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June 2008 - Posts
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 I'm sticking with my earlier prediction that Hammond is working to move this pick, or trade whomever the Bucks draft -- which may or may not explain why West Virginia's Joe Alexander was in town today for a second visit with the Bucks. Until now, LSU's Anthony Randolph has been viewed as the Bucks likely top choice, though there are concerns now that other teams are repositioning ahead of the Bucks and Randolph may be gone by the time the Bucks draft at #8.
 What makes me say this when all draft speculators have the Bucks taking Alexander with the #8 pick and Randolph slipping out of the top 10? For starters, I was at the June 6 workout of Randolph, Alexander and Donte Green of Syracuse. The man of the day was Randolph.
As the media straggled into the court area at the Cousins Center and the players reached for the gatorade on the sidelines, Bucks assistant Joe Wolf strode up to Randolph and the two 6'10"ers exchanged an emphatic high five. I'd say things went very well for Randolph in Milwaukee. In the post-workout interviews, which you can watch here at sportsbubbler.com, Randolph declared himself the best player on the floor. I don't think there is much doubt about this in the Bucks camp. Later that day, Coach Scott Skiles and Randolph were reportedly spotted Downtown eating dinner together.
Alexander and Green were also feeling the Bucks' pro-Randolph vibe. Alexander hung around on the court taking in a few extra high post pointers from Bucks assistant Kelvin Sampson (no harm in kissing up to the coaches). Green decided he needed to show the media some of his stuff and slammed home a couple of high flying dunks on a side-basket. It worked -- Green's an impressive athlete and would be a good pick anywhere out of the top five or six in this draft. Green may yet sneak in to the Bucks plans.
I'd be very surprised if anyone in the media came away from the Cousins Center with the impression that Joe Alexander would be the pick. Journal Sentinel columnist Michael Hunt said as much in his column yesterday, writing that Randolph will likely be taken higher than #8. Here's the excerpt:
“'Everything’s in play,' Hammond said recently. 'Was, still is and probably will remain that way probably right up until draft day. We’re going to explore every option that we can to improve our team, and, as we said, potentially maybe even move the pick.'
That’s good, because LSU’s Anthony Randolph, the 6-10 forward who was probably the best option that worked out for the Bucks, will likely be gone by then. Draft-day trades, though, have become more and more uncommon in the NBA, so it’s possible the new and promising regime will have to take this reclamation project deep into the summer."
The New York Daily News yesterday echoed the Hunt (and BBJinx) take on Randolph.
The Bucks are sending out strong signals that they like LSU's Anthony Randolph at No. 8. A legitimate 6-10, Randolph has been called a cross between Tayshaun Prince and Odom. But West Virginia small forward Joe Alexander, a hard-nosed worker, is seen as a better fit with new coach Scott Skiles. ...
 So why does ESPN's Chad Ford have Randolph possibly "slipping out of the lottery" in his latest Mock Draft? Ford writes:
"A number of young, inexperienced bigs have been hurting themselves in workouts. It's now a possibility that LSU's Anthony Randolph falls out of the lottery. Texas A&M's DeAndre Jordan, Nevada's JaVale McGee and Florida's Marreese Speights might not hear their names called until the 20th pick or after."
Remember The Chad Ford Principle. He doesn't talk to teams as much as he talks to agents, which means whatever he's got happening with Randolph probably serves the interest of a sports agent or two.
(Since originally posting this, a little research revealed that Randolph's rep is former Chicago Bull B.J. Armstrong of the Arn Tellem agency. Armstrong, a teammate of Bulls GM John Paxson on the 1992 and 1993 Bulls championship teams, also happens to be the rep for one Derrick Rose. Employing the Chad Ford principle we can assume that Armstrong is one of Ford's primary sources regarding not only Rose and the debate over who the Bulls will pick, but Randolph as well.)
Ford wrote in his mock draft last week that Randolph may now be perceived to be a headcase (Brewhoop notes it here.) That's probably a seed planted by Armstrong or other interested parties who want to see certain teams take a pass on Randolph. It's not all that clear what the Sonics, Grizzlies or Knicks will do ahead of the Bucks -- and the Grizzlies and Knicks at least have had interest in Randolph or Alexander or both.
(Brewhoop today notes that weeks ago Ford had Randolph in the top 5 talentwise, a good salespitch by Armstrong right about the time of the Randolph-Alexander Bucks workout. Armstrong and Ford seem to either have Randolph high out of the Bucks reach or too low for the Bucks to dip for. The Chad Ford Principle at work again. Go figure.)
Expect Ford, ever the accomplice for NBA agents, to be wrong on this one, and Hunt to be the writer who's got the Bucks and Randolph in better focus.
