The Bratwurst - Milwaukee Bucks Blog

• Mo Williams on the Wikipedia
• Mo Williams on NBA.com
• Mo Williams on ESPN.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

The ranking are available here.

What does the defensive ranking component tell us?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And there’s my two cents for John Hammond.

In March of 2007 I went to a Bucks-Bulls game and was treated to an incredible offensive display from Michael Redd and Ben Gordon. The pair combined to shoot 36-64 and scored 100 points between them (52 for Redd and 48 for Gordon) in a 126-121 Bulls win. But there was one play that has stuck in my mind ever since – and I found myself thinking about it more and more as this season went along.

At the end of a third quarter that saw Redd and Gordon pretty much match baskets for the whole time – neither of them could do anything to stop the other – the Bucks had a four point lead and the ball with about a one second game clock/shot clock differential. Mo Williams brought the ball up and stood at midcourt, dribbling the clock down so the Bucks would get the last shot. Redd, however, had other ideas.

With 20 seconds left, Redd had Gordon on his hip at the 3-point line and called for the ball. Williams waved him off, intending to run out the clock. Redd called for the ball again, Mo ignored him. Finally, Redd went over to Mo and literally took the ball out of his hands, faced up Gordon (from about 30 feet out) and tried to go to work on him. However, by walking over to Mo, it meant that Redd had also walked over to Mo’s defender, Kirk Hinrich, and it was obvious that considering the time remaining and what Redd had just done that he was never going to pass the ball. So basically Redd had just double teamed himself. Needless to say, he had no chance to shake both Gordon and Hinrich and to make matters worse, fired up a fadeaway 3 from about 30 feet with at least 6 seconds left.

The result was a long rebound that caromed out to Hinrich, who took off the other way and buried a running 3-pointer at the buzzer, cutting the Bucks lead to one.

I thought, “That was weird.�

At the time I kind of wrote the play off as the sort of thing that happens in a meaningless game late in a lost season. But then I saw the Redd-Williams dynamic on the court this season and started to think that maybe that play against the Bulls was a little indicator of a bigger problem. Maybe these guys are so afraid that by passing the ball they will never get it back, and that is unintentionally short-circuiting the offense.

Maybe they are both too talented offensively to play together.

Mo Williams ($7.75M, 0.852 IPM): It’s so trendy to bash Mo for a variety of reasons: “He shoots too much�, “His defense sucks�, and (my favorite because it’s ludicrous) “He’s not a ‘pure’ point guard�. But all of that misses the point – Mo Williams has really become a terrific offensive player.

First of all, Mo Williams does not shoot too much. He averaged 15.4 shots per 40 minutes this season (pace adjusted) which placed him 12th among point guards who played over 22 minutes per game. He took 2 more shots per game than the #24 point guard on that list, Steve Nash. “Pure� point guards like Tony Parker, TJ Ford, Chris Paul and Sam Cassell all took more shots per 40 minutes than did Mo.

One shouldn’t really complain about Mo’s shooting because he converts them so well, as he made a career high 48% this season. In fact, according to 82games.com, Mo was one of only three players to shoot above 50% on 2-point jump shots this season (behind Kyle Korver and ahead of Steve Nash). Mo also spent his first season on his new contract setting career highs in just about every category – shooting percentage, 3-point shooting, free throw shooting, assists and blocks, while holding his steals steady and cutting his turnovers and fouls.

However, there is evidence that Mo’s defense is a real problem. Despite the fact that the Bucks had no other decent option as a backup point guard (since Ivey was horrible, Bell played three positions, and Sessions didn’t show up until April) the Bucks weren’t much better with Mo on the court as they were with him off. Part of the problem is Williams’ size (or lack thereof), and part of it is the lack of accomplished defenders he has as teammates. But his defense was a problem, and the coaching staff knew it. There was a rumored near-fistfight between Williams and assistant coach Tony Brown over Mo’s defensive effort, and after a game against Sacramento (in which Kings’ point guard Beno Urdih had run all over the Bucks) Krystkowiak made some veiled references to benching a player who he felt was slacking on defense.

It’s not that Mo doesn’t put effort into defense — I remember him tying up Chris Paul during a huge possession late in the Hornets game – but he seems to get frustrated if calls don’t go his way, because of his size he is easy to overpower and cannot close out on shooters if he leaves his man to double-team someone else.

Facts are facts: Mo Williams has improved every season he has been in the league – and his team has done worse every season that his role has increased. Maybe there is something to the idea of being “just good enough to be a good player on a bad team.�

As it is currently constructed, this team is not a good place for Mo. There is too much offensive talent (making his shot-creation skills redundant) and not enough defensive help (exacerbating his shortcomings). He’s a bad backcourt partner for Michael Redd, and Scott Skiles has never been a head coach with a small point guard (he has had Jason Kidd, Stephon Marbury and Kirk Hinrich previously). Either Redd or Williams has to go this off season. Mo is young, has improved every season, and his contract is reasonable for his production, so he should be able to garner some trade interest.

Mo Williams is a very good player who was a very bad fit for Larry Krystkowiak’s system and is a bad fit for this roster.

Responsibility for Coach K’s dismissal: 20%

Michael Redd ($14.5M, 0.838 IPM): It was an incredibly disappointing season for Redd, as he came into training camp in great shape and riding high from the Team USA experience over the summer. However, he started the season in something of a shooting slump (but posted some of the best rebounding and assist numbers of his career), and things never got better. After Mason got hurt, Redd spent most of the season out of position at small forward and seemed to be competing with his teammates to get his shots. He wound up with his worst IPM in several years, and only the third best on the team (behind Bogut and Mo).

