Milwaukee Bucks 2011/2012

[Baldkin]

I'm sick of Kohl. Even if I love that he's kept the team in Milwaukee.

He's been the owner since 1985.

In the last 20 years, they've won two playoff series.

TWO.

They also happened in the same season.

16 teams make the playoffs every year.

Imagine the wrath for the packers ownership group, if their principal owner had won 2 playoff games in 20 years.

[Outlander]

^

 

The Packers were worse than that over a 20 year span if you can imagine that. Same with the Brewers.

[RockCoCougars]

^

 

The Packers were worse than that over a 20 year span if you can imagine that. Same with the Brewers.

 

Great point. For a good chunk of the first part of my lifetime, the Bucks were the best sports thing going in this state. This was back in the days where the Garden State Bowl was huge and an NIT bid was the goal. Super Bowl or World Series? Unthinkable. Wisconsin sports fans are very spoiled these days.

[DatHoser]

Yep - I still remember Bart Starr coaching the Packers to a 61-7 loss to the Bears. Lindy Infante, anyone? How about Barty Smith?

 

I remember watching the All-Star games in the 70's as that was my only chance to see a Brewer on tv the entire summer.

 

The Bucks need to get a Ron Wolf or Harry Dalton (or Mark Attanasio) type to really turn things around. People will come, but there aren't as many hard-core NBA fans here as other cities so a competitive team is needed to bring up attendance.

 

Gawd am I old

[paul253]

The Packers were worse than that over a 20 year span if you can imagine that. Same with the Brewers.

 

I think turning around an NBA franchise is much easier than turning around an NFL or MLB franchise. First of all, in basketball, having one superstar can be the difference between the playoffs and no playoffs. That's not the case in baseball and football. Second of all, in baseball at least, it takes years after you draft a guy for him to even make the pro team, let alone contribute. A good NBA draftee will be starting his rookie year. Two or three good drafts in a row and you can have good team.

 

The problem the Bucks are having now is the same problem the Packers had in the 80's and the Brewers had in the 90's. Incompetent management. The Bucks have been making puzzling moves for the past 4 or 5 years and their sole goal is playoffs. It reminds me of the Brewers goal of .500. Maybe it's an improvement and an accomplishment, but ultimately it gets you nothing if you can't sustain it. The playoffs should be a stepping stone, not a goal. The turnover on the Bucks roster every year has been so great that the casual fan isn't going to recognize more than the Brandon Jennings/Andrew Bogut type player. Yes, the Bucks need a new arena and probably won't be able to compete consistently until they get one. But they also need to realize where they are as a franchise and start over. And they need a GM who knows what he's doing. The Packers had Ron Wolf. The Brewers have Doug Melvin. The Bucks need someone who knows what he is doing.

[Baldkin]

YEAH! A win now trade by a GM trying to save his job that hurts the future of the franchise, and they aren't even going to make it into the playoffs.

 

GO BUCKS!

 

What a dreadful team.

[trwi7]

Dreadful owner, dreadful GM, dreadful franchise.

[PrinceEatMeat]

Dreadful owner, dreadful GM, dreadful franchise.

 

This pretty much sums it up. First step is Hammond and Skiles getting fired, then Kohl sells the team, new owner builds an arena, and finally the team is good again. Won't happen, but I can still dream that it will at some point in my lifetime. It's more likely that Hammond will stick around and further destroy the team, Kohl will keep the team until he dies, new owner will move the team to a new city, and that's that.

[Outlander]

This is a slow, painful death for the Bucks this year, wouldn't surprise me in the least if they are not eliminated until the last game of the regular season.

[homer]

Dreadful owner, dreadful GM, dreadful franchise.

 

 

I would think you'd be ecstatic now that they're most likely lottery bound.

[trwi7]

Dreadful owner, dreadful GM, dreadful franchise.

 

 

I would think you'd be ecstatic now that they're most likely lottery bound.

 

Yeah, I'm ecstatic about the 12th spot in the lottery and 2.5% chance to move into the top 3 when a month ago we were knocking on the door of a top 5 pick and almost a 30% chance to move into the top 3.

 

I'm ecstatic this franchise wasted their best asset for a numbers only win now piece who's going to either leave after next season or get way overpaid (which he already is).

 

I'm ecstatic the owner of this idiotic franchise says the playoffs are a must and that his goal is just making the playoffs every year, which we usually fail at.

[rwa12]

I agree that Ellis is overpaid, and would be more of a luxury for a good team, than anything useful for a team like Milwaukee; but I have enjoyed watching him play. I had forgotten what it looked like for someone to drive to the rim AND finish.

[RockCoCougars]

To drop to a top 5 lottery position, the Bucks would have had to lose an additional 7 to 9 games, a few to teams behind them like Cleveland. That would have been almost impossible without making a farce out of things. They could have completely 'tanked' and moved up a few draft positions, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

 

As far as trading the 'best asset', as I said above, good riddance. I was watching a Golden State game the other night and saw Bogut clowning around in his suit on the end of the bench again. This is the role that he seems most comfortable with- he actually seems more happy when he's not playing. I have no faith that the guy will ever stay healthy for a full season as he gets older. I have no problem with the Bucks trading him, but the only valid argument may be that he was traded too late. At the same time, I can't say that I was in favor of trading him before so I won't second guess. I was extremely disappointed in his injury this season, and his quotes to the Bay Area media tell me that he's not the kind of guy that you want to depend on or build a team around.