Ford also has Eric Gordon now going to the Memphis Grizzlies at the #5 spot -- that's a first for Gordon in these mock drafts -- and writes that he "would be shocked" if the Bulls took Beasley over Rose.
I'd be shocked if Chad Ford is on target.
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Here's an interesting analysis from Adi Joseph on NBADraft.Net. Joseph points out that many players in this draft are struggling to fit an NBA position, and that a little pessimism might be in order for fans of lottery teams.
"Alexander can't handle or shoot well enough to truly play on the wing, but he's too short for the post. He's definitely got some Shawn Marion in him, but often players with similar skill sets struggle to find their offensive games in the NBA.
Randolph is being compared to Chris Bosh. But he struggled with his efficiency as a freshman, turning the ball over 3 times per game and shooting just 46% from the field. And he's rail-thin and had the worst bench press results at the Orlando predraft camp. He'll have to bulk up big time to ever play in the post. But his 2-of-19 shooting from three-point range will need to improve if he expects any respect from defenders at the NBA level."
Ouch. Joseph might even be meaner than I am!
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 ESPN rumor mongerer Chad Ford is at it again. Last week Ford was speculating that the Bucks want to move up in the draft to "add some star power to their team." In his mock draft 6.0 today Ford has the Bucks picking Joe Alexander out of West Virginia with their #8 pick.
I have developed what can only be called "The Chad Ford Principle." Whatever Ford mongers out there as rumoroid fact, expect it to be false and driven by the needs of certain agents whom Ford spends far too much time listening to. And bear in mind when reading him that Ford an ethically challenged journalist who doesn't seem to be able to put two and two together very well.
Let's give The Chad Ford Principle a test run. If Ford writes that his sources say the Chicago Bulls are taking point guard Derrick Rose with the number one pick, expect the Bulls to pick forward Michael Beasley. In fact Ford himself is beginning to back off his "90 percent" assurance that the Bulls would take Rose, writing in mock draft 5.0 that he's "not as confident as I was a week ago that he'll be the pick."
The Bulls will take Beasley and I would bet on it. Again using The Chad Ford Principle, expect the Bucks to take Anthony Randolph (LSU) and not Alexander or do something more creative with the pick.
(Note: I've since learned that Rose and Randolph have the same agent -- former Chicago Bull B.J. Armstrong, a rep for the Arn Temer agency. Using The Chad Ford Principle, assume that agent Armstrong is one of Ford's key sources regarding both Rose and Randolph).
As for the Bucks moving up in the draft, Bucks GM John Hammond said last week that he doesn't "have a deal to move up or to move down" and that he's seeing movement among the teams drafting ahead of them. This could mean the Bucks might trade out of the first round altogether or trade whomever the Bucks pick.
That wasn't the only Ford-broadcasted fire that was extinguished last week. Remember all that talk about trading Yi Jianlian to Golden State in a deal for developing 21-year-old forward Brandan Wright and the Warriors #14 pick? A rep from the Warriors contacted Ford last week and "took umbrage" at the rumor. This from Ford's column last Thursday:
"A Warriors representative shot down an assertion made in a couple of my columns that the team was looking to move Brandan Wright. He especially took umbrage at the report that the team coveted Milwaukee's Yi Jianlian. I've been assured that Warriors GM Chris Mullin, who makes the final decisions at Golden State, isn't trading Wright for Yi."
The Warriors called to demand a correction, didn't they Chad?
And it was likely the first contact Ford's had with the Warriors in all of this. Still, Ford didn't quite have to the guts to label it a correction and just tacked it on at the end of his column with the following caveat:
"This time of the year, the information is flying fast and furious. Sources often have agendas, and from time to time I just get things wrong."
That's well and good, except that in an earlier version of the very same column, Ford wrote that, in still another trade involving Golden State and Wright, Cleveland was set to trade Anderson Varejao and their #19 pick to the Warriors. The Varejao report is apparently what prompted the Warriors to shut Ford's rumor mill down. Ford was slinging agent slime at Golden State week after week.
Guess who Yi Jianlian and Anderson Varejao have in common? Sports agent Dan Fegan, who obviously fed Ford the Yi trade rumors last season and is at it again now with Yi and Varejao. You bet Fegan's got an agenda. He wants Yi out of Milwaukee and Varejao out of Cleveland. Ford has been Fegan's willing accomplice when the agent feels the need to toss grist into the NBA rumor mills. I assume Ford knows fully well that Fegan has no ability to make trades.
Ford's problem is that this is not a "this time of year" thing; it's general Chad Ford practice. Ford routinely references agents off the record with tags such as "a source familiar with the talks" -- which is how he referred to Fegan in the Varejao rumor write-up.
In Cleveland, the Morning News called its sources and quickly debunked the Varejao to Golden State talk as "nothing more than a rumor." The Cavaliers are apparently not as upset with Ford as the Warriors were.
Journalistically, Ford's general practice is unethical. Because he writes for ESPN, NBA teams and the daily newspapers in NBA cities are compelled to react, in large part because he doesn't let his readers know that he's spinning rumors from agents -- not sources from NBA teams. That's downright unethical.
Is Ford writing for entertainment purposes only and is that an excuse? No and no, and Ford doesn't write in an entertaining style anyway. He shows little flair for absurdity, wit, sarcasm or humor, or even the cut-the-crap ***-ishness that sometimes makes for good writing. Overall, his style is banal. There's so little there and so many other mock NBA draft outlets for fans, such as Draft Express and NBADraft.net.
What purpose does Ford's column serve ESPN other than to generate site hits with agent-flushed yellow journalism? And what does that say about ESPN?
Cleveland, we have a problem here: The Akron Beacon Journal's Patrick McManamon took an in depth look at Anderson Varejao's situation last week and revealed something I don't think any of us wildly speculative blogger types had realized -- Varejao can reject any trade up until Dec. 5. That date matters because Dec. 5 is the one-year anniversary of the Cavs matching the contract offer Fegan and Varejao negotiated with the Charlotte Bobcats last fall.
According to NBA rules, a player can reject a trade for one year after a team matches a contract offer to keep him. The Bucks Charlie Bell, for example, could have rejected the trade to the Knicks that Larry Harris had reportedly negotiated before the trading deadline last February because the Bucks last summer matched an offer sheet from Miami to keep Bell. Now Varejao, a key piece of a potential trade for Michael Redd, could be off limits to the Bucks this summer unless Bucks GM John Hammond can make Varejao (and Fegan) happy. Remember that Fegan is also Yi's agent and that on the Bucks Yi and Varejao would be sharing power forward minutes.
Still, Akron's McManamon likes a trade for Redd, calling it "logical" and writing that "it all makes sense."
McManamon does however, have more bad news for the Bucks. Guard Boobie Gibson underwent ankle surgery this offseason and could be considered off the table. If Gibson is off limits it wouldn't leave Cleveland much to deal with beyond the Wally Szczerbiak contract and the #19 pick -- not enough of a return for Michael Redd.
I'm suddenly concerned that the Bob Boozer Jinx -- the Bucks jinx at the power forward position -- is once again working its crazy mojo.
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 Ramon Sessions, rookie point guard, has been the face of the Bucks of late. Sessions was at the season ticket holders' tailgate at Miller Park Tuesday. A couple of weeks ago he was representing at a lottery night event with coaches Scott Skiles and Jim Boylan. Yes, Skiles reminded Sessions that the NBA record for assists in a game is not 24, it's 30, held by one Scott Skiles.
Michael Redd, the so-called face of the franchise? He's been hiding under a rock ever since his former coach, Larry Krystkowiak, fingered Redd as the guy who undermined what the team was trying to do last season. The weekend Krystkowiak made those comments to JS writer Tom Enlund, the Bucks were in the process of hiring Krystkowiak's pal Skiles, so it's safe to assume the coaches had begun working on the transition to the Skiles era.
Redd came out from under his rock this week to hype his summer basketball camp, and did an interview yesterday with ESPN Radio's Steve "the Homer" True. Homer asked Redd about Krystkowiak's comments and Redd didn't have much to say. In fact, he denied that he had any problem at all with Krystkowiak, at least not one he was aware of.
At this point, my intelligence has been insulted enough by Michael Redd (I have never seen a dumber basketball player in a Bucks uniform, and people, Alton Lister and Tim Thomas were not smart guys) that I'm just going to say that Michael Redd is as good as gone and move on to more important things.
As for those more important things, this blog, like James Bond, has required a girl for some time. The search for this girl has taken me from Bangkok to Baton Rouge to the jungles of Borneo, but at last I've found our girl. By unanimous vote, the officially unofficial Bob Boozer Jinx girl is Energee! dancer Meghan. (Lucky you, Meghan). Why Meghan? Do you have to ask?
During our exhaustive search for the Bob Boozer Jinx girl, however, it was brought to my attention by Sportsbubbler's esteemed editor, Dan Walsh, that, lo and behold and much to my surprise, Meghan has not always been a brunette. 
I now pose to the Bob Boozer Jinx faithful the obvious, if not ultimate question. Brunette Meghan? Or blonde Meghan?