It’s easy to blame Redd for concentrating on scoring seemingly to the detriment of his teammates, but look at it from his point of view for a second. The last time this team was any good, two years ago, the starting lineup included a player coming off of a major injury (TJ Ford), a rookie playing out of position (Bogut), a new player whose main offensive weapon was corner 3’s (Simmons) and a new player with not much of an offensive game (Magloire). If that group was able to win half of their games and make the playoffs with Redd taking every single big shot, then shouldn’t this group of ostensibly-more talented players be able to chip in an extra 10 points a night than the 05-06 crew could? Shouldn’t that be enough to make this team really good, without Redd doing anything differently?

Of course, it doesn’t really work that way. The 07-08 roster may be more talented than the 05-06 one was, but the collection of skills was less complementary.

Unfortunately, the effort to get Bogut more shots, the blossoming of Mo Williams into a highly-efficient scorer (and the attendant paycheck he started getting), and the presence of Yi Jianlian seemed to affect Michael Redd very badly – it was as though he feared becoming an afterthought in his own offense, and seemed to feel that if he got the ball he had better shoot it because it wasn’t ever coming back to him.

This led to a season of incredibly poor shot selection from Redd. Horrible, awful flat-footed 20 foot jumpers, where he would just stare at his defender and then fire away with a hand in his face. He would regularly ignore his post players when they called for the ball, doing it so often that I questioned whether he was intentionally freezing out Yi.

Larry Krystkowiak noticed it as well, and said as much to the Journal-Sentinel in a postseason interview:

“One player Krystkowiak did not communicate well with was guard Michael Redd. An uneasy relationship existed between the coach and the star guard during most of the season and Redd admitted after the season that there had been no chemistry between them. Redd did add, though, that they had gone about their jobs in a professional manner.

Asked about Redd, Krystkowiak said, “I understand the chemistry of a team and I know that there’s a lot of issues with shot selection and taking bad shots. I tried to get our team to play together and I came to the realization that it really wasn’t going to happen.”

Krystkowiak said a big part of the problem from his perspective was that Redd and his teammates played well together in practice, but then reverted to a more solo mentality in games.

“There was a different mind-set in practice than there was in a game,” Krystkowiak said. “It was like two different types of teams so we could never address sharing and moving the basketball because we did a decent job of it in practice. It was in games where it didn’t happen. . . . Things became very focused on scoring points and that’s Mike. Truly great players make the players around them better.

“A lot of times in practice he would defer and wouldn’t be as scoring-minded and so I don’t know how you’re supposed to get better as a team when . . . practice was different than games.” “

This statement is a perfect example of why Larry Krystkowiak is no longer the coach of this team – the whole idea of “great players make other players better�. That’s not true – great players are great because they are better than the players around them.

You can’t take your best scorer and try to tell him to score less because that will give more opportunities for other guys. That doesn’t make any sense. This is the sort of thing that cost the Bucks some wins and cost Krystkowiak his job – sending Redd out there to play small forward when he’s not strong enough defensively to handle bigger players and expecting his best scorer to defer his scoring to his teammates.

With a bunch of efficient scorers on his team, Krystkowiak should have pushed the pace to get as many shots as possible in the air every night. That would have been the only way to keep everyone happy. He can’t expect players to give the ball up just because someone else will get upset without it.

I know that it sounds like I’m being too soft on Michael Redd here, and I probably am, but I just feel that Larry Krystkowiak was being unrealistic to think that he could tell his players to just change their games around in order to fit into his team concept. The NBA doesn’t work that way. You know how they say that great players make the worst coaches because they expect the game to come as easily to everyone as it did to them? Maybe the opposite was Krystkowiak’s problem as coach – he saw the game from the perspective of a journeyman who had to tailor his game to fit into a team concept, when in reality good players need the concept set up to help maximize their own strengths in order for a team to win.

In the meantime, while it has become popular to blame Redd for the Bucks’ problems, forget it – he’s not going anywhere. His salary makes it almost impossible to get fair value back, and he cannot possibly be traded along with one of the Bucks’ bad contracts in order to clear some cap room. Fortunately, with a coach better able to put him into a position to succeed and make the offense flow, Redd should bounce back next season just fine. But he’s never going to be a very well-rounded player.

Responsibility for Coach K’s dismissal: 35%

———————–
Other installments in the Season In Review:
I Need One to Play the Three!
Stop the Danny G Experience! I Want to Get Off!
The Aussie and the Flintstone
The Men of Mystery
The End of the Bench

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.

It was almost exactly one year ago when Larry Krystkowiak had his home debut as head coach of the Bucks. They played the Spurs and after Mo Williams got kicked out of the game for arguing calls, Lynn Greer came in and inspired a rally which propelled them to a win over — and season sweep of — the eventual NBA champions.

Last night, though, was different. The Bucks had a 7-point lead when Mo blew his top, arguing a foul call against him (which was an accurate call, by the way) until he got one technical. Exactly why he got the second one is an open question, but the fact remains that Mo was still standing near the offical at the time. Ime Udoka makes both free throws, the lead is cut to five, and the next thing you know the Bucks lose by two.

After Mo went out, credit the Spurs for adjusting. Bell replaced Mo and the Spurs turned up the defensive heat, pressing the Bucks into submission. Milwaukee went several minutes barely able to get the ball across half court and the ensuing 15-0 Spurs run would wind up giving them the game.

So how is the loss to be blamed on Larry Harris?

