I have a love/hate relationship with NBA Mock Drafts. I love examining the process itself -- like what makes people change their picks and opinions long after the most important aspects of each prospect's career are already in the books (the competitive basketball games they played are scouted and on film) -- but I hate how everything quickly becomes a disguised riff on the what the handful of true experts have to say. Draft Express is better than almost anything else you can read for free online. That's the simple truth.

However, it's also undeniably fun to pick and project players as if we have the experience of a professional scout and the power of an NBA GM. I tracked the mock drafts last year, and that will be a project again this summer, but I wanted to start with basic prospect rankings this time.

Raw 2012 NBA Draft prospect rankings carry more weight in my mind. Mock drafts can be muddled with hearsay and "whispers" about who a team liked in workouts, or fear that a team will draft based on need, but the true rankings speak more to the "Best Player Available" mantra that everyone really wants. Straight up, who's going to be the better player? That's what I want to know from draft sites.

Draft Express and ESPN are the big players in terms of original content and scouting notes, so they will go head-to-head in my 2012 NBA Draft rankings post series. Where do the sites disagree? On which players are they aligned? Usually this information just fades into the ether as each site updates their rankings and makes the old versions disappear, but I'm going to track what happens this year. The respective draft boards are analyzed and combined in a single graph, so you can get a good look at how each players grades out.

Continue reading this post »

Welcome to the NBA offseason, Milwaukee Bucks fans. It's almost too easy to engage in over-analysis of the NBA Draft. People who have never seen the full compliment of 2012 NBA Draft prospect play for an extended period of time (read: everyone except Draft Express, myself included) will not hesitate to project and pontificate on picks and players with aplomb. It can be....exhausting.

In the spirit of content diversification, Mitchell Maurer and I are prepared to take a left turn from the late-lottery each week and bring you our nominated songs and story links. You will have the opportunity to vote on your favorites, and we will develop bragging rights along the way. This is decidedly a non-Bucks series of offseason posts. The story links can be about anything, and the songs will introduce you to artists and songs we believe you haven't heard before. It's simple, really: we present you with fun stories and new songs, and you tell us who did the better job.

If you want more coverage on the NBA Draft Lottery (May 30), Early Entry Entrant Withdrawal Deadline (4 p.m. CT, June 18), 2012 NBA Draft (June 28), 2012 NBA Free Agency (July 11), and NBA Summer League (July 13-22), we will certainly have you covered from a Bucks perspective and beyond. Don't worry. In the meantime, this is just a nice way to break up the monotonous regurgitation of Draft Express profiles and ESPN Mock Draft snippets you will see from around the web.

Volume 1 is beyond the jump.

Continue reading this post »

The NBA announced today that Oklahoma City guard James Harden won the league's Sixth Man of the Year award--predictably, in overwhelming fashion. Harden appeared in 62 games for the Oklahoma City Thunder this season (starting in just two), averaging 16.8 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 3.7 assists per game. Harden was one of the NBA's best pure scorers, with a .660 TS% that ranked behind only dunkaholic Tyson Chandler. His playmaking came a long way as well, something very evident if you've watched the Thunder at all this postseason.

Milwaukee Bucks forward Mike Dunleavy played exceptionally well in his bench role, with per-game averages of 12.3 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 2.1 assists. Dunleavy wasn't too shabby a scorer himself, ranking 9th in TS%. Anybody who watched the Bucks more than a few times this season can attest to how well Dunleavy performed in his role, as a sort of hybrid scoring/creating forward. His chemistry with backup point guard Beno Udrih evolved quickly and stayed consistent.

However, Dunleavy went largely unrecognized in the Sixth Man voting, earning only two 3rd-place votes. Not being in the playoffs sure seems to have hurt his case: only New Orleans forward Carl Landry and Portland guard Jamal Crawford joined Dunleavy as vote-getters from lottery-bound teams.

There were lots of deserving candidates behind Harden: Philadelphia's Louis Williams, Dallas's Jason Terry, and Chicago's Taj Gibson, just to name a few. Mike Dunleavy's season might not have been high-profile enough to capture national attention, but it was undeniably successful. Every Bucks fan can attest to that.

SI.com: Bucks reportedly denied Blazers permission to interview John Hammond (via Behind the Buck Pass)
Putting an end to speculation about Portland's interest in Bucks GM John Hammond (for now), Sam Amick reports that the Bucks recently turned down the Blazers request to interview Hammond for their vacant GM position.

While nominally it would have been a lateral move, you can only assume Hammond would have been very interested in exploring a potential multi-year deal with a deep-pocketed organization that could pay him up to double his current salary. Instead, he'll finish up the final year of his contract in Milwaukee, with Herb Kohl having made clear last Friday that he's not currently interested in extending either Hammond or head coach Scott Skiles.

It's really not an ideal situation for anyone, which is precisely why there's been so much grumbling among fans. Still, Kohl appears intent on making due with what he has for now, even if he's primed the pump for wholesale changes a year from now (or sooner). Essentially the Bucks' braintrust has a year to prove itself to Kohl, with Skiles drawing the toughest task--having to manage a roster without the organization's long-term endorsement. Beyond that, the most obvious question is how the Bucks will balance Kohl's usual mandate of making the playoffs without being overly short-sighted (that's still a thing, right?). Making good decisions on that front is tough enough as is, but it's even more difficult when your GM and coach have to impress now in order to earn new contracts. Stay tuned...

