a lot.

As far as I can tell, Sharpe’s contract is guaranteed this season. He is big and athletic with a good handle, and Detroit had been trying to shift him to small forward, a transition that I would expect to continue in Fort Wayne this year. A good look at Sharpe can be found at this Nuggets blog, Roundball Mining Company. The odds are heavily against him ever developing into much of a player, but if he does the rewards could be great.

With these moves in place, the Bucks now find themselves far enough below the luxury tax to be able to match a full midlevel offer sheet to Ramon Sessions. But would they do that?

Despite theoretically having the necessary cap room, I think that if Sessions gets a full midlevel, maximum length (5 year) contract, they will let him walk. They didn’t draft Brandon Jennings to sit him forever, and while having Sessions around for the next two years while Jennings develops would be nice, his presence might cause more problems than it would solve if the two are equal players in 3 years. If Jennings turns out to be good, then Sessions winds up being an overpriced backup.

Honestly, last year I got the feeling that Scott Skiles didn’t really think much of Sessions’ game. He often breaks off plays to penetrate, his jumper is shaky, and his defense was very spotty. If they really thought Sessions was a long-term solution they wouldn’t have drafted Jennings in the first place.

However, this illustrates the problem with drafting a young point guard. You need to take a couple of years to let him develop before you really know what you have, and if the answer is “a total bust” then you might have set your franchise back 5 years before its all said and done.

UPDATE: I notice from Gery Woelfel that Walter Sharpe will be out for the year with a torn ACL. Not often you see an injured player get traded. From what I read, Sharpe’s contract is guaranteed this year but those facts may be incorrect — he may have a buyout. So he wont be stashed in Ft. Wayne this season after all. His is an interesting story, but I doubt we ever see him on the BC court.

Forget the no-trade of Richard Jefferson, or the injuries to Andrew Bogut, Michael Redd and Luke Ridnour — now Bango managed to ruin his knee by falling through the hoop at an All-Star Weekend event?

This is getting ridiculous! I’m almost scared to go to the game tomorrow now, lest the team try to kill me with a t-shirt again!

(Which reminds me of something I saw earlier this year — you know the t-shirts attatched to parachutes that fall from the rafters during the first quarter? Well, I saw a shirt earlier this year come loose from the parachute when it was released. It fell straight down from the rafters — what’s that, maybe 60 feet? — landing squarely onto the head of a kid who was about 10 years old in the next section over from me. He had no idea what hit him — he almost started fighting with the kid next to him because he thought he had gotten smacked in the head for no reason. To add insult to injury, the jerk sitting behind the kid picked the shirt up on a bounce and kept it.)

Okay, so no more Redd, Bogut or Bango but at least Ridnour is supposed to be coming along well from his broken thumb and by not making a trade on Thursday the Bucks have serious salary cap problems now.

Here’s the issue. The cap this year is $58.6 million, and the luxury tax level is $71.15 million. The Bucks are right at the luxury tax threshold (HoopsHype has them listed at $71.2) but there are a couple of exceptions for minimum players so they shouldn’t be a payer this year. But that’s a lot of money for a borderline-.500 team when healthy, no?

Next year, it gets ugly. Assuming Francisco Elson and Malik Allen invoke their player options, the Bucks owe a little over $65 million to 10 players. That doesn’t include Ramon Sessions, who will be a Gilbert Arenas-clause restricted free agent (which means nobody can offer him a contract starting over the midlevel exception, so the Bucks can match any deal as long as they have not yet used the exception) and Villanueva, who has a $4.6 million qualifying offer. So for the Bucks to bring back the same team next year, it will cost them about $76 million (assuming $5 mil for Sessions and $2 mil for their first round pick).

But the real problem here is that the salary cap, because of the economic state the country is in, will most likely go down next year. This Bucks roster could find themselves $8 million or more into the luxury tax — for a borderline playoff team!

Maybe Portland or Cleveland were the ones to walk away from the Jefferson for either Sczcerbiak or LaFrentz trades, but if John Hammond was the one to turn them down then it was fiscally irresponsible for him to do so.

Now, by waiting until next offseason, there really isn’t anything Hammond can do, except try to make an offseason trade to a team with significant cap room (so the Bucks can take back less salary then they sent out). So who is going to have major cap room this offseason?

Atlanta

Detroit

Oklahoma City

Memphis

The thing is that Oklahoma City, for example, isn’t going to be interested in something like “Dan Gadzuric for Damien Wilkins”. No, they will be thinking more along the lines of “You’ve got luxury tax problems, eh? How about Andrew Bogut and a sign-and-trade of Ramon Sessions for Nenad Kristic and one of the first rounders San Antonio owes us?”

This is bad. Really, really bad. Like Herb Kohl staring a $30 million operating loss next year in the face bad.

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.

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.

That headline was too easy. And dumb.

But, sure enough, the Mo Williams to Cleveland trade has happened. Funny how when Mo was re-signed to all of that fanfare, only one year later he would be shipped out for expiring contracts. But it was the right thing to do.

The Bucks receive Luke Ridnour and Adrian Griffin from OKC and Damon Jones from Cleveland. Heading out is Mo to the Cavs and Desmond Mason to the OK Corrals. Joe Smith also went from Cleveland to OKC.

The NBA mantra is that the team that gets the best player usually wins the trade. In that case, then Cleveland is the big winner here. But it’s a strange deal all around, and it makes some sense for the Bucks.

Mo is probably going into a very good situation for him. All of my studies of defensive statistics indicate that the quality of a point guard’s defense is dependent on the quality of his teammates to a large part. Now Mo will have defensive aces like LeBron James, Anderson Varejao, Ben Wallace and Zydrunas Ilgauskas behind him. He can continue his offensive improvement and his mistakes on defense will not be noticed as much. I’ve often said that Williams’ career has paralleled that of Chauncey Billups for the first several years. Billups was known as a no-defense gunner early in his career, and remarkably that all changed when he arrived in Detroit. We will now see if the same thing happens to Mo Williams.

My feelings about Mo’s tenure in Milwaukee are summed up pretty well with this post from my post-season review (apologies for the formatting – something happened to all of our older posts after a Wordpress upgrade).

The Bucks cut about $20 million in long term salary, and as I illustrated in April in this post (once again, sorry about the poor formatting) once Bogut signed an extension, the Bucks would need to make some sort of salary dump trade to avoid the luxury tax in 09/10. This became an even bigger problem when they added Richard Jefferson’s $15 million 10/11 contract.

Look, the Bucks lost a good player and got spare parts in return. But was this team really going anywhere with Mo running the show? As his playing time increased, he got better and better and the team got worse.

Probably 80% of an NBA teams’ record can be attributed to its three best players. A core of Redd/Bogut/Williams wasn’t working. Now it’s time to give Redd/Bogut/Jefferson a shot.

What can we say about the additions and what it means for the rest of the roster?

Luke Ridnour: Smaller than Mo, as bad defensively, injury-prone. Ridnour had a couple of good seasons for Seattle, but knee injuries have cost him chunks of the last couple of seasons. He does an okay job of managing games and has decent instincts. John Hollinger once wrote about him: “You couldn’t draw a better picture of what an average NBA point guard looks like.”

Honestly, as far as point guards go, I don’t really mind Ridnour. He should do a good job of spreading the ball around without throwing it away too much. I just hope his knees will allow him to hang on defensively. He’s paid $6.5 mil/year for two more seasons, and for 3/4 of the money due Mo Wiliams, Ridnour should offer about 3/4 of the production. He wont win any games by himself the way Mo occasionally could, but he shouldn’t cost the team any wins either.

Adrian Griffin: A Scott Skiles guy who plays solid defense at both shooting guard and small forward. Griffin is an energy guy on a par with Desmond Mason (but without the athleticism). Dont be surprised to see him as the sixth man for a long portion of the season. Skiles loves him. Griffin is also known as a quality guy.

Damon Jones: Everything I need to know about the self-proclaimed “best shooter in the NBA” I learned from an episode of MTV Cribs. How often do I get to see an NBA player show off a house that is smaller, less expensive, and not as nice as mine? And his cars — a line of Mercedes-Benz’s that I later read weren’t his. They were all loaners from a dealer with whom Jones had an endorsement contract. It was awesome to see a player clearly living within his means and with an eye toward saving his money for his future. It’s a good thing that Jones is apparently pretty fiscally responsible, because this season should be his last major NBA payday as his shooting has pretty much deserted him and he doesn’t have much in the way of other skills. Apparently he’s a fun guy to have in the locker room and if his appearance on Cribs means anything, he can serve as an example to Andrew Bogut that it’s not true that 80% of former NBA players go broke.