You know this is so much, much better than Beasley or Rose, Rose or Beasley ....
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 A wave of guilt descends as I write this post. Why? Not because I feel I should be doing something more important than sending typeface to walk across the white space between a photo of cheerleaders and the margin to the left, like waiting for my "economic stimulus" check (still not here) or wondering whether Rasheed Wallace is on the trading block rhyming Beasley-Rose, Rose-Beasley, Beasley-Rose. And no, I'm not even feeling guilty that the Bucks were kind enough to email me a link to a gallery of photos of the Energee! Dance Team cheerleaders two weeks ago and I'm just opening it now. No, no, none of those things.
The guilt stems from having a sea of luscious legs, black poly-leather zipper tops, nothing skirts and high heels on my computer screen only to have my eyes stray to the empty seats above all of that sexiness. It's not my fault, I know. The eye goes to the empty spaces of a badly-cropped photo. That's just the way it is. It's a natural thing. Cinematographers are paid millions so that this sort of thing doesn't happen even in bad films.
The link to the "Energee! in April" photo gallery was sent by Bucks marketing to the Bucks ticket-info email list as part of a "win lunch with GM John Hammond" draft lottery contest (which I didn't win). The photo above is from one of the five home games in April, no note on which one. Whichever game it was, my sources tell me that very few people attended. Nobody goes there anymore; there are too many empty seats.
Journal Sentinel reported last week in an interview with NBA Commissioner David Stern that a new arena for the Bucks is not a converstaion that needs to happen now. Soon, but not now, according to Stern. A new arena, however, seems irrelevent when you look at the empty seats behind Energee! Stern mentioned that point too, reminding that the best revenue enhancer is ticket sales.
Stern's words should be taken as a warning. Look at those barely skirt skirts, all that skin and faux leather. Energee! was performing for no one. So were our Bucks, who, at the end of the 2007-08 season were a franchise on the brink of irrelevency, but for the dance squad.
Owner Herb Kohl has responded by hiring a shrewd basketball guy from the Detroit Pistons franchise, John Hammond, to set things on the right course. Hammond has hired an aggressive coach, Scott Skiles, known for defense, up-tempo ball movement and winning. Hammond and Skiles have played it close to the vest about further changes this summer but the above picture tells a thousand words. The changes will be significant.
Ticket-buying fans are already aware of this, being able to draw conclusions based on what the Bucks marketing offices have been sending. This summer's come-ons are quite a bit different than those of the past few summers.
Let's look at the rest of what was sent in that mid-May promo e-mail:
 Coach Scott Skiles, the new face of the franchise, is our incentive to buy tickets. I would have used a photo of Andrew Bogut in his nose guard mask to sell tickets, but then I'm a big fan of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and can write at length about how artistically UNPLEASING Rob Zombie's "House of a Thousand Corpses" movies are. Skiles is the Bucks' savior, the hope for a better tomorrow and a more interesting today, and I'm down with all that -- but I can also tell you with unflagging certainty what his shooting percentage will be before the game starts. I also know that Skiles has never been able to dunk a basketball. The message, here, loud and clear, is that we can expect to see Skiles at the games next year, and that if things go well, he'll be clapping just as he is in the photo. Don't, however, expect to see too many of last season's players on his team.
 Why are these girls happy? This is a wholesome picture. The better stuff is in the gallery, but, this is a conscientious choice of photos by Bucks marketers, who seem to understand that a Bucks fan's wife or girlfriend may at any moment peek over said fan's shoulder while email is being checked/ogled. "Wholesome" is a word often used to decribe Energee! - and I imagine that bugs Energee! dancers to no end. "Wholesome but may get a little wild after a few drinks" is a description of the Bucks cheerleaders I read in the blogosphere not too long ago. That's not a compliment.
 Number 9, Number 9, Number 9. Yi's jersey at left is the Bucks featured promo in the merchandising department. At least we know Yi is going to be on the team. But we know more than that. The Bucks have two exhibition games scheduled September in China, where the Bucks commitment to making Yi an NBA star will be on display. It's important to note who's jersey is not featured: The Michael Redd era is over, Bucks fans, and there's no harm in getting used to it now a few weeks before it's official. 2008-09 will be the year of Yi, development in overdrive. RealGM'ers, stifle those trades for power forwards. Charlie V, start packing your bags if you're still an all-star in your own mind. Yi Jianlian will be shooting 15-or-so times a game next season. If you're one of those who still believes that Michael Redd will be around to thwart Yi's development, scroll back up to the top of this post and take a long, long look, not at the lovesexxy lines of the the brunette's legs ....
.... but at those empty, empty seats behind her.
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