 

The major problem with scrapping a team in the NBA and rebuilding is the salary floor. Coming off the playoff season a few years ago, no one had any reason to believe that things would go South as they did. The team added pieces and contracts to build on that season, and most of them flopped. I guess that they could have tried to flip those pieces for the Calvin Booths and Raef LaFrentzs of the world and then put a D-League team on the court, but that's easier said than done. Most of the teams behind them in the standings have been bad for years and it's easier to do this. I guess that you could argue that the Bucks have been bad for years, but that playoff run 2 years ago was a real double-edge sword.

[CheezWizHed]

Yeah, I'm ecstatic about the 12th spot in the lottery and 2.5% chance to move into the top 3 when a month ago we were knocking on the door of a top 5 pick and almost a 30% chance to move into the top 3.

 

They were never top 5. They might be a spot or two "worse" in the draft by making the trade, but it wasn't a significant difference. Especially the way they are losing right now...

[Baldkin]

They were 14-20 at the end of Feb.

4 games better than the 4th worst record in the league, which was Toronto at 10-24.

 

They were as close to that as they were to a playoff spot.

[CheezWizHed]

6 games under 500 and was the 5th worse record in a league of 30 teams? That doesn't seem quite right. Maybe you mean in the Eastern Conference?

 

But at any rate, I should have clarified that "since the time of the trade" they haven't changed their draft spot significantly.

[trwi7]

Yeah, I'm ecstatic about the 12th spot in the lottery and 2.5% chance to move into the top 3 when a month ago we were knocking on the door of a top 5 pick and almost a 30% chance to move into the top 3.

 

They were never top 5. They might be a spot or two "worse" in the draft by making the trade, but it wasn't a significant difference. Especially the way they are losing right now...

 

That's why I said knocking on the door of top 5. And it was more than a month ago (March 7th) but they were 15-24, 2.5 games out of the 4th worst record, 2 games out of the 5th worst record.

[LouisEly]

They were 14-20 at the end of Feb.

4 games better than the 4th worst record in the league, which was Toronto at 10-24.

 

They were as close to that as they were to a playoff spot.

 

The reason they were in that situation at that time was because their strength of schedule was so front-loaded. Most of their games against the weaker teams in the league were in the last two months of the season.

[gypcasino]

$6 on StubHub for lowers between the baskets for tonight's game. Good grief. I'd hate to be a season ticket sales rep for this team.

[Baldkin]

They were 14-20 at the end of Feb.

4 games better than the 4th worst record in the league, which was Toronto at 10-24.

 

They were as close to that as they were to a playoff spot.

 

The reason they were in that situation at that time was because their strength of schedule was so front-loaded. Most of their games against the weaker teams in the league were in the last two months of the season.

 

They had already lost games to Charlotte, Sacramento, two to Phoenix, New Orleans, Detroit by the end of Feb.

 

They weren't good, and they aren't good now. The lunacy of playing for the 8th seed cost them a top 10 pick, and possibly another lottery pick from trading Bogut.

 

If they decide to continue with their wonderful idea of playing two no defense, shoot a ton guards on the court together and not trade one of them.

 

I can already see the "Monta Ellis signs Max deal with Bucks" coming. Michael Redd part II.

[CheezWizHed]

Every time I see pictures of Ilyasova while he is playing, he is making the strangest of faces...

 

http://media.jsonline.com/images/440*267/27352067-mjs_bucks15_11_of_hoffman.jpg_bucks15.jpg

 

Here he looks like Chekov after Spock let one rip on the bridge of the Enterprise...

[trwi7]

Sounds like Hammond will probably be back and the Bucks have a 2.5% chance to move into the top 3. This franchise sucks.

[paul253]

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/bucks/kohl-says-the-time-is-now-for-a-new-arena-sq59ifg-150185605.html

 

For the first time Herb Kohl said he'd be willing to help finance a new arena. I think this is very positive news, though he'll probably have to donate more than the $25 million he did for the Kohl Center for anyone to get excited about it. A new arena will probably cost at least $300 million dollar and probably closer to $400 million. I live in Milwaukee and even though I'm not a huge fan of the Bucks I'd have no problem keeping the Miller Park sales tax around to fund a new arena for the Bucks. One tenth or one percent is barely even noticeable but without an arena within 10 years the Bucks are gone. I personally would prefer an NHL team but I don't think that's going to happen so Milwaukee would do well to keep the Bucks. Hopefully Kohl is serious about his financial commitment.

[fondybrewfan]

I think it is pretty darn unlikely that a new NBA arena would be financed in a similar fashion to Miller Park. The Miller Park tax barely got passed; and finances on all levels have only gotten worse since that time. Unless Kohl plans on putting in way more than I expect him to I anticipate this being a long shot. Doesn't the Miller Park tax have more than a couple years left anyways?

 

They could try to model the Vikings stadium plan and tax the casinos; I have no idea how that would go over in WI though.

[homer]

I think a lot depends on just how much Kohl is going to fork over. He's 77 and has no family. Maybe he's going to donate almost everything he has left to keep the team in the city.