Frank: So J.J. Redick is a Buck. How do you...
Artie: Sorry, buddy, I can't talk. My nephew Bart—named for Bart Starr, ofcourse—is here to watch college hoops, NBA hoops and the Daytona 500. And rightnow I'm preparing a nice ring baloney...
F: An area of expertise, I imagine.
A: But hey, while I'm doing that you can talk with Bart, the ultimateBucks fan. Here he is...
F: Hey, young man. Before we discuss Redick, how do you feel about theBucks coming close but failing to land Atlanta's Josh Smith?
Bart: I'm glad. It's not that I hate Smith as a player, but he wouldn't haveimproved things. In his first eight seasons he played with all-stars like JoeJohnson and Al Horford but Atlanta never got past the second playoff round. Ifhe'd joined the Bucks, who have zero all-stars—although Brandon Jennings thinkshe's one—I don't think they'd have gotten past the first round anyway.
F: Smith had 15 points and 13 rebounds in Atlanta's one-point win here,and hit a key three-pointer down the stretch.
B: But he shot 6 for 19, mainly because he's fooled himself intobelieving he's got a reliable jumper. Over the previous two seasons and thisone he's launched 387 treys and made 121. That's 31%, no reason for a 6-foot-9guy to stay outside so much. He's big and strong, but he's only taking aboutfour free throws a game because teams can afford to let him bomb away.
F: In Milwaukee Smith likely would have been a “rental” because he's anunrestricted free agent this summer.
B: And looking for a “max contract” the Bucks probably couldn't afford.
F: Redick also will be unrestricted. How about him?
B: He's a nice player, but really he's a 6-4, 190-pound version of MikeDunleavy.
F: Like Dunleavy, Redick shoots better, especially on threes, than theBucks' starting guards. But will Jennings and Monta Ellis want to give up manyof the 17 shots per game that each of them averages?
B: Good question, and it points to what I think is the Bucks' mainproblem—Jennings. His decision-making is terrible. You'd think in his fourthseason he'd develop some real point-guard skills instead of being just animitation Allen Iverson.
F: He posted big numbers in the two losses to Brooklyn—65 points and 18assists.
B: But it seems like he's only motivated against teams that get a lot ofESPN coverage, and then he'll disappear against teams he should be killing.
F: He sure seems to take more shots than a true point guard should betaking.
B: Last season after the Bucks traded for Ellis and they had a stretch ofgames with 30-plus assists, they were really moving the ball around. ErsanIlyasova was playing great and everyone was getting shots in the right places.
F: The same thing happened in the spring of 2010, the last time they madethe playoffs. And Jennings was a part of that.
B: But it doesn't last. Way too often he brings it down, doesn't look topass and takes a well-defended or just plain terrible shot. When your pointguard doesn't distribute the ball enough, what motivation do the other guys haveto keep playing hard?
F: After the Atlanta game Jennings indicated he's not too happy about theRedick deal. He played 30 minutes, about 7 below his average, while Ellisplayed 44 and Redick 35. On the post-game TV show Jennings said, “I'm 23 yearsold... I can play 40 minutes a night and be fine. But if it's going to be likethis then I guess we've just got to deal with it.”
B: That says everything about him. If he really cares about whethersomebody played five more minutes than he did, that's a guy you wouldn't wantto play with.
F: They didn't get Redick to play 18 minutes a game, what Beno Udrih wasaveraging as Jennings' backup.
B: It's not that the Bucks don't have enough shooters. But they don't runanything resembling an offense that really moves the ball and gets good shots.If they were, Scott Skiles would still have his job and they'd be fighting fora fourth or fifth seed instead of stuck at No. 8. It just seems like Skiles andnow Jim Boylan either have no control over Jennings and Ellis, or don't want tocontrol them. You never see any repercussions for all the bad shooting they do.
F: Maybe with Redick around, there will be.