Because he’s the one who put together a team with only four guards on it. You’ve got to hand it to the Spurs — Popovich realized that once Mo was out, he wanted to force the Bucks to go small. So he gave Duncan a rest and moved Oberto to center alongside Parker, Ginobli, Finley and Udoka. Instant 8-0 run against Bogut, Villanueva, Mason, Redd and Bell. When Krystkowiak had to rest Redd and go small by pulling Villanueva he had to get significantly weaker by bringing in Simmons and Ivey. The Spurs extended that run to 15.

Statistically, the Bucks have had the worst bench in the entire league this season. A large part of that is that they get no offense from their backcourt. At least last season they had Greer on the bench behind Blake/Boykins. Between Ivey and Bell, there just isn’t enough help on the bench. So as soon as Mo takes a seat, a good defensive team realizes they are easy pickings.

Sorry I haven’t posted much recently — in addition to some family obligations, I’ve been starting my NBA Draft preview. I have, however, found time to update IPM and Power Rankings. The surprise of the rankings: I had no idea the Sixers had been playing so well over the last month (7th best Eastern team). Maybe they are the team that wants to jump up and grab the #8 playoff spot.

The Bucks-Hornets game on Wednesday was a very entertaining, generally well-played game by both teams. Lets be honest about this teams’ prospects — they aren’t going to the playoffs, so all there really is to root for are exciting, hard-fought games that go down to the wire. They took on one of the best teams in the league last night — an athletic team that matches up poorly against them — and made it interesting.

While the heat seems to fall on Michael Redd for not getting a better shot up with 5 seconds remaining, unfortunately it must be said that the real goat was Dan Gadzuric. His 8 shots were peppered with four missed layups and a blown dunk. Once again, I don’t understand why he is backing up Bogut. Wasn’t Voskuhl playing 20 mpg a few months ago? Without Villanueva available, Gadzuric should be playing his 10 minutes a game alongside Bogut so that he never gets any touches outside of offensive rebounds. I don’t really understand how Gadzuric can get the ball so much that he puts up 8 shots in 15 minutes (only one off an offensive rebound) while Bogut can only manage 8 shots in 33 minutes.

One logical explaination for using Gadzuric at center is that Krystkowiak wanted a better athlete matched up with Tyson Chandler, but Chandler was out of the game for 9 of Gadzuric’s 15 minutes.

But the bigger news is that the Bucks held a team meeting on Tuesday, and according to details posted on RealGM (and then on the Journal-Sentinel message boards), the results weren’t very pretty. The essence of the posts are that the Bucks aren’t very happy with Krystkowiak’s comments after the Knicks game, aren’t happy with Krystkowiak’s game management, and aren’t very happy with Mo Williams’ play or attitude.

First of all, with all due respect to the RealGm poster who goes by “Europa” and first developed this story, it’s important to take all of this with a grain of salt. It’s one thing to hear details about something from a reporter who has well-developed sources (and who should have confirmed his story with multiple people), and another thing from someone who puts something up on an anonymous message board. While the details that “Europa” posts may be accurate or true, there is no way to know. This meeting hasn’t been mentioned in any other media outlets — it may even have never happened. Since one would assume that a meeting like this would only be attended by players and coaches, then logically his source is a player, coach or one of thieir close confidants. This source may, for example, have some sort of a personal issue with Mo, and would try to portray him in a negative light.

But this meeting probaby did happen. What do I think of it? It’s great! I’m very glad to hear that the players understand that the teams’ performance has been awful and is mad about it. It seems like they realize that they have underachieved better than management does. And then they follow up this “horrible, divisive meeting” by losing by four to one of the best teams in the league? Wonderful! At least somebody seems to think that Krystkowiak’s coaching strategies are more suited to a college than a pro team. I’d much prefer that they get mad and start fighting versus simply becoming indifferent.

Look, no matter what walk of life you are in, whenever groups of people are involved in something that is going badly they start hating each other. Poorly-run businesses have politicking and back-stabbing all the time. Divorces happen in families that have had a run of bad luck. It’s normal. It’s part of life. And in professional sports (probably in basketball more than others, because the small roster size makes each individual more important) closed-door meetings and infighting happens with every single team when things aren’t going so great.

Portland’s turnaround has been credited to a single practice that had turned into a series of cheap-shots and fistfights. Just because a few insults are thrown doesn’t mean that teams are torn apart.

Thanks to my season ticket rep, my wife and I sat courtside in the corner by the Bucks bench for the Hornets game. I spent a lot of time watching the bench to see how much the team seemed to be in the game, and I was pleasantly surprised. Everyone (even Villanueva and Sessions, in street clothes) was paying attention for the whole game. After Gadzuric came out of the game in the first half (after missing four layups) several players came over to console him and tell him to keep his head up (leading me to crack the incredibly obvious joke, “I’m surprised he connected on that high-five”). I had a lousy view for the final play because the members of the bench kept on standing and walking onto the court to see it for themselves. It was clear that the team was working hard throughout the game at both ends of the court.

Even Mo’s much-maligned defense almost turned the game for the Bucks when he tied up Chris Paul at the end of the third quarter, leading a frustrated Paul to pump-fake throwing the ball at the official for not calling a foul (drawing a technical but probably deserving an ejection).

The Bucks didn’t lose on Wednesday because their effort was lacking, they lost because they played a better team that is exceptionally good at getting high-percentage shots. All the team meetings in the world won’t change that.

Against a team with a big, athletic front line, Coach Krystkowiak finally realized, “Hey, I’ve got guys like that too!” and he saw that it was good.

