Milwaukee Bucks (17-24) Mid Season report.

The Bucks shot out of the gate the first 11 games of the season, going 8-3 and setting the NBA on alert that this franchise was becoming “relevant” once again. Benefitting from a six game home stand, several available practice days, and a red hot rookie in PG Brandon Jennings, the early buzz league wide was all about Milwaukee.

Since that surprising start, the Bucks have fallen on hard times, going 9-21 the remainder of the first half of the season, and wondering “what if” their situation would be if only they would have won any number of the ten games they lost by 3 points or less.

Below is a synopsis of their most major contributors thus far.

Andrew Bogut (15/10) is having a solid, yet inconsistent season. The former number one over all pick has picked up his game defensively, leading the league in offensive fouls drawn (31) and sixth in the league in blocked shots at 2.14 per game.

Offensively, he is getting more shot attempts per game (13.4 shots per game compared to 9,8 career average). He is more comfortable down low, but still seems however to want to defer to team mates than take the shot himself.

He has trouble with bigger heavier opponents, while having learned to dominate smaller 4/5’s in the league, He is not an all star player yet, but could be in the near future.

Brandon Jennings (18/6) the rookie PG certainly had his share of ups and downs the first 41 games (all starts) of his career. Early returns had him head and shoulders above the rest of his rookie class, but since the beginning of the New Year he has steadily fallen back with the pack.

Slight of frame and never lacking in confidence, Jennings has been putting up shots at an alarming rate while shooting just 38% from the field. His shot just is not dropping from ten feet and closer, the same shots that netted him 55 points against Golden State in game seven of his career.

He is open mostly when he does take the shots; they have just stopped falling for him. Once he can learn from his successes and failures of his rookie season, Jennings will become an elite PG in this league. For now, it is this writer’s opinion he needs to go to the bench for awhile and watch as veteran PG Luke Ridnour is having his best season.

Luke Ridnour (12/4) is shooting 50% from the filed, and is the most consistent player on the team. His toughness, defense and PG skills (4 to 1.4 assist to TO ratio) is what a team needs from their PG.


As team the Bucks went through a stretch where it seemed they had given up, teams were shooting over 50% from the field on them, they were getting behind by 20 points or more in several games, and the chemistry was non existent.

Milwaukee did lose SG Michael Redd to injury, but Redd wasn’t totally healthy this season when he was on the court, still recovering from a left knee patellar tendon injury sustained last January.

The Bucks short comings this season overall can be traced to two things, and both are intertwined with each other,

Number 1, Milwaukee as a team has not been able to knock down open jump shots, and secondly, they lack NBA talent. They have players such as Charlie Bell, Kurt Thomas and Hakim Warrick playing major roles, but who should not be major contributors on a viable playoff team.

The Bucks are still in the playoff hunt, but that speaks more about the weakness of the watered down Eastern Conference than it does about the quality of team Milwaukee is.

Going forward, there are some noticeable things taking place, they seem to have the effort back on defense, they are once again sharing the ball (but not making shots), and Bogut seems to be coming around more consistently.

Milwaukee in the future needs to target a talented big man to play alongside Bogut, because as it stands now he is all alone in trying to handle other teams two and sometimes three big men.

For now though it seems they may stick around awhile longer fighting for the 7th or 8th seed in the EC, but I don’t think they will there at seasons end. On this board prior to season starting I predicted 34 wins, and with 17 wins now, they are on pace for just that.

Chicago, Charlotte and Toronto are all better than they are IMO, and the Knicks and Pistons seem to want their say in how it all plays out as well.

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