The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

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The Lakers just finished off the Bucks on a last second shot by Kobe Bryant in overtime, and as one could predict, the Bucks hashtag on Twitter is a alive with allegations at the NBA is rigged, or at least Bryant is heavily favored. The call the anger is centered around is a blocking foul called on Andrew Bogut that turned into a three-point play for Kobe Bryant putting the Lakers down one.

So the question stands, is the NBA rigged against Milwaukee? I have to say no. I just can’t believe it.  Maybe it’s denial because I simply love the NBA too much, but I think there is also plenty of evidence to support that the NBA is not rigged against Milwaukee.

The Lakers in Milwaukee routinely brings out a large number of casual fans. Enough that it annoys Andrew Bogut (a tweet from last year that I believe started his progression towards making Squad Six). Those casual fans are going to judge a book by its cover, and tonight was the night for which they’ll likely base their opinion of the NBA for the year (with the exception of watching highlights of Jennings’ 55). Regardless if that’s right or wrong, there are a few things they will certainly miss.

1. The Bucks routinely give up more free throws than they take. Yes the spread was a lot tonight, but the Lakers are good team that can get to the line. The Bucks, as a product of their Scott Skiles style of defense, are a team that commits a lot of fouls. The stats on 82games confirm that through 22 games the Bucks have committed 100 more shooting fouls than their opponents which results in at least a 200 free throw deficiency.  The Lakers taking 16 more free throws than the Bucks isn’t that astounding, considering that usually give teams at least 9 more free throws a game. Not to mention how many times the Bucks get in the penalty early in a quarter, turning non-shooting fouls into free throws. No sign of the game being rigged because of the free throw discrepancy.
2. The Bucks had chances to win, despite any rigging by the refs. Bogut could have made the free throw near the end of regulation. Michael Redd could have had a better shot selection. Ersan Illyasova could have made at least one of his free throws in the closing minute.
3. The block/charge call is the hardest call for a ref to make.  It just has to be. It’s often enough a split second decision, not to mention a call that quickly result in a five-point swing (two points the other way vs the three point play). It’s simply not a call you can make correctly every time down the court.

I think the ref made the wrong call on the play, but I don’t think the game is rigged. It’s simply a call refs get wrong, frequently.

But does the casual fan care? Probably not. It’s easy to pass off that the game is rigged in the post-Donaghy era. It’s easy to hate the NBA if you live in Milwaukee right now, the Bucks haven’t been a great team for a lot of reasons since 2001. And famous ESPN writers are suggesting the series against Philadelphia to get to the NBA Finals might not have been completely honest.

Brandon Jennings gave the casual fan in Milwaukee a reason to care this year, just enough of a push to finally leave home on a frigid night and see the Bucks take on the defending champs. With that, the Bucks still couldn’t fill up the arena, drawing only 16,309. The casual fan in Milwaukee has been so put off by the team’s struggles of the past few years that the Bucks couldn’t manage to sell out the arena against either of the game’s biggest stars (drawing 16,625 against Lebron). Disheartening for a team that has given fans so many reasons to care this year. So many reasons to believe things are headed in the right direction.

Unfortunately the casual fans that came out for their first game of the year tonight were treated to what had to be the nightmare scenario for Bucks’ management, a closing seconds lost after a couple close calls. One has to assume it would have be better for future sales had the Bucks been blown out by 20, but Brandon Jennings matched Kobe basket-for-basket.

The complaining about the refs and the NBA playing favorites on Twitter are pale compared to the choice words I heard on my way out of the stadium tonight. Fans vowing never to come back, and asking themselves why they paid attention to the NBA at all this year seemed to be everywhere to be found. This depressed attitude amplified by the fact that they live in a city where it’s a Wednesday night with a temperature below 20 degrees, nearing the end of a Christmas shopping season where more people than ever in my lifetime don’t have the financial wherewithal to buy something for their loved ones.

And it’s a shame that there is a good chance they won’t come back. Now more than any season since Andrew Bogut was drafted, the Bucks are holding up their end of the bargain. Night-after-night they’re playing hard, looking more and more like a complete team, and giving fans a reason to come to the Bradley Center. In a city that can’t seem to get its act together around schools, transit, or jobs, the Bucks are finally providing a welcome escape. In a city that’s bitterly cold every winter, the Bucks are providing a welcome distraction.