LOOKING DOWNTHE ROAD
F: One problem with this three-guard situation is that the Bucks couldlose all three this summer. Jennings is a restricted free agent, so the Buckspresumably would have to match some big-money offer sheet from another team.Ellis has an $11 million option on his contract and Redick is unrestricted, sohe'll be seeking a long-term deal. So which of the three guys would you want tostay in a Bucks uniform next season?
B: That's a tough question, especially considering that Boylan's coachingjob will be up for review, too. They might bring in someone with a realoffensive system.
F: And of course they have to see how the three-man thing works out overthe final 28 games and, presumably, at least one playoff series.
B: But I can say definitely that I wouldn't re-sign Jennings. I can'timagine anybody on the team enjoys playing with him. I sure don't think Ellisis worth $11 million, but that's what he can lock in. And I hear Redick will begoing for 9 or 10 million a year, and that's just too much, although he's agood scorer and reportedly a good teammate.
F: How about for the rest of this season?
B: I'd start Ellis over Jennings any day. There's no chance Ellis wouldbe any worse at running the point. And Ellis seems like he cares every night,not just when he's having a good game or playing a major team.
F: Thanks a lot for your input, Bart. See if your uncle can take a fewminutes to chat...
Artie: Yeah, I'm back. The baloney is boiling up real good. I threw in a niceyellow onion, but I guess maybe I should have chopped it up first. But I addedhalf a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon to spice it up. It's a real work inprogress!
F: Just like the Bucks. So do you share Bart's feelings about addingRedick and not adding Smith?
A: I totally agree with something Bill Simmons wrote about Smith onGrantland.com: “He's one of those guys who scares you when he's on the otherteam but scares you even more when he's on your own team.”
F: Plus Smith is on the record as having said there's “nothing to do” inMilwaukee. Doesn't sound like a guy who would have been inclined to stickaround.
A: So in all likelihood all the Bucks would have been doing is “renting”Smith for two months and still getting knocked out in the first round of theplayoffs. It was one thing for the Brewers to rent CC Sabathia to reach theplayoffs for the first time in a generation, with only two rounds between themand the World Series. But even with Smith, what would the Bucks' playoffprospects really be?
F: So the Bucks went with Redick. But they didn't fulfill your wish ofdealing Jennings at the deadline.
A: And besides Udrih, they gave up two young players, Tobias Harris andDoron Lamb, who could turn out to be darn good pros.
F: Harris couldn't grab a starting spot early this season, but they sureseemed to give up on him quickly.
A: Redick is a guy who shows that it can take time to develop. He waspretty much of a bust in his first two or three years with Orlando but he'sbecome a good all-around player. I think the deal was made mostly to placatethe fan base—“See, we're doing something here, so please show up for ourgames.” But I got the feeling that Hammond kind of got his pants pulled down.Essentially he gave up three players for Redick; the other two the Bucks gotdon't amount to anything.
F: Part of it is that in NBA, with its complex salary-cap rules, anytrade has to match money as well as people.
A: It's all so byzantine and ridiculous. As for the future, having Ellisdepart and keeping Jennings and Redick would be intriguing to me.
F: Redick is a better shooter than Ellis and takes fewer shots per game.
A: Then again, against Atlanta there were a couple of stretches whereJennings was sitting and Ellis played the point with Redick as the “2 guard.”And it looked fabulous! Monta was passing and the offense was really humming.
F: Ellis had 10 assists to go with his 14 points.
A: That's the kind of thing he did at Golden State; he was a sort-ofpoint guard and Steph Curry was the 2.
F: But if Jennings is going to get upset over how the minutes aredistributed...
A: With him at the point it doesn't matter who's the 2. We'll see if theEllis/Redick combo is used much again, and if so, whether I was just dreamingabout how well it worked.
DAYTONA ANDDANICA
F: So Danica Patrick won the pole for the Daytona 500, led three of the200 laps and finished eighth. As the gearhead in our partnership, what's yourreaction?