While the combination of Yi and Villanueva didn’t overwhelm Atlanta’s frontcourt of Josh Smith and Marvin Williams, they played them to a draw. Since the same could be said for the fairly underwhelming Michael Redd/Joe Johnson matchup and Bell/Ivey vs. Atlanta’s trio of barely NBA level point guards, Andrew Bogut’s excellent night (21 points, 10 rebounds, 4 blocks, 1 turnover) was enough to propel the Bucks to a win over a team that came in having won 3 of their last 4.

So Villanueva didn’t shoot very well (2-7 in the 4th quarter). But he still made one more basket than Smith and Williams combined in the 4th (1-8 shooting, 11 points between them) and had 1 fewer rebound than the pair of Atlanta forwards (6 vs. 7). That illustrates my whole logic about using Villanueva at the 3 — while he’s not a shutdown defender by any means, he brings enough offense that he should be able to make his matchup a push, scoring and rebounding enough to cancel out about as much as he allows. This is opposed to using Redd (whose defense isn’t good enough to stop small forwards and whose offense gets dragged down by playing the 3) or Bell (who, for all of his effort, simply isn’t big enough to play up front).

The result from using the big front line? A 52-40 rebounding edge, including 18 offensive rebounds for the Bucks. That’s how you win when you shoot 38% for the game and take one fewer free throw (23) than the opposition makes (24). The rebounding gave the Bucks 13 more shots than the Hawks, which made the difference in the game.

Hopefully we’ll see Krystkowiak try the big lineup again in the next couple of games. Golden State always forces a crazy series of matchups. You need the extra big man in against New Orleans because of their superior rebounders in Tyson Chandler and David West, and against Phoenix you need your best offensive players in the game as much as possible. It’s not going to work well every night, but this team isn’t good enough to win every game either.

One major source of frustration about this game was that Yi is still having such a hard time with having his shots blocked inside. He obviously trying — using a series of pump-fakes trying to get his man in the air before going up. However, if you don’t go up strong enough in the first place, the fakes aren’t going to work, and sometimes they just make things worse. Once last night he got the ball right under the basket, but one fake simply allowed Josh Smith to get close enough to him to smother the shot.

It’s interesting watching the difference between Yi and Bogut going to the hole. Bogut does a nice job of leaping with his body, warding the defenders away from his hands and allowing him room to complete his shooting motion. Yi, on the other hand, leaps with his arms, extending them straight up as he elevates and getting his elbows extended so he doesn’t have much power coming back down. It’s really annoying that the last place you want to see your athletic 7-footer is right under the basket — that should at least be a trip to the line every time. But instead it’s usually a highlight play for the defense.

From a rotation perspective, I guess the one thing that I would have done differently last night was after removing Yi in the 4th quarter, I would have brought in Gadzuric to play power forward alongside Bell, Redd, Villanueva and Bogut instead of bringing Ivey back in. After all, the Hawks were still going big with Marvin Williams, Smith, Joe Johnson and Anthony Johnson while replacing Lorenzen Wright with Al Horford. But the the Bucks smaller lineup went on a game-sealing 7-0 run, so all is well.

Three straight tough home games coming up. Hopefully this win — over a deceptively good team and without Mo Williams — will propel them to more success on this tough homestand.

Sure, I can hear you thinking, the Bucks play two good games against lousy teams and suddenly he thinks Krystkowiak is a great coach.

No, I’m not taking back my statements that the Bucks need a coaching change, but I saw a couple of things in the Philadelphia game that I really liked. Lets not get too excited about what the Bucks have done recently — the have beaten three lousy teams, and primarily won last night because Philadelphia went 0-13 from three point range. But Krystkowiak has done a couple of things that I have really liked.

He has tried playing Villanueva and Yi together a couple of times. Only for a few minutes, but if you are talking about moving people to a new position, then baby steps are necessary. They only played together for about 3 minutes and weren’t incredibly successful, but Yi had an awful game so it wasn’t really indicative of how good they would have been. It seemed like Yi was playing the “3″, which I don’t like, but that was hard to tell because Philadelphia went small and the Bucks played zone. Krystowiak also made a very nice move by going even bigger in reaction to the small ball Sixers, bringing in Simmons to play alongside Williams in the backcourt for a couple of minutes there. Creative! I like the way you are thinking!

The Bucks also briefly used some pressure defense to show a new look to the Sixers. While it didn’t do much (and wasn’t too terribly agressive, either), that might help the Bucks push the pace a little and take advantage of their offensive firepower by generating some turnovers and faster possesions by the opposition.

Kudos to just about everybody who took the floor for the Bucks for a nice game — Bogut, Williams and Villanueva were all solid and Bell was spectatcular. With him scoring 20 ppg, the loss of Redd sure is easier to take. Bobby Simmons also had a nice game, shooting 4-8 and stretching his minutes to 28.

It’s so much more fun to write about wins.

I’ve been looking at recent IPM data (the latest updates of which have been posted), and the analysis shows some ways that the rotations can be changed to help get the Bucks out of this ridiculous slide. There are some things that Coach K can still try.

Here are my thoughts about the Bucks’ players with their IPM’s since December 8th (after the Seattle loss). Remember that an IPM above 1.0 indicates superstar level, above .9 would be about all-star level, .75 indicates a solid starter, .65 is a questionable starter/good reserve and below about .5 is where the player is no longer helping you by being on the floor.

