Milwaukee Bucks:
The East will see even more Redd next year from the Bucks

The Milwaukee Bucks are a team that every expansion team would like to emulate themselves after. The Bucks broke into the National Basketball Association in 1968 and promptly finished the season with a 27-55 record which was the second worst in the NBA. The Bucks then won the coin flip for the number one overall pick in the draft. The Bucks quickly snatched up UCLA center Lew Alcindor. The next season with Abdul-Jabbar leading the way the team finished with a 56-26 record and the second best record in the Eastern Division. The Bucks demolished the Billy Cunningham led Philadelphia 76ers 4-1 and met up with the New York Knicks in the Eastern Division Finals. The Knicks had their way with the upstart Bucks and won the series 4-1. It wouldn’t be the last time the Bucks would go deep into the playoffs. The Bucks were moved into the Western Conference and the Bucks responded by accumulating a 66-16 record and beat the San Francisco Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers on their way to the NBA Finals. The Bucks met up with the Baltimore Bullets in the Finals and just demolished them by winning the series 4-0 and never letting the Bullets finish within eight points in any of the four games and beating the Bullets by 18, 19 and 10. The Bucks got back to the Finals again in 1974. They met up with the Boston Celtics and took the series to seven games. The final game was played in front of all the Milwaukee fans and the Celtics just made the Bucks look silly when they beat them by a score of 102-87. A few years later Abdul-Jabbar would go to Los Angeles and the Bucks would never get back into the NBA Finals.

In more recent memory the Bucks had been known for having a great amount of talent and not being able to do anything with it. That led to the head coach George Karl getting fired before last year. The team brought in former NBA player Terry Porter. Porter was just a few years removed from being in playoff runs with the San Antonio Spurs, so his words rung even truer with the young nucleus of players that he inherited. Last year the team overachieved, somewhat, and made their way into the playoffs. The team earned the number five seed with their 41-41 record. In the playoffs they went head to head with the Miami Heat and fell to them in seven games 4-3. On the bright side of the series the young players got to see what a playoff atmosphere is like and they challenged a very good Miami Heat team that gave the Pacers fits in the next round. For the most part it was a successful season for the Bucks.

In the off-season the Bucks didn’t have an incredible amount of money to spend on the free agent market but they did make a couple of moves to help improve their team. The team didn’t have a first round pick and only had a single second round pick. The Bucks traded the pick to Orlando for 6’11” power forward Zaza Pachulia. The Bucks saw the draft depth at that point and realized that they couldn’t get anyone better than the 20 year old Pachulia, so they made the deal and got a solid player with heaps of upside. The Bucks also signed free agent point guard Mike James, and backup centers Lonnie Jones and Zendon Hamilton. James will start for the Bucks if starting point guard T.J. Ford doesn’t recover quickly enough from his spinal cord operation.

The starting five of the Milwaukee Bucks is very young, very versatile and incredibly athletic. At point guard will be T.J. Ford, if healthy, at shooting guard will be sharpshooter Michael Redd, at small forward will be Desmond Mason, at power forward will be Joe Smith, and at center the Bucks will start Dan Gadzuric.

The Bucks bench isn’t anything amazing but they do provide veteran leadership to the young team. Backing up the guards will be Mike James and Erick Strickland. Behind the forwards will be Pachulia, Keith Van Horn and Toni Kucoc. Backing up the big men will be Zendon Hamilton and Daniel Santiago.

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