A: The pole thing really didn’t do anything for me or to me. Frankly, Igot sick of all the “she's the first woman” ballyhoo that was all over TV andradio. To me it's kind of like Tim Tebow-mania—pretty meaningless, except thatI guess people find it interesting.
F: Interest is what it's all about, right? Then again, some people alsoare interested in anyone named Kardashian. But it's not like Patrick is afluke, is it? She spent seven years in the IndyCar series and had third- andfourth-place finishes at the Indianapolis 500.
A: But only one win in 114 IndyCar races. And so far zero wins in threeyears of NASCAR racing. So far she's established that a woman can be just asmediocre as a man.
F: I guess she can drive; you don't hear her competitors saying she's amenace out there.
A: But she has gotten into some altercations with other drivers—includingone after an IndyCar race at the Milwaukee Mile in '07 with the late DanWheldon.
F: But that's just what NASCAR wants, isn't it? A driver who don't takeno guff from anyone? It's right out of the Dale Earnhardt playbook. Anyway,whatever the other drivers think of her, I'll bet NASCAR doesn't want themraining on her parade. Attention on her is attention for the sport.
A: The only bad publicity is no publicity, ain'a? Even something like thespectacular crash in the Nationwide Series race Saturday, with debris injuringsome of the fans, probably had some people saying, “Hey, I better watch thatrace Sunday.”
F: Mayhem, on the track and between drivers, sells.
A: Several years ago when the TV ratings spiked NASCAR put on a “peaceoffensive,” trying to tone down the squabbling among drivers. But the last twoor three years the ratings have really sunk.
F: The few times I've seen Patrick interviewed at length—once inparticular on “Pardon the Interruption”—I found her quite articulate andprofessional. Which is somewhat at odds with the sexy girl” image conveyed bythose juvenile, raunchy GoDaddy.com commercials she's been doing for years. Isuspect she'd be happy to drop those now, but that GoDaddy was clever enough tolock her into a very long contract.
A: I don't know about that. I think she really likes the limelight inwhatever way she can find it.
F: Well, I'd say she's well above the level of an Anna Kournikova, whodid virtually nothing as a big-time tennis player but parleyed her looks into acareer as a celebrity. But before the Daytona, actor James Franco had anunfortunate choice of words when he said, “Drivers and Danica, start yourengines!”
A: Nice unintentional insult. Anyway, let me know when she accomplishessomething really big in actual competition, not when she's all alone on thetrack.
POINTS OFCONTENTION
A: I have something I want to get off my chest about college basketball.
F: The court is yours.
A: Saturday afternoon, we had this final score: Georgetown 57, Syracuse46. Then we had this halftime score: Marquette 22, Villanova 22. And I thoughtto myself, “If either of these scores belonged to the Badgers, all hell wouldbreak loose about how this is disgraceful, snail-like offense.”
F: But when it's Eastern teams involved it's just a tense, hard-foughtdefensive battle?
A: Something like that.
F: It's interesting you say that, because recently I saw Jay Bilas on ESPN...
A: A guy I really respect as a student of the game.
F: And he was saying that the entire college game has declined in recentyears in terms of offensive flow. Bilas said that the average for scoring pergame—total points, both teams— fell by something like 1.5 points per game lastseason. I assume he was talking about Division I. Now, that doesn't sound likemuch, but Bilas said it was a big drop.
A: I can certainly see that.
F: Bilas attributed a lot of the offensive decline to the way games areofficiated. He said the college game has a lot more contact than the NBA interms of people without the ball getting knocked around on their cuts. And hesaid the way teams are coached to try to take charges has resulted in more ofthose being called, hurting the flow of the game and reducing the opportunitiesto score.
A: I think there's something else, namely that guys just don't shoot aswell as they used to. The NBA has a lot of bad shooting—we sure know that inMilwaukee—and I don't think guys come to the NBA from college and get worse. Ithink good shooting somehow isn't being taught enough at the high school andAAU levels and it just carries through.