Mo Williams, 0.9536: There isn’t anything bad that can be said about Mo’s play, as he has distributed the ball well along with shooting at a pretty high percentage. The true pessimist might wonder why Mo’s best numbers seem to coincide with him being on a bad team, but from watching him play it doesn’t seem like he’s firing for his own stats at the expense of the team – in the recent spate of blowouts he’s only started gunning away after the games were long lost (you know, mid-first quarter). Mo has been the best player on the team, and according to Charles Gardner, with Redd sidelined, Krystkowiak might be about to move him to shooting guard to give Ivey more time over Bell. I don’t know, this might cause as many defensive problems as it solves, but I guess it’s worth a shot. I’m not going to criticize Krystkowiak for trying something different.

Michael Redd, 0.8020: Redd has been playing at a very poor level (for him) ever since Mason got hurt. His shot selection became awful and the all-around play that highlighted the first 15 games of the season disappeared. I’m convinced that the move to small forward has caused this. He has been forced to play more physical players on defense, tiring him out for his offensive responsibilities. The result has been some awful shots (bizarre, flat-footed attempts that would get a high-schooler benched) and a marked decline in his free throw percentage – both signs that he must be too tired to play correctly. Of course, he can’t guard small forwards, anyway, so the position change has ruined all facets of his game. The whole reason the Bucks got Redd late in the second round was because GM’s felt he wasn’t athletic enough to play small forward. He’s proved them all right. Please, Coach K, when he comes back from the thigh bruise, find someone else to play the 3!

Dan Gadzuric, 0.7474: Danny G has only played 5 games in the last 13 and only gotten 8 minutes per, but the numbers suggest that maybe it’s time to start playing him a little more. The trick isn’t when to play him but where – I think he should play alongside Bogut. 10 minutes a game of Danny G at power forward could help everyone. For one thing, it would get the Bucks’ two best rebounders in the game together. It would give Bogut a reprieve from being hammered all night long by the oppositions’ most physical player (since the Bucks’ other power forwards all hang out on the perimeter). Gadzuric wouldn’t have the responsibility of touching the ball on offense (both reducing his turnovers and opening up more shots for everyone else) and he could just crash the boards and – since 10 minutes is the goal for him – hack away at will whenever he gets beat.

Yi Jianlian, 0.7352: The brightest spot from the last month has definitely been the play of Yi. He is adjusting to the physicality of the NBA, as his percentage of his inside-shots that get blocked has slowly started to come down (to a still-way-too-high 32% for the season, vs. 41% a month ago). The question is can he play the 3 – I don’t really think that’s going to work. He still gets the ball slapped out of his hands way too often (23 “ball handling� turnovers this season) and should he be guarded by smaller, more athletic players that will happen even more often. Also, moving him to the 3 takes away his shot-blocking ability. Maybe he can play there in bursts, but long-term, I don’t think his future is anywhere but power forward. Better improve on that rebounding, bud.

Charlie Villanueva, 0.7179: Time for today’s “Brett wants Charlie V to play the 3� moment. There are two big differences between moving Yi to the 3 vs. V. Villanueva is a much more accomplished ball handler and has the ability to dribble past smaller defenders and get into the lane. Villanueva is also not nearly the shot blocker that Yi is (8 this season? How is that possible? ) and so doesn’t have the value that Yi does being stationed inside. Villanueva at the 3 weakens the teams defense, no question, but brings plenty to the team by allowing Redd to stay in the backcourt and Simmons on the bench.

Andrew Bogut, 0.6944: I was very surprised to see Bogut’s IPM slide so much as I feel he’s actually played fairly well. I’m sure that the problem is he just has too much responsibility to handle every single bit of inside work for his team. It’s got to be exhausting after a while to guard the oppositions best big man, battle the oppositions two biggest players for boards, initiate the offense from the high post, shoot more now that Redd is hurt, and – oh yeah – how about making 55% from the floor while you are at it? No wonder he always looks so pissed on the court. Of course, some blame for his sagging numbers falls squarely on his own shoulders – whatever happed to his free throw form? He was a 70% free throw shooter in college and at one point had a 15-18 foot jump shot, but that is completely gone now. His form has slid to depths of a Shaq-style shotput toss from the free throw line, with the same on-the-way-up release he uses on a jump hook. It’s really ugly. Time to hire a shooting coach.

Desmond Mason, 0.6701: Mason played pretty well in the final 7 games before getting hurt, and with Simmons playing so poorly the Bucks miss him more than they ever thought they would.

Jake Voskuhl, 0.6485: One nice thing about the Gadzuric benching is that it’s pretty clear that Voskuhl can pretty much handle the 11 minute a night job as Bogut’s backup, freeing up Danny G for my master plan of moving him to power forward.

Royal Ivey, 0.5275: I’m not sure that starting him over Bell is much of an improvement, but what else can you do with this screwed up roster that only has four guards? Ivey started for most of the season in Atlanta in 05-06 but only played 13 mpg, compared to 15 now. Oh, by the way, Atlanta went 26-56 in 05-06.

Charlie Bell, 0.5068: You know, take away the putrid shooting (enough said about that) and Bell isn’t really playing all that bad. He gets some steals, has a solid A/TO ratio and rebounds pretty well for his size. However, no matter how well he plays, if he’s starting and playing 20+ minutes for you then you aren’t winning. His defensive effort is great, but that only takes you so far when you are routinely giving up 3-5 inches and 20-40 pounds. He just isn’t big enough to play more than a couple of minutes away from the point guard spot.