It would be a shame for the casual fan to miss this year’s Bucks team because of a bad call. The game surely wasn’t officiated at a level that is the pinnacle of the profession, but it’s certainly not the world Tim Donaghy says it is.

See you at the Bradley Center.

Michael Redd, formerly the biggest star on the Milwaukee Bucks before some kid from Compton showed up, is finally back on the court. It’s been quite the journey with Redd the past three years, watching him be limited by injuries to an average of 52 games each of the past three years.  Hopefully, for his knee’s sake, he never dunks the ball again.  Despite cries from fans to trade him and his large contract, there are plenty of reasons to be excited that #22 is back on the court.

1. Complete scorer. Michael Redd is more than just a perimeter jump shooter, he is a complete scorer. He gets inside and scores efficiently. I bet you didn’t know he attempted the same percentage of inside shots as head-down-drive-and-throw-it-up Lebron James did last season. Redd shot a better effective field-goal percentage from inside and got his shot blocked less than King James while doing so too. Michael Redd is a complete scorer, a team will always have a need a player that can score at will.
2. Scoring droughts.  Think back to some of the Bucks tough losses.  The ESPN game in Oklahoma City where the team couldn’t score in the third quarter.  The trouncing at home where the team went 11 minutes without scoring. Michael Redd can score in more ways than one, when his jumper isn’t going, he can take the ball inside to either find a good shot or get fouled. As much as I love Ersan Illyasova and Carlos Delfino, they can’t be relied on to do that when the team needs them. Redd has the tools to make scoring droughts much shorter.
3. The corner three. It’s one of the most efficient places to score from on the court. If Brandon Jennings and Andrew Bogut continue to run the pick and roll with success, the Bucks are going to want Michael Redd hanging out in the corner ready to shoot open shots as his man runs to double the player cutting to the basket with the ball.  If I had to pick any player from the Bucks roster to knock down an open corner three to save my life, I’m picking Redd.  With Redd having less pressure to create on his own shot with Jennings in the backcourt, the chances of Michael breaking his own record of 8 three-pointers in a quarter are higher than they ever were with TJ Ford, Mo Williams or Ramon Sessions at the helm. If Redd’s man doesn’t leave him to help guard the cutter, it’s likely the man guarding Delfino or Illyasova will. An open three for Delfino or Illyasova is good news for the Bucks as well. The Bucks are simply a more potent team from three with Redd on the court.
4. Replacement value. When Michael Redd is out it means more minutes for Charlie Bell. I like Charlie Bell as a player, but only in small doses. Forcing him to log extensive minutes is not in the Bucks or Bell’s long-term interests, as illustrated no more clearly than Skiles recent benching of Bell after his minutes had increased with Redd out. While Bell looked good for a stretch, things definitely appeared to be a downward trend, perhaps towards the abysmal shooting percentage he had during the 2007-2008 campaign (he ended up shooting 38.1%, he’s at 38.7% this year). More minutes for Redd results in fewer minutes for Bell, which should translate into better shot selection, more energy, and Flintstone being a better asset to the Bucks.  All of this of course also results in less playing time for potential future-Michael-Redd Jodie Meeks, who despite being regarded as a shooter is only shooting 34.1% this year. Less Jodie Meeks is probably a good thing in the short-run, Redd himself became a star after riding the bench behind recent inductee into the 20,000 point club, Ray Allen.
5. Pressure. Brandon Jennings has looked decently poised at the end of games when he has it going.  Andrew Bogut has shown significant improvement overall offensive improvement this year. They’ve both had stretches where they have played poorly too. Throwing Michael Redd into the mix minimizes the pressure on them to perform at at a high-level on the offensive end every night for the Bucks to have a shot to win. Also, when the Bucks lose, Redd’s presence will deflect attention from Jennings, giving him room to grow as a player and person.

We were treated to flashes of this working to perfection in the recent Portland 2/OT win. Redd hit some open shots.  Defenders stayed home on him, giving Jennings more room to work with on his way to the basket. Charlie Bell wasn’t on the court in crunch time. Jodie Meeks looked good in a suit with Francisco Elson.  The team as a whole didn’t force as many bad shots. Redd didn’t have to have the ball in his hands to affect the game.

It also went poorly at times, with flashes of Redd of old, jacking up a contested three off a pass from Jennings early in the shot clock after having made an open three just a moment earlier. It’ll take time for Michael Redd to adjust to his new role where he doesn’t have to be the man every time down the court, but when he figures it out, and he will, the Bucks are going to be a significantly better team.

Squad 6, Andrew Bogut’s super-duper awesome cheering section, is easily the most exciting thing at the Bradley Center this year not wearing a jersey.  Most of us will never get the chance to cheer amongst the “soldiers” (as they’re calling themselves), but hopefully you’re cheering with them.  Thankfully one of them took a video to get a sense of what it is like in between the third and fourth quarters when they dance along to M@D’s – The Concert, which heavily samples The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army.

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.

It does seem to defy belief — down three with 10 seconds remaining in overtime to Boston, the Bucks need a quick score. Instead of going to Ramon Sessions or Richard Jefferson they wind up running a screen-roll with Joe Alexander and Dan Gadzuric?

Gadzuric would miss a six-foot floater and that ended the game.

It seems ridiculous that Gadzuric and Alexander would even be in a situation to touch the ball in a big moment, but that’s what happened. And I’m fine with it.

With Redd and Villanueva not suiting up, Bogut ejected and Ridnour fouled out; the Bucks were without 4 of their top 6 offensive players. And considering that Richard Jefferson had spent the whole game getting beaten down by Paul Pierce, that left Ramon Sessions as the only viable offensive threat the Bucks could put on the floor.

I knew that. You knew that. Doc Rivers certainly knew that.

So, assuming that Sessions would draw a crowd as soon as he touched the ball, why not run something for the two guys least likely to get the ball? Besides, taking a quick two was the Bucks’ best chance of winning the game at the time. Think about it:

If they make a two, foul, and Boston misses a free throw then they are in a situation where a three can win the game on the last shot.

If they make a three with 10 seconds remaining, then they are tied and the Celtics will have 10 seconds to work for the last shot — where they will most likely get a foul or force a second overtime.

If the game went to a second overtime, the Bucks — with only Jefferson and Sessions remaining of their good offensive players, and both of them with four fouls — would have been toast.

So why was Gadzuric and Alexander in the game? Alexander had to be in, since Tyronn Lue and Francisco Elson were the only other Bucks remaining on the bench after Ridnour fouled out. A good case for Elson being in over Gadzuric can be made, but while I was driving home I figured it out:

Gadzuric deserved to be in the game. He had come in cold and made two big free throws when Bogut was ejected, and had played pretty well for about nine minutes by the end of overtime. Does Elson, who would have been coming in cold, have that much better a chance of making a 6-foot shot than Gadzuric would at that time? Gadzuric still likely had about a 60% chance of making it.

Gadzuric had earned the playing time through his efforts after Bogut was ejected, and Scott Skiles let him keep his spot. Rewarding the guys who are playing hard. Good coaching.

Meanwhile, it’s too bad that the Bucks couldn’t pull out the Boston game, but with the team losing players left and right it’s not too big a surprise that the better team would win at the end. The Celtics simply had more guys on the floor who could get off a good shot whenever they needed it.

The problem, though, is that the NBA is reviewing the bogus call that got Bogut ejected in the first place. Clearly Garnett, who swung at and hit Bogut in the face, deserves a suspension but there seems to be some precedent to suspend Bogut as well, even though all he did was inadvertently hit Garnett in the mouth while getting smothered by KG.

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.

Drew Olson at OnMilwaukee.com managed to find the clip of Andrew Bogut high-fiving the air after a made free-throw in Atlanta on Wednesday. I had watched it during the game and assumed I would never get to relive the moment, but thankfully someone caught it and put it up on YouTube and I’ll watch right after I bet online.

What does it mean? Well it’s amusing to say the least. A lot of OMC commenters went back and tried to say it was because of Bogut’s remarks about NBA players over the summer. I don’t think that’s it. We would have seen that all season long if that were the case.

What could it be? How about the idea that Charlie V and Player X (I’m not sure who the player on the other side was) had simply zoned out? Isn’t it possible that after losing twice to the Heat in a week, having to go on the road to Atlanta, and falling behind early that the players had mentally checked out?

If you watch the video closely, you can see Charlie V turn his head as Bogut makes the free throw to watch Zaza run out of the game. Possibly some sound over the speaker system snapped him back to life, but not in time to high-five Bogut.

In short, I really don’t think this is as big of a deal as everyone seems to want to make it out to be. It wasn’t a personal dig against Bogut. It simply was just a case of a losing team losing on the road resulting in players not paying attention.

Players are going to do a lot of things on auto-pilot as a season goes along, I think this was one of them that just happened to be caught on camera.