Ramon Sessions: Looks like the starting job is his to win now. Will that work? I’m not so sure, as Sessions has never played a single meaningful minute in his career. I hope I’m wrong about that, and I’ll be very interested to see if Larry Harris mined a steal with his final pick as Bucks GM. At the least, Sessions should be a capable backup.

Tyronn Lue: Why was he signed in the first place? The Bucks just added two guys who can play the two, meaning that Charlie Bell fits in best at point guard. What does Lue bring that the combination of Ridnour, Sessions and Bell doesn’t?

Power Forward: It would have been nice if the Bucks could have pulled off this deal with Joe Smith coming to the Bucks instead of Jones, but what are you going to do? Apparently John Hammond still believes Joe Alexander can play both forward spots. I hate that idea. Get ready for another season of Andrew Bogut spending 80% of his court time glaring at Charlie V in disgust. This deal gives the Bucks the maximum 15 players under contract so, unless Awvee Storey’s deal is not guaranteed, the Francisco Elson signing will most likely not happen.

Hammond cannot possibly intend to go into the season with only four big men on the roster. I hope that another deal is in the works and he isn’t thinking that Joe Alexander and Adrian Griffin can fill in up front. That just wont work.

Your 2007-08 Milwaukee Bucks:

Luke Ridnour, Ramon Sessions, Tyronn Lue
Michael Redd, Adrian Griffin, Charlie Bell, Damon Jones
Richard Jefferson, Joe Alexander, LR Mbah a Moute, Awvee Storey
Charlie Villanueva, Malik Allen
Andrew Bogut, Dan Gadzuric

Is that good? I guess it is if Bogut blossoms into a 22/11 guy (which might happen — as I love to point out, this season he will be the same age that Patrick Ewing was as a rookie). But I don’t really think I should reserve second round playoff tickets just yet.

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.

Now that this season is finally over, it is time to recap the contributions of each player. I’m not a big fan of giving letter grades, especially since when you consider that the Bucks’ record this season was actually worse than last years’ injury-marred one, everybody associated with this team pretty much deserves an “F-”. Except for my season ticket rep, Nick. He has been great this season, always accommodating and helpful.

So I’ve decided to grade each player on how responsible they were for Larry Krystkowiak getting fired.

I’m going to review each player over the course of the next several days in reverse order of their salary, and also am giving their final IPM (data for all players available here). As you may know, typically an IPM greater than 0.9 is borderline all-star level, over 0.8 is that of a solid starter, above 0.7 is a useful player, and below 0.6 means you were probably hurting the team more than helping it. Also, because it is a per-minute measurement, it becomes much more accurate the more minutes you play , so take Ramon Session’s ranking with a grain of salt. He’s not really the 33rd best player in the NBA.

Ramon Sessions ($427K, 0.931 IPM): Thank you Larry Harris for this wonderful parting gift. Sessions was the lone bright spot of the end of the season, as he provided a boost with his pass-first game and eye popping statistics, highlighted by 127 assists vs. only 36 turnovers. The knee-jerk reaction is to jettison Mo Williams and turn the point guard spot over to Sessions, but let’s not get too excited just yet.

The red flag about Sessions is that his impressive play ran counter to his career style. In college and the NBDL, Sessions was a ball-dominating scorer who was hard to keep off of the free throw line, but once coming to the NBA he concentrated on passing first and shooting second. The results, when accompanied by some less-than-intense defense on the part of the Bucks’ opponents, were some excellent box scores (45 points, 38 assists, 15 rebounds and 5 turnovers on 18-29 shooting in the final two games). One has to wonder what will happen next season when he plays against teams that actually want to play defense against him.

The only reason for the Bucks to go into next season with Sessions as the starter is if they win the draft lottery and take Derrick Rose, but Sessions will clearly be a valuable reserve next season. Just think , a bench player who can actually create an offensive set and draw a foul once in a while!

Responsibility for Coach K’s dismissal: 0%

David Noel ($687K): Lost for the season to a shoulder injury, we will never get to see what Noel might have brought to the table this season. With the signing of Awvee Storey, Noel would most likely have been in the D-League or wearing a suit on the bench all season, anyway.