F: Certainly the three-point shot has had a big effect. Many collegeteams, notably the Badgers, are shooting 20-plus times from beyond the arc inevery game, and it's just a fact that from that distance even 40% is consideredoutstanding.
A: And as a result, fewer guys are good at the mid-range jumper thatstands a better chance but only gets you two points.
F: As we've said before, Buzz Williams has a solution. If he doesn't havea good shooting team—like this season—he has 'em get to the hoop, get fouled,and get those wide-open looks from the free-throw line.
A: But when they play a team that really packs the lane on defense, like'Nova did Saturday, Buzz's guys are in big trouble. Boy, could they use a guylike MU's own Steve Novak come tournament time!
HIS AIRNESSTURNS 50
F: One last topic that came up last week— the mania on TV over wishingMichael Jordan a happy 50th birthday.
A: Which completely overshadowed Charles Barkley's big 5-0 a few dayslater. The Jordan thing just seemed like it was something to give the gasbagson TV and radio something to fill the time. Big deal, so he's 50.
F: I guess it was an excuse to go through all the pontificating about whois the absolute, all-time best basketball player for all eternity.
A: All of that is so ridiculous, especially when they use the number ofchampionship rings as a gauge. I find it to be a ridiculous discussion. By thatstandard, Bill Russell will never be topped. Hell, Robert Horry has somethinglike six rings! And on the opposite side, guys like Barkley and Elgin Baylornever played on a title team, but should that put them any lower on the all-timetotem pole?
F: Especially considering that basketball, even in the NBA, is athoroughly team sport.
A: Right. I mean, who were the players around any of the “all-timegreats,” and how much did they help them achieve things?
F: Michael and Kobe and LeBron—how could you go wrong declaring any ofthem the greatest?
A: It's a lot like the blather about the all-time greatest NFLquarterback. How can anyone really know unless you somehow could scramble allthe candidates and put them on each other's teams? Just going by rings again,it makes guys like Dan Fouts and Warren Moon seem like chopped liver, whichthey definitely weren't!
F: Back to Jordan. The hoopla over his birthday bothered me for anotherreason: It seemed to imply that being such a great player also made him a greatperson, which I don't see at all. I agree with the Onion, which under the heading of “Greatest Moments of MichaelJordan's Personal Life” wrote this: “1990s: Uses worldwide fame to promoteAmerican values of hyper-competitiveness and egomania.”
A: That's a great one! I remember seeing his Hall of Fame acceptancespeech, and it sure wasn't gracious. He trashed just about everyone who everdoubted him, all the way back to high school. It was jaw-dropping, not just forthe people watching but for the attendees, I'll bet.
F: Of course being a great person isn't a requirement for being a greatplayer. But I never got the feeling, when he was playing or since, that he wasa very likeable guy.
A: He's a little bit like the Ty Cobb of basketball—not in the racist,violence-prone ways of Cobb, but in the ultra-competitive nature, the need todominate, that alienated people.
F: So I think all the well-wishing on TV probably was misleading for thekids watching. As in, whatever he did on the court must mean he was a good guyoff the court.
A: To me he IS the greatest, in the actual playing of the game. And itwould be nice if he matched that as a person, but most of the time that doesn'thappen and our greatest heroes aren't good role models.
F: Which brings us back to Barkley, who famously proclaimed that he wasnot a role model. I'm not a huge fan of his outspoken ways, but he does addressissues of our society and says “this is right” or “this is wrong.” Jordan, onthe other hand, once said he didn't address political issues because bothDemocrats and Republicans bought athletic shoes. That says something about hisultimate goals.
A: Hey, business is business. And anyway... Yikes! Something's gone wrongwith my baloney. Remember the old Steve McQueen movie The Blob? It looks like it's back, and spreading over my stove.Gotta go!
Frank Clines covered sports for The Milwaukee Journal and the Journal Sentinel. ArtKumbalek cooks a mean ring baloney.
