Scott Skiles dodges questions like Tony Siragusa dodges cheeseburgers, which is to say, he hardly ever dodges them at all.
But Friday night, after another dreadful third quarter left the Bucks with yet another loss, this time against Phoenix, Skiles made an exception. A rather polite, but also rather intriguing, exception.
Why, I asked the Bucks coach, has consistency been so hard for this team to find? And instead of falling back on the obvious choices of all the injuries or the season-long shooting slump or blaming plain old dumb luck, Skiles called an audible.
He hesitated a moment, then spoke a single sentence: “Umm… that’s not really anything I want to say publicly, if you don’t mind.”
I didn’t mind. After all, it was one of the most cordial no comments I’ve ever received. But it does make you wonder.
Why, when faced with such a seemingly innocuous question, would Skiles prefer such a seemingly ambiguous answer?
Because he clearly thinks he has an answer. It would’ve been simple for Skiles to say, “I don’t know,” and move on, but he didn’t. He said he’d rather not answer for the public record. So he just didn’t want to share that answer with us.
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Maybe it’s because Skiles just doesn’t want to make excuses, even though there are plenty to be made.
Even the most optimistic Milwaukee Bucks fan, the kind who had a “Winning” tattoo before Charlie Sheen made it trendy, has to admit that things have not gone as planned.
Injuries have indeed derailed his team this season. It’s not simply an excuse, but a fact. The roster that everyone was so excited about before the season has never once been the roster Skiles had at his disposal. Somebody – often several somebodies, often key somebodies – has always been unavailable.
And the offense, poor a year ago, has regressed further. No NBA team shoots worse than the Bucks’ 42.3 percent, and this is a league that includes the Cavaliers and Wizards. Milwaukee also averages a league-worst 91.2 points per game, down from 97.7 last season.
But Skiles declined to mention either one of those factors, or any other factor. He didn’t want to say anything in public. Which surely makes fans wonder if there’s something wrong in private.
One of the big reasons the Bucks made their playoff run last year was simple camaraderie. But there have been hints that this locker room, with so many new faces, may not be as tight as it was last year.
Earlier this season, in an effort understand the Bucks struggles, I asked Brandon Jennings what was different between this year and the previous one. Jennings spoke glowingly of how last season’s team was blessed with great locker room guys like Luke Ridnour and Kurt Thomas and Jerry Stackhouse. He did not – repeat, did not – follow up by saying anything even remotely negative about this year’s locker room. In fact, he didn’t follow up at all about this year’s locker room. But it’s fair to wonder what someone thinks of the present when they’re waxing nostalgic about the past.
More recently, Jennings made a splash by telling Alex Boeder of Brewhoop.com that he’s “not the go-to guy” like he was last year. Again, Jennings singled nobody out for criticism, but he didn’t have to for us to know that everything wasn’t hunky-dory.
Is it a stretch to think that Milwaukee’s locker-room chemistry, such a strength last season, is not the same positive factor this season? Is it a stretch to think that all of those new pieces to the puzzle simply did not fit together as well as everyone would’ve liked? Is that the issue that Skiles did not want to share publicly?
I posed the same consistency question to John Salmons that I posed to Skiles, and the veteran guard started into an answer, then seemed to change course. “Well, one… Um… I mean… I don’t know,” Salmons said. “I’m not even up to that. It’s just something we’ve struggled with all year.”
And your thoughts on the inconsistency, Mr. Jennings?
“I think it’s the fact that we don’t have everybody with us, you know, the chemistry,” Jennings said. “Guys in and out, getting hurt.”
Two players, same question, same locker room, different answers. Neither answer proves a thing, but both make you wonder.
Maybe it is as simple as guys getting hurt. Maybe the Bucks have been the unfortunate victims of unfortunate circumstance. And maybe Skiles simply loathes making excuses, so he decided to make no statement at all. It’s the kind of thing a good coach would do.
Or maybe this team has deeper issues, the kind of laundry that coaches hate to see aired in public. A good coach would do all he could to keep that stuff in-house.
Well, we know that Skiles is a good coach. But in this case, we’re just not quite sure what type of good coach he’s being.
NUTSHELLS
How Safe is Marquette?
College basketball “bubble” teams don’t lose the last two games of the regular season, the final one in blowout fashion, and feel confident about their NCAA Tournament aspirations.
But maybe Marquette should feel confident anyway.
Yes, Marquette lost its home finale to Cincinnati. And yes, the Eagles absorbed a loss at Seton Hall so bad that the team felt compelled to have a postgame meeting the lasted more than an hour.
Still, both ESPN and Sports Illustrated project Marquette to be comfortably in the NCAA field as a 10 seed. In fact, it’s almost as if those last two games didn’t really happen.
A notion, I’m sure, that Marquette fans would support.
UWM’s Family Affair
When UWM secured its spot in Tuesday’s Horizon League championship game, coach Rob Jeter didn’t go directly to the locker room. He wished vanquished Valparaiso well, then went up into the stands and handed out hugs like they were candy. They were for his family, and his mom in particular.
“I wanted to make sure that I shared this moment with them,” Jeter said.
Now he looks forward to sharing an even bigger moment with an even bigger crowd. More than 7,000 people watched UWM beat Valparaiso at U.S. Cellular Arena on Saturday, creating a raucous pro-Panthers atmosphere. Jeter pleaded for more of the same with an NCAA Tournament bid at stake against Butler on Tuesday. “We want people to enjoy this moment,” he said. “Let’s do it together.”
And if they do, he may have about 7,000 more people looking for those hugs.
Feel free to follow me on Twitter, where I tweet as howiemag. And tune in every Tuesday morning at 6:30 when I join Doug Russell and Mike Wickett on SportsRadio 1250 AM for Tuesdays with Howie.