Responsibility for Coach K’s dismissal: 0%

Awvee Storey ($770K, 0.647 IPM): I can only see one reason why Storey was given a guaranteed contract in the first place: because Storey’s agent Mark Bartlestein is Mo Williams’ agent as well, and by helping out another client Larry Harris was trying to enlist Bartelstein to persuade Mo to stay in Milwaukee rather than head for Miami. How’d that one work out, Larry?

After an embarrassing 2006-07 season which saw Storey kicked out of the D-League for putting a teammate into a coma (and then breaking an opposing players’ rib while boxing him out in a German League game) it was amazing that Storey simply wasn’t blackballed out of the league in the first place.

The signing sort of made some sense at the time , Storey was veteran insurance in case Bobby Simmons couldn’t go after missing the previous season and/or the Desmond Mason signing turned out to be a bust (which it would have been had Mason played as poorly as he did with the Hornets). But why, then, give Storey a guaranteed contract? By the time his deal would have to be picked up the Bucks would have known what they had in their top two small forwards. They could have then released Storey before his contract became guaranteed and had an open roster spot to audition young players who may have been worth a shot (such as Nick Fazekas, the Mavericks second round pick who became Sessions’ top running mate for the NBDL’s Tulsa 66ers. Fazekas was released by the Mavs, signed by the Clippers, and would put up a 0.88 IPM in 26 games for them). Oh yes, he was given a guaranteed contract because of his agent.

But it seems that Krystkowiak couldn’t stand Storey’s game anyway. After Desmond Mason got hurt and Simmons simply sucked, instead of inserting Storey into the rotation Coach K continued to trot out Charlie Bell and Michael Redd at the small forward position. Storey wound up only seeing action in 26 games, with 90% of that coming after the season was long lost.

Probably the most pathetic thing is that Storey finished the season with the Bucks’ 6th best IPM, behind only Sessions, Bogut, Williams, Redd and Villanueva. The guy doesn’t even belong in the league and he was their best per-minute bench player this season!

Responsibility for Coach K’s dismissal: 0%

Royal Ivey ($798K, 0.548 IPM): Iveys’ reputation as a great defender sure got him a lot of playing time this season, and what a waste that was. Ivey must have really shut down Dee Brown and Scoonie Penn in his Bucks tryout, because despite all evidence to the contrary, Coach K kept on using Ivey as his “defensive stopper.”

There were two problems with that strategy , even if Ivey’s defense was absolutely awesome, there was no way it would make up for his own putrid offense (he actually finished with the lowest IPM on the team). However, there is no evidence whatsoever that Ivey’s defense was any good, either. According to 82games.com, the production of the player that Ivey was guarding averaged out to double that of what Ivey produced himself.

I don’t understand how any team could expect to win more than about 26 games if they are giving Royal Ivey 20 minutes a night. Yet, Coach K kept going back to him, probably because his “energy in practice” and “defensive intensity” (meaning: he looks really disappointed in himself when he gets beat) were there.

Responsibility for Coach K’s dismissal: 12%

Michael Ruffin ($1.0M, 0.610 IPM): I really liked the idea of signing Ruffin, because I felt that a team with so much offensive talent on it could use a defensive banger like him. Ruffin is the most inept offensive player in NBA history, but has carved out a nice niche for himself as a guy who comes in, throws his body around, gives some hard fouls, grabs some boards and stays out of the way of the talented players. He’s useful.

The Bucks even played a little better with him on the floor than off, being outscored by 8.4 points per game without him but only 2.2 ppg with him. Ruffin did his job. He won’t help you win, but he doesn’t help you lose, and he makes it all look pretty ugly.

Ruffin, however, was the centerpiece of the Play That Probably Sealed Larry Krystkowiak’s Fate As Bucks Coach. After blowing a 17 point third quarter lead to the New York Knicks, and with the Bucks trailing by one with three seconds remaining, Krystkowiak inexplicably left Ruffin in the game for the final play. Even Isiah Thomas realized this and started coaching long enough to tell the Knicks defense to leave Ruffin open in order to deny everyone else the ball. Ruffin was then left to miss a 6-foot finger roll at the buzzer.

