Bloggystyle -- The Greatest

Now that free agency has arrived, it's time to pull a Fitz and do a homer post about the Bucks. And before you get on my case, consider the other hometown teams in the commode we call Milwaukee.

Anyway I know all of you were excited when the Bucks turned a 6.7% chance of winning the lottery into a success. After last year's disaster, coupled with basically the entire 1990s, we desperately needed a break, if only for my sanity. It's just a shame we were 2 drafts late.

So we add Bogut and probably Ford back to the lineup this year, and in the blink of an eye the Bucks could crack the playoffs again next season.



But when your team's general manager is a guy who turns into a palsy simply by learning he has won the lottery, you quickly realize things can go wrong quickly, in a variety of ways.

Mike Redd bolts or Mike Redd annihilates our payroll

The latter is much more likely than the former. I'm not saying Larry Harris is Jerry West or R C Buford or anything, but not even Isaiah Thomas would have kept Redd at last year's deadline without serious assurances (read: promise) that he would resign. Of course a Carlos Boozer complete asshole could break his promise and, no homo juelz santana, really stick it to the team, but Milwaukee did take a chance on an erratic 2 guard coming off a horrible year at Ohio State, so loyalty should be worth something.

The problem is teams will drive up the bidding on Redd, who might be a Top 10 2 guard, and Redd will come close to making the max when he's probably worth 2/3 or 3/4 of the max.


After we sign our Goon Squad restricted free agents, we'll be out of cap space, locked in with a roster of young point guards who are virtually the same player, a good 2 guard, Desmond Mason, and the ugliest, whitest frontcourt in the last 20 years, no homo. We can't afford to blow all potential cap space.

The New Coach

I'm not saying Larry Harris is Jerry West or R C Buford or anything, but not even Isaiah Thomas would have fired Porter days before the draft without lining a better coach up beforehand...

But I'm getting concerned that Larry Harris is no Isaiah Thomas.

For the past few weeks, Milwaukee's writers and fans have been reassuring ourselves that the race for the coaching vacancy was "Game Over" with the imminent arrival of Lil Flip Saunders, bad pun very much intended.

However, in the past two days, NBA sources have said that TERRY STOTTS and DOUG COLLINS are also frontrunners.

A league source said Thursday that the Bucks were waiting to hear from the 53-year-old Collins, who is pondering the coaching position and could make up his mind by this weekend.

Thankfully, Stotts is now out of the running. Unfortunately so is Eric Musselman, probably the best option for our young team.

Still, I think we'll mostly get it right. So here are my pre July predictions for the Bucks' upcoming season.

Coach: Flip Saunders

Depth Chart:

TJ Ford/Mo Williams
Mike Redd/Jiri Welsch (still can't fucking believe that one)/Dez Mason
Dez Mason/Someone yet to be signed/Kukoc
Joe Smith/Zaza Pachulia
Andrew Bogut/Dan Gadzuric

We also have Calvin Booth, First Team All Ugly and Reece Gaines under contract. The 2nd round pick probably makes the roster unless we get lucky and sign a free agent like Stro Swift.

Record: 42-40. I think it'll be good enough for 7th-9th place.