Every time I see the Milwaukee Bucks serving as kitty litter for another NBA power ranking, I can’t help but think of Lou Brown.
Surely you’ll recall sweet Lou, legendary manager of the Cleveland Indians, or at least the fictional facsimile of them in Major League. Heck, dude took ‘em to the playoffs, which was no small feat, considering their own putrid preseason predictions.
Lou, of course, was unfazed by all the negativity. Man, that guy sure could give a speech…
My favorite Brown quote? “I’d just like to point out every newspaper in the country has picked us to finish last,” Lou intoned in that gravelly voice. “The local press seems to think we’d save everyone a lot of time and trouble if we just went out and shot ourselves.”
Think Scott Skiles is taking notes for his first pep talk?
Yeah, me neither.
Still, most preseason prognostications like the Bucks as much as the public likes Richard Henne. Sports Illustrated says they’re the worst team in the Eastern Conference. ESPN’s Marc Stein started them at 29th in the league, but that 3-5 preseason record really opened some eyes. Now he’s got them 27th. I’ve seen no major power poll ranking Milwaukee higher than that.
So I asked Andrew Bogut what he thought about all these people picking on the poor, poor Bucks. And his response proved that sarcasm is alive and well in Australia.
“Obviously, anything above second-to-last place for us is overachieving, right?” the 7-footer said without missing a beat. “We’re gonna try to overachieve and go from there.”
So if nothing else, Milwaukee, your franchise player has a sense of humor.
But do the Bucks have anything else? Read any of those season previews and the focus will be about what this team lost. Richard Jefferson, dealt away for little more than cap relief, Kurt Thomas, and Thomas’ senior citizen discount at Denny’s. Ramon Sessions and Charlie Villanueva, gone as free agents, with no compensation whatsoever. That John Hammond must be one Looney Tune of a general manager, eh?
Of course not. When Hammond took over this Bucks team prior to last season, he inherited a salary cap catastrophe. Exhibit A is that Dan Gadzuric owns Milwaukee’s third-highest salary this season. It’s $6.7 million. His combined per-game averages in points and rebounds last season? 7.8. Only in America.
So of course Hammond has to rebuild the house. Consider this the demolition phase. You’ll have plenty of time to complain about the new decorations later.
But what about now? Is the current decor worth looking at? Any thoughts, Andrew?
“We’ll be better than we were last year,” is Bogut’s bold response. And with not a hint of sarcasm.
Has the big man’s back problem migrated to his head? Perhaps. There is, after all, some video evidence to that effect.
But maybe, just maybe, Bogut has a point.
Because the Bucks didn’t just lose Jefferson, Sessions and Villanueva in the offseason. They gained some players, too.
Namely, Bogut and Michael Redd. Gone for most of last season with injuries, the two Olympians are finally back.
“Any team in the league, you take away two of their better players and they’re gonna struggle,” Bogut says. “And that’s what happened to us last year.”
Yes, this is a much different team when that duo is healthy, and the early returns seem to indicate they are. Then there are the X-factors. Guys like Hakim Warrick, the team’s new power forward who finally gets a chance to match his athleticism with opportunity. And Brandon Jennings, a rookie point guard so intriguing that he’s bringing New York Times reporters out to Bucks preseason games.
If it all comes together, Bogut’s argument begins to hold water.
“Do we have as great a team on paper as we had the last couple years? Probably not,” Bogut admits. “But I definitely like the situation better than what we’ve had the last couple of years.
So what must the Bucks do to convince people?
“Win games,” Bogut says simply. “There’s no secret about it. We need to go out there and play hard and win games.
“Milwaukee’s a pretty fair city,” he continues. “If we lose games that we played hard in, the fans aren’t gonna question us. It’s in the past there have been times when we didn’t play hard and we’ve lost games and the fans will let you know about it.”
Now that critical chorus has more company. Pretty much every NBA writer in the world, actually.
Could they be right? Could the Bucks stink out loud? Sure. In fact, a serious injury to either Redd or Bogut will pretty much guarantee it.
But if Redd and Bogut are healthy, this is definitely not the worst team in the league or conference. And if some of those X-factors approach their potential, the Bucks could actually contend for a playoff berth.
Nobody expects it, of course. But then, nobody expected Major League to still be quotable after 20 years, either.
Ask Bob Uecker how that’s worked out.
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