Michael Ruffin has scored 4.2 points per 36 minutes in his nine year NBA career, and Larry Krystkowiak put him into a position to take the final shot in a game. And now Krystkowiak is looking for a new job. Need I say more?

Responsibility for Coach K’s dismissal: 3%

Next up: The mysteries known as Charlie V, Jake V, and Yi.

You might think that, given that he has provided the only bright spots for the team in the last few months.

Of course I jest, but I think that even in this brief glimpse of extended minutes for Session, we have all seen enough to be able to say that getting him was a nice going-away present from Larry Harris. A long-term starter … well, let’s hold off on a judgement like that just yet.

Sessions has put up a very solid 0.823 IPM in his first 10 games (just behind Mo’s 0.855), which would rank him about #30 among guards, had he played a whole season. In the four games in which Sessions has played
significant minutes he has played very efficiently, racking up more assists (31) than shots (29). He has also averaged 3 rebounds per game. According to 82games.com, Sessions has consistently outplayed his opponents. While at point guard he has averaged a 21.2 PER while holding his counterpart to a 12.8 (while Mo averages a 19.3 and his counterpart a 19.8). These numbers are very flawed — especially for someone who has played so few minutes and often against backups, but they still give an indication about how efficient Sessions has been.

While Sessions won the Washington game with his last-second jumper, the pessimist must note that Sessions did almost cost the Bucks their two wins this month, with his late foul of Quentin Richardson giving him three free throws to win (he only made two) and his foul of Gilbert Arenas with 15 seconds remaining against the Wizards gave them the lead and set the stage for the game-winner. So it’s not as though the results on the court have been that dramatically better.

One thing that is interesting is that the Bucks’ defense has improved — in a manner of speaking — since Sessions started seeing the court. By IPM Rankings, the Bucks are the 26th best defensive team for the season, but over the last two weeks they are a much more respectable 17th. But a look at the numbers shows that the Bucks haven’t actually improved — they are exactly the same but a bunch of teams around them have packed it in for the season and seen their numbers plummet. But since most teams would tend to fall apart after they are eliminated from the playoffs, I guess that Sessions’ impact cannot be discounted in helping the team keep trying at the same level as before.

I guess the one thing that makes me hold reservations that Sessions can keep playing at this level is that he is playing very differently than he usually does. In college and in the NBDL (where he averaged close to 25/7/7) he has been a scoring point guard who shoots a low percentage but makes up for it by getting to the line. It seems like every single NBDL box score I looked at saw him taking at least 15 free throws.

Sessions is only shooting a pretty typical 36%, but he has been doing a nice job of limiting his shots. This has kept him off of the line, but has also kept his low percentage from hurting the team (better you shoot 2-6 with 8 assists than 6-18 with nine assists). While he is doing a great job so far, I wonder what would happen should he go back to his old ways.

A long-term starter? I don’t really think so.

An excellent backup, strong enough to score and big enough to defend? Definitely.

According to the New York Daily News, the Bucks (and the Knicks) have been pursuing Indiana Pacers CEO Donnie Walsh to join the front office next season.

This would be a good hire, as Walsh was the architect of the Pacers’ run of success dating back to the early 90’s, but considering that there are other teams in the mix and that he is 67 years old, I’d guess that his actually coming to Milwaukee would be a long shot. The more important story is that it signals the end for Larry Harris.

Reading between the lines, it has been pretty obvious that Harris was about done. Their failure to make any moves, the rumors about the ridiculous Zach Randolph, and Kohl’s silence about extending Harris’ contract were signals, but if they are now actively pursuing a replacement, it’s a done deal. And it’s time, too. Harris assembled this team and now it needs changes. Those changes are tough to make if you are emotionally invested in bringing the current pieces in.

I know that money talks and the Knicks can offer far more money than the Bucks can, but honestly Milwaukee would probably be a more appealing destination for Walsh.

Consider the pros and cons:

Knicks

Significantly higher salary.
Seemlingly unlimited roster budget.
Money no object for hiring coaches and assistants.
Ridiculous roster makes it impossible to make major changes until 2009/10.
Roster contains three players who would have any trade value (Lee, Balkman, Robinson).
Walsh is from New York.
Owes a future first round pick to Utah.
Horrible, insular working nvironment and culture at Madison Square Garden.
Owner is completely insane.
Highest paid player is completely insane.