Continue reading this post »

Life as a middling, small-market franchise in the NBA can be strange sometimes. Twenty-four-year-old forward Ersan Ilyasova put together a stunningly efficient and effective career-year during 2011-12 that would normally inspire unbridled enthusiasm and elation among the fan base, but in this case it really didn't. There is a good reason why, too. Without a superstar in sight and just two winning seasons in the past 11, the Milwaukee Bucks can't afford to make any mistakes if they hope to rise out of this rut.

That's why the timing of Ilyasova's sudden surge is a cruel joke for Bucks fans. In the odd tradition of other professional athletes around the world and throughout the FA ages, Ersan somehow managed to set career-highs in multiple categories during a "contract year." I refuse to cast doubt on his effort and motivation during any previous campaigns with the Bucks -- and for anyone to do so would be overly cynical and undeniably unfair to a young, developing player -- but the franchise is left to deal with the clear fact that Ilyasova executed his role as a spot-up shooter and garbage man far better during the last 28 of the season than he has in the other 241 games of his four-year NBA career.

Is the latest 28-game sample an appropriate justification for a contract that could push upwards of $8 million annually? There is an easy narrative here. You can expect to hear it for several months, and it goes something like this: "Ersan Ilyasova is a young NBA role player that finally hit is stride and there's nowhere to go from here but up! He's entering his prime, and if you just extrapolate the trend set in 2011-12 it's clear he's on his way to becoming a productive full-time starter and possible all-star."

In an unrestricted free agent market where talent goes to the highest bidder, that narrative will carry weight. Somebody is going to pay a fairly steep price ($7-9M annually) for Ilyasova. His interview with Stephen Brotherston of HoopsWorld back in February is evidence enough that the Bucks certainly won't be getting a discount:

"When I look at it I have to remember that it's a business," said Ilyasova. "Some teams overseas wanted to buyout my contract but I wanted to finish this season in the NBA. This is where I want to be right now, but we will see what happens in the future. Financially, whoever pays me more will be the team that I decide to sign with."

Let's examine where that leaves a team like the Milwaukee Bucks, and then discuss how high they should be willing to go when the bidding starts.

Continue reading this post »

On Friday morning, Milwaukee Bucks owner Sen. Herb Kohl and general manager John Hammond addressed media at the team's training center in St. Francis regarding a number of compelling issues.

Topics of conversation ranged from the contract status of head coach Scott Skiles, to a potential contract extension for Brandon Jennings, to the quest for a "quality big man," to the need for a new basketball arena in the near future. In other words, pretty much everything was on the table, leaving fans plenty of material to work through as we enter what could be another very busy summer.

On the other side of the jump I've assembled a brief summary of the most important points, and all the most relevant quotes. Moreover, we have the full 55 minutes of video and audio for you to check out for yourself. Let's get to it...

Continue reading this post »

The Orlando Magic scheduled a press conference 1:30 pm EST today. As CBSSports's Matt Moore puts it, this time of year press conferences typically mean "a coach hiring, a coach firing, or an award." For the Magic, it's the third option, as Brian Schmidt of the Orlando Sentinel reports that Magic PF Ryan Anderson will be named the NBA's Most Improved Player for the 2011-2012 season.

In kind and simple terms, this is totally bogus.

From last season, Ryan Anderson improved his scoring by 5.5 points and his rebounding by 2.2. Ersan's scoring improved 3.3 points and he grabbed 2.8 more rebounds. The difference? I've used Anderson's per-game numbers and Ersan's numbers per-36 minutes. Because you know what stat Ryan Anderson improved the most in?

Minutes per game.

Ersan was robbed.

Update: Ersan Ilyasova finished second in voting. The final tally for the award breaks down as follows, according to NBA.com (first-place votes in parentheses): Ryan Anderson - 260 points (33), Ersan Ilyasova - 159 points (21), Nikola Pekovic - 104 points (10).

Continue reading this post »

Are you one of those Milwaukee Bucks fans that is secretly wishing the team would have made the 2012 NBA Playoffs now that the Chicago Bulls lost star point guard Derrick Rose to an ACL tear? If so, Steve von Horn has something to say to you right off the bat in this edition of the Brew Hoop podcast. Frank Madden and Steve discuss the parallel universe where the Bucks would have been the No. 8 seed, but the real analysis goes far beyond that basic hypothetical. From how the harsher, gone fishin' reality has shaped the offseason plans of John Hammond and company to where things went wrong and how to make them better, this podcast touches on a bit of everything before we go deeper on each aspect throughout the summer.

Frank had to deal with some bandwidth issues at his hotel in California, so the voice quality is a bit more variable than you might be used to, but his analysis is as clear as ever so don't be too concerned. As always, you can listen or subscribe on iTunes, click here to Listen to this episode on your smartphone or listen on your computer by using the flash player below: