The Day The Milwaukee Bucks Died

The topic that I am about to dive into isn’t going to make a lot of sense to the casual NBA fan.  A decent understanding of the economics of the NBA is a must if you are to understand my point.  I will do my best to explain why it is the Milwaukee Bucks are dead as an NBA franchise for at least the next 2 years.  Being irrelevant for the next 2 years likely means that Kohl (Senator Kohl, the owner) will have to sell the team and the team will more than likely move.

Today is the NBA trade deadline for 2009.  Up to the deadline the Bucks have been in a very tough spot when it comes to the future.  In order to solve some (or most) of their problems the Bucks were shopping Richard Jefferson like crazy.  RJ has been a very solid player for the Bucks this season and since Redd went down with a season ending knee injury, RJ has transformed into the player we all thought he was when we got him in a trade prior to the 08/09 season.  He has been shooting lights out, slashing to the hoop and getting a lot of FT attempts.  In combination with RJ, Ramon Sessions has been blowing up and CV has been consistently solid (something that couldn’t be said about him his first 3 years).

Running of the Bucks in 4th Quarter leads to win

Uh, this is defense, right coach?

For the second time in the last week, I was unable to watch a Bucks game because it wasn’t televised.  I understand, it’s a Saturday home game and they want to the fans to come out.  But I, like many others, don’t have money to put down on tickets.  So can’t you just show it to me for free?  Preferable in HD if you don’t mind.

As I typically do with non televised games, I sit on the computer doing random things (tonight I was trying to find out where my iTunes library disappeared to) and keep the score up in the background.  Seeing the Bucks leave the first quarter with a 35 to 22 lead, I thought tonight might be easy for the Bucks.  They need a lauger as they haven’t been on the right side of one of those for quite some time.  But as the Bucks always do, the kept in interesting.  With about 4 minutes left Indy got a lead and I was worried the Bucks where in for another loss.  Then something crazy happened in the last 3 minutes.  The Bucks went on a 19 to nothing run.  That’s impressive and it won the game.

As I expected, Lakers crush Bucks

I don’t think the defense is what lost this one… It might have something to do with our starters who could not make a shot to save their lives in the first half.  At the intermission the Bucks had all of 31 points and somehow were only down 10.  Then the 3rd quarter started, the Lakers found their stroke and the Bucks got down by 25.  Game over.