Forget the injuries to both starting forwards. The Milwaukee Bucks are a bad team. It’s not just local remorse or anything either. The rest of the country is catching on.
ESPN.com released their latest NBA team ratings. They put the Bucks at 2nd last, ahead of only the Knicks. After losing 4 of 5 games, Yahoo! put the Bucks at 25th, up from a previous rank of 27th. Not sure how you lose 80% of your games in a stretch and move up in the polls. SI.com has them at 28th.
There’s obviously a world of diference between the poorly coached teams and the well coached teams. Jerry Sloan and Greg Popvich are leading talented teams to great success. Meanwhile, a guy like Terry Stotts is running a talented team into the ground. Any time you have a game plan focused around giving Michael Redd the ball as much as possible and letting your point guard shoot pull-up 3’s… you’re going to fail. The Bucks have potentially one of the top 5 frontcourts in the NBA, but you wouldn’t know because they never get the big guys involved. That’s bad coaching.
This is what I get for trying to pay attention to the NBA.