Bobby Simmons, 0.3743: He’s putting up Brian Scalabrine-type numbers but playing 20 minutes a game. It’s really getting ugly with Simmons. His shooting and turnover rates have been so poor that he’s hurting the team at both ends of the floor — the Bucks have basically been playing 4-on-6 with him on the court. It’s no coincidence that his only good game in the last month (vs. Miami) was the Bucks’ most recent win – it’s been too much for his teammates to have to overcome his play. I’ve said it so many times but I’ll say it again – something is wrong with him, and he shouldn’t be out there for more than 5-8 minutes a game until he gets it sorted out.

I remember seeing Dallas come into the BC about 4 years ago (when Don Nelson was still their coach). Nowitzki wasn’t at full strength, playing with some nagging injury (ankle, knee, back … something like that). But he was still their best player. Nelson had to get the ball in his hands while still minimizing his effort and keeping him away from contact. So ….

He ran the same damn play about 100 consecutive times. A pick & pop between Jason Terry and Nowitzki. On every single posession. For the entire game. If the Bucks defended it poorly it freed Nowitzki for an open jumper, and when the Bucks defended it well it got Terry into the lane where he could create for everyone else. It was ugly, boring, and quite effective.

Without Redd, the Bucks’ shorthanded offense should do the exact same thing with Williams and Yi. Simplify the offense, get the ball in the hands of their most talented players, and keeps the ball out of the hands of Simmons and Bell.

So there you have it — the rotations and the gameplan that I’d like to see.

I guess any NBA team would completely fall apart if they lose one key player (except San Antonio, apparently), and you would expect that to happen to the Bucks if they lost Redd or Bogut or Williams. But who would have guessed that Desmond Mason was the key to the whole house of cards?

I don’t blame Coach Krystkowiak for getting himself kicked out of the game against Chicago. The season is going down the tubes and it’s time for him to pull the “coach freak out” motivational ploy. He may have felt that the officiating had been bad in the 4th quarter, but I’m not so sure — in addition to the Ivey/Hinrich loose ball call (which the officials probably did blow), he was unhappy about a screen that Aaron Gray set on Ivey (which was hard but legal) and a call that went against Charlie Villanueva even though it appeared he was tripped by Nocioni (replays showed that Charlie V grabbed Nocioni’s jersey first). If Krystkowiak was going to flip out at the officials it should have come a couple of weeks ago in the 2OT loss to Cleveland, when the officials missed LeBron James stepping out of bounds twice at the end of the first overtime. But as a motivational ploy, it was necessary against Chicago.

However, this game was lost because of the rotations, not the officials. While I applaud Krystkowiak for getting away from the “two platoon” rotation strategy, he has not handled the loss of Mason properly.

I grant that he is pretty much being screwed over by Bobby Simmons, who has been absolutely useless. Obviously he can’t play more than 15 minutes, and even that leads you to hold your breath. Something is wrong with him, and it may have to do with the 3 game “personal leave” he took earlier in the month. He hasn’t been the same since, and one hopes it’s not because of a major or tragic personal issue.

I’ve written plenty that I can’t stand using Michael Redd at small forward, but in this situation it’s unavoidable at least a little. But his offense has fallen apart in the last 3 games, coinciding with the injury to Mason. Redd can’t handle the physicality of playing small forward, and doesn’t put enough defensive effort into it. So while 10 minutes a game at the “3″ is probably necessary right now, why not try to limit his time there?

Speaking of Redd, considering that Krystkowiak preaches that defensive effort determines playing time, at what point does spotlight start to shine on Redd? His defense may have cost the Bucks the game on Friday. After the controversial call that got Krystkowiak sent to the showers, the Bucks were only down two and forced a missed shot. But Luol Deng — Redd’s man — came in untouched and slammed home the rebound. How could Redd botch that play so badly? When the shot went up, Redd was standing 3 feet from the basket while Deng was 10 feet away on the baseline. Redd did not put any effort into boxing out, never turned toward Deng, and never even raised his hands above his waist to go after the rebound. He stood there like a spectator, watching his man flush the rebound home. All he had to do was look over his shoulder and box out 10 feet from the hoop and the result of that game might have been different.

Moving on about the rotations, how could Krystkowiak put a lineup on the floor of Williams/Ivey/Bell/Villanueva/Bogut and stick with it for 6 minutes in the 4th quarter? I know he clings to the idea that Bell can play defense, but how can you possibly compete with two total offensive non-factors on the floor? Are you trying to shut the Bulls out? Because that’s how good the D would have to be.

Bell cannot guard small forwards any better than Redd can. Bell gives up 6 inches and 25 pounds to Deng. What is he supposed to do? Meanwhile, Bell continues to seemingly go out of his way to shoot the Bucks out of games. He’s shot 4-28 (14%) in the last 6 games and yet has somehow played 132 minutes. And it’s not like he’s on a 6 game cold streak — he’s down to 28% shooting on the year. At least he hasn’t guarded anyone effectively either. What does this guy have to do to get benched? Check into a game without his shoes on? He should be spelling Williams for 8-10 minutes a night and that is it.

So what should the rotations be? Given that Simmons is only good for 15 a night and we want Redd at small forward for no more than 10, that leaves 23 minutes to be filled. You simply have to start putting Charlie Villanueva there and playing him alongside Yi.

Villanueva isn’t going to do any more damage defensively than Bell or Redd already have, and at least he’s got the length and strength to make opposing small forwards work to get the ball. That would have the added bonus of giving more court time to Yi, and also make room for a few minutes per game from Michael Ruffin (who is back and in uniform). Additionally, it would keep bigger, physical forwards off of Redd and allow him to get his offensive game back, which has really suffered from the pounding at the “3″. When was the last time he went 6-11 from the free throw line? It’s got to be partially attributed to him getting hit more often.