Bucks:

Limited cap manuverability until 2010.
Five potential trade chips in case of a major overhaul (Redd, Williams, Bogut, Yi, Villanueva).
Location is closer to Indianapolis-based family.
Payroll limited to below luxury tax.

Money aside, the Bucks job is far more appealing. Would you honestly want to work for James Dolan? Would you really want to take on a complete organizational housecleaning at 67 years old? Wouldn’t you rather have the Bucks’ relatively inexpensive core to work with over the Knicks’ completely disjointed one?

Anyway, I’m sure that the Knicks checkbook will carry the day in this battle, while the Pacers’ current VP of Basketball Operations, David Morway, might be the Bucks’ consolation prize as their next GM.

Meanwhile, I attended my first Bucks game in a couple of weeks last night against the Heat, and I came away thoroughly perplexed.

It cannot be overstated just how bad the Heat are right now. They dressed nine players. They are missing their three best projected opening night starters (Wade and Haslem out, Shaq gone). Marion was a nonfactor, playing 28 minutes and with the Bucks outscoring the Heat by 10 with him in. They were so starved for wins that their bench was acting like it was game seven of the finals. Jason Williams actually looked interested!

Clearly the Bucks should have won this game going away, but that isn’t the only thing that has me confused. The season is now lost, so at this point shouldn’t learning a little about your team be a goal, instead of tossing out the same old lineups that haven’t worked all season?

Instead, after the game, Krystkowiak talked to the Journal Sentinel and vaguely blamed his players.

“We’ve talked about just about everything,” (Krystkowiak) said. “I’m not afraid to repeat some stuff but it’s frustrating. We need to be self-starters. We’ll look at the plan . . . what broke down as far as the tactical approach. . . . We’ll see as coaches if we can fix that and not put ourselves in the (same) position.

“Players have to take more responsibility. We all have to. Everybody has to step up a little bit here. It’s not a time for speeches and a lot of talk. It’s getting out and playing.”

I don’t really understand what Krystkowiak is trying to say here. I guess he’s decided that his players aren’t doing what he wants them to for whatever reason. But who is that really an indictment of? Doesn’t that reflect back on him?

I think that this was a veiled shot at Mo Williams’ defense, specifically his complete inability to get through picks and keep Jason Williams from getting open 3 after open 3. It got so bad that eventually Krystkowiak switched Mason onto Jason Williams (which didn’t stop Chris Quinn from getting 3 open 3’s himself in the 4th quarter).

But my real problem with Krystkowiak in this game was my usual complaint about him — lack of imagination. It’s time to realize that some new lineups — for a few minutes at a time — are necessary. Just a couple of adjustments might have given a little insight into the team, and maybe even saved the game.

Two examples:

When the Bucks were cruising along with a 13 point lead in the 3rd quarter I turned to my friend and said, “Now’s the time to bring in Yi for Mason.” Yi looks awful right now, and seems to be moving at half speed, but he did an okay job against Marion in the first half and that would have moved Villanueva to the 3. This was a perfect situation to try a big lineup out. How would Villanueva have looked matched up with Ricky Davis? What would Pat Riley have done? If it doesn’t work and Miami runs off a quick 6-0 run, then take Yi out.

In the fourth quarter, when the Bucks were in the process of blowing the game but hadn’t quite lost the lead yet, Krystkowiak gave Mo a rest and trotted out a lineup of Ivey-Bell-Mason-Yi-Ruffin. How, exactly, is that supposed to work? Who is supposed to score? With Yi in such a funk, not one of those players is remotely capable of creating a shot. Not surprisingly, that lineup was on the floor while Miami would take their eventual lead. Why not use Sessions in that situation? You would get a real point guard in there, someone who is bigger who might be able to defend a pick-and-roll a little better, and he would be matched up against a relatively poor defender (either Jason Williams or Chris Quinn). Don’t you want to see what you have in Sessions, even if it’s only for a couple of minutes at a time?

Either way, it is clear: from his actions during the game and his comments after it, Krystkowiak is missing the point: winning is still the goal, but the time has come to accept that what you have done to this point hasn’t worked. It’s time to think up some new options with an eye toward the future. If you are going to lose to Miami anyway, it’s pointless to lose to them by doing the exact same things that have carried you to 43 other losses this season.