The Bucks can’t win without their best players on the floor and their five best players are Redd, Bogut, Williams, Yi and Villanueva. It’s that simple.

My suggested rotations:

Point guard: Williams (38 mpg), Bell (10)
Shooting guard: Redd (30), Ivey (18)
Small Forward: Simmons (15), Redd (10), Villanueva (23)
Power Forward: Yi (33), Villanueva (12), Ruffin/Gadzuric (3)
Center: Bogut (33), Voskuhl (12), Ruffin/Gadzuric (3)

I don’t see any other way. They can’t win with Bell playing a significant part of the backcourt or Redd being a big part of the frontcourt.

Now that Larry Harris has been the GM of the Bucks for 4 full seasons, how good of a job has he done? He has built a young team with little future flexibility, as 8 players are under contract for between 3-6 years and nearly all of them should still be at or near their prime for the entire duration of their contracts. To his credit, Harris has not been afraid to make bold moves but one problem with locking up players to long contracts is that you are bound to reach some bad deals — and his bad ones have had major implications for the future of the franchise.

I think that the problem with Harris that he is either way too optimistic for his job or such a huckster salesman that he believes his own spiel too much. One of the most difficult things for a talent evaluator to do is to bring a guy in and then later admit he has made a mistake, which is something that Harris has had a major problem with. Before last season he was telling everyone who would listen that his team wasn’t just ready to make the playoffs, but to win a round; and even after the team had completely fallen apart he was still making moves as if he intended to make a playoff run once the team got healthy (such as by adding Earl Boykins and risking that Boykins would not opt-out of his contract).

However, this seasons results have shown that last years’ team was nowhere near a playoff contender in the first place. Is this young team a contender down the road? As currently composed, I’m not sure it is. It should get better, but there is no more cap flexibility for the foreseeable future so remaking the roster will get more and more difficult. The only way this team leaps into the Eastern Conference elite is if Yi becomes a star, and it’s still very difficult to predict that.

Many people often claim that Harris has no real power, and all the major decisions are actually made by Herb Kohl. While that may be true to a certain extent, any GM has to work within ownerships parameters, and no matter what the owner wants he does take advice from the GM. So I am going to leave Kohl’s influence out of my analysis, and also not discuss the coaching changes, which clearly were a result of past Herb Kohl relationships.

When Larry Harris was named GM on July 1, 2003, he inherited a complete mess. Ernie Grunfeld and George Karl had completely botched the franchise with a series of “lets win now�/�screw it, I’m outta here� moves that left the Bucks with almost no good, young talent except for Michael Redd and the newly drafted TJ Ford. They had nothing to show for Glenn Robinson, Ray Allen, and Sam Cassell except for Toni Kukoc, Joe Smith and Ford (good thing since they threw their own 2003 pick away on Gary Payton).

Much is unfairly made of the Bucks drafting Dirk Nowitzki and trading him, but that’s not fair since it was a pre-arranged draft day trade – if the Bucks hadn’t done that deal then Dallas would have simply taken Nowitzki themselves at #5. But an even worse crime had already been inflicted on the Bucks by Grunfeld and Karl.

In 2001, Grunfeld had traded the Bucks’ 2004 first round pick for nothing in order to clear cap space to sign Anthony Mason. This disastrous signing of an aging, overrated player with a massive attitude problem both tore the team apart and cost them the #17 pick in the 2004 draft, which turned out to be Josh Smith. That’s a bigger crime than the Nowitzki deal. You think the Bucks could use a 6’10� small forward who is averaging 18 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 blocks a game? No? Me neither.

Over the next four days I am going to analyze every major player transaction he has made during his tenure. Today I talk about the okay ones (ranging from “Good” to “Bad, but with an asterisk”. Tomorrow will be the seven “Great” to “Very Good” moves. Then the seven “Bad” to “Horrendous”, and, finally, “The One Move That Cannot Be Labeled”.)

Good Moves:

2005: Drafted Ersan Ilyasova. The young Turk was touted as a lottery pick before an ankle injury and rumors that he was in fact an older Uzbek torpedoed his draft stock. The Bucks have been searching for a big small forward ever since they didn’t get the chance to draft Josh Smith, and for a while it looked like they found one. Ilyasova shone in the NBDL his first year and was MVP of the Under-20 World Championships in the summer of 2006. Of course, the fact that he may have been 23 at the time may have something to do with him shining at that level, and his 2006 NBA campaign made him look like he never was an NBA athlete to begin with. He was still a reasonable risk, and Harris’ track record with European players was pretty good up to that point.

2005: Resigned Michael Redd (6 years/$95 million). I put this signing only in the “good� category because any idiot could have offered Redd the max to stay in Milwuakee and of course Redd’s agent (who gets a commission) would counsel him to take the extra money the Bucks could offer him over Cleveland’s deal. However, Harris’ salesman skills may have really shone in this free agency pursuit. Being second banana on a great team worked out just fine for Scottie Pippen, so I’m sure the opportunity to sign with his hometown team and run as LeBron’s wingman was tempting. I’m sure that Harris leaned on Redd pretty hard to show him that by leaving he’d be completely screwing the team that both gave him his big chance and dismantled its roster for him to shine. I’m sure at the time Redd was excited about the chance to lead his own team, but somehow I think that these days he keeps a pile of $100 bills on his nightstand to smack himself in the face with when he thinks about how he could have been in the finals last year.

2006: Signed Lynn Greer (2 yrs/1.5 million). Another European find, he had been a big scorer in Europe ever since the NBA realized that the best product John Chaney had ever put in the NBA was Mark Macon and took a pass on Greer. Unfortunately, Greer’s stay in Milwaukee was tragic, as his fiancée fell ill and passed away during the season. As a result, Greer missed time and never was used until well after the season was wasted. Greer would have been an able replacement for Charlie Bell this year, but after resigning Bell, Harris did Greer a favor and let him out of the final season of his contract in order to return to a better offer in Europe. It was still a good signing, just one that didn’t work out.

2006: Traded Jamaal Magloire for Steve Blake, Brian Skinner and Ha Seung Jin. Credit Harris for realizing that Magloire’s game had turned to crap and he had virtually no value whatsoever. Conventional wisdom would say that Magloire could be traded for a draft pick at the trade deadline, but Harris probably got as much back as he ever would, considering that Portland wasn’t able to move Magloire either. Besides, getting a pick back would probably have required the Bucks to take on some sort of longer salary commitment, which would have hurt them this past offseason.

2006: Traded Steve Blake for Earl Boykins and Julius Hodge. Given the way the Bucks season was going, this was a perfect trade for them. Boykins is the type of player that can sell some tickets, at 5’3� he’s an inspirational story, and can score a little, but he won’t help you win at all. Because of his height there’s simply no way he can come close to pulling his weight defensively, and his shoot-first mentality leaves his teammates more interested in strangling him than running the offense. Not a bad way to dump games. Fortunately for the Bucks, Boykins opted out of his contract (as expected), saving Milwaukee $3 million and pretty much making it possible to sign Desmond Mason. However, as what must come as a surprise to Boykins, he is still unemployed. Something is wrong with Julius Hodge – you would think that he’d be the perfect guy to have as the backup to Michael Redd for 10 minutes a game (6’7�, can defend a little) but something about him caused the Bucks to release him as quickly as they could.

2007: Resigned Mo Williams (6 years/$52 million). Good move to keep Mo, as he is still only 24 years old and will be a part of the team as he reaches his prime and despite Mo being the only reasonable option for the Bucks, Harris kept the contract offer from getting out of hand. Williams has built himself up into one of the better point guards in the league, and his career trajectory to this point actually looks a lot like Chauncey Billups’. For that to continue, Mo will have to develop two major skills that he currently does not have – namely, becoming a lockdown defender and a foul-drawing machine. However, those were both knocks on Billups as well (as was the “point guard who does nothing but shoot� label), and point guards have a history of peaking later in their careers than other players. Mo is smaller than Billups, so he will probably never reach those All-Star heights, but still this contract should provide fair value with a 5-10% chance of being a real bargain by the time it ends.

2007: Signed Desmond Mason (2 years/$10 million). My feelings about Mason’s game are well documented (way too inefficient offensively to help, overrated defensively, good hustle guy who should get 10-15 minutes a game) but this was a good signing, especially since it has become apparent that Bobby Simmons is not and may never again be the same player he once was. Harris got a great insurance policy at small forward in Mason – a great character guy who won’t complain should he not play much, but if he does, at least he never gives less than maximum effort. There weren’t really any better options available in free agency for that role, and while $5 million a year is a bit much that doesn’t bother me since the contract is only for two years.

2007: Drafted Ramon Sessions. He sure has played well in the NBDL.

Bad Moves (but with an asterisk)

2005: Signed Bobby Simmons (5 years/$47 million). Because of Simmons’ injury problems this deal hasn’t worked out, and it’s starting to look like Simmons might not be the same player any more after surgery on his feet. That’s a tough injury for a basketball player to recover from, and it’s a shame. In 2004 Simmons was the NBA’s most improved player, an award that historically hasn’t meant much, but the 4 previous winners were Zach Randolph, Tracy McGrady, Jermaine O’Neal and Gilbert Arenas. Heady stuff. There’s no doubt that the Bucks overpaid for Simmons from the get-go, but Harris was under a lot of time pressure to get the deal done. They signed Simmons in the period between reaching an oral agreement with Michael Redd and actually signing him, so they technically used their cap space to get Simmons and then went over the cap to sign their own guy (Redd). Obviously it’s easy to look back now and say they should have offered Simmons’ contract to Gerald Wallace, but they didn’t have the time to sign the RFA Wallace and wait to see if Charlotte would match, and if they did then the Simmons opportunity might have been gone. Also, Harris could have done much, much worse as the rest of the free agent class of 2005 wound up being a complete disaster. It’s too bad that the Simmons signing will probably wind up being a bust, because it was the right move at the time.

2006: Traded TJ Ford for Charlie Villanueva. This is a hard trade to categorize as good or bad. It hasn’t worked out, but that’s not really anybody’s fault. Ford was a long way from being a good player after 3 seasons with the Bucks, but he only had played 1 ½ years due to injury. Mo was cheaper and an equally good player, so it only made sense to trade him, right? But it often takes point guards a long time to reach their potential, and while Ford busted out last season, it seemed to me that the improvement came more from being in a better situation for his game than actually improving. But then this year he definitely improved – and suddenly everybody holds their breath as the neck problem crops up. Clearly Ford will have to change his game to take less contact, but will he be as effective once he does? Charlie Villanueva is even more difficult to figure out. Such a tantalizing talent, but does he play physically enough to be a starting power forward? Is his head in the game consistently enough to be effective off the bench? I’m convinced that TJ has become a better player than he would have in the Bucks system (especially now that Krystkowiak has slowed the game down so much this season) and that ultimately, Charlie V will probably be playing somewhere else. What the Bucks get in that deal will be the final determinant of the quality of this trade.