Harris to Stay the Course?

GM Larry Harris was quoted in a recent article by SI.com's Paul Forrester as saying:

"...your players dictate the style you're going to play," but cautions that the Bucks are trying to develop some semblance of offensive balance.

"We're a good perimeter-shooting team," Harris said, "but when we're willing to up-tempo the ball, our turnovers are tremendously high. An all-out fast-breaking team is not our style because we do have a low-post guy [in Bogut] and we want to play through him as well.

"So we'll run when we have opportunities, but Larry is a defensive guy. He's a no-nonsense person. He understands you need to have an inside-outside game. And adjusting our team to that style, because we've been so much the other way, [has required] almost a reprogramming that you can actually win that way."

"There are always conversations that take place when you're a month away from the trade deadline," Harris said. "But as for reports that we should break things up -- that's not what winning organizations do. I think our core is intact and we're building around that core. If you're a fan of the Milwaukee Bucks, if you're within the organization, you have to feel like we can identify what we're trying to do, who we're building around, who our future is and how we're trying to fit those pieces together."

All of which seem to suggest the Bucks will not be making any major moves before this month's trade deadline, despite an increase in grumbling from disgruntled fans looking for a major roster shake-up.

The Journal-Sentinel itself, historically a bastion of Herb Kohl support, even gave voice to those calls for change in an early 2008 article by the ultimate disgrunted fan, columnist Michael Hunt. Hunt ripped Bucks management from the top down and called for a complete team blow-up, declaring Bogut and Yi the only two pieces worth rebuilding around as the team moves forward.

Which, unjustified bad-mouthing of the front office aside, is not such an outlandish claim; Bogut and Yi are the two most untradeable assets the Bucks have, with the potential to form the most impressive front-court tandem since Tim Duncan and David Robinson collected 2 NBA championships in 6 years and nearly 2 more, prevented only by the short lived Shaquille O'Neal/Kobe Bryant Lakers dynasty.

And while Yi has not been nearly as dominate as Duncan was his rookie season (21.1 ppg, 11.9 rpg, 2.51 blocks), neither is Bogut nearly as old as Robinson was, and Yi has by all accounts shown flashes of the dominance that will hopefully come with more experience in the league. So it is not at all a stretch for Hunt to call those two the most valuable Bucks pieces. The problem with blowing up the team and rebuilding around those two, is the difficulty of getting much in return for the team's other assets.

Outside of Michael Redd, whom can the Bucks even attempt to move for any substantial return? Bell, Simmons, and Gadzuric all have contracts which make them undesirable, Mo has a slightly better case of the same problem, and Villanueva's stock is at an all-time low even if he probably would benefit from a change of scenery. So the only player they could even hope to get close to fair value for is Redd.

Which, at first, can also seem to be an appealing path to pursue. The team played a nice stretch earlier this season with Redd out, Mo has said he liked the temporary switch to SG and there was a nice balance between scoring and play making with Ivey and Mo as the starting backcourt, and there seemed to be more inside touches for Bogut and a better flow on offense in general with Redd on the bench. So if you can get a good, young, defensive-minded forward for Redd, why not make this trade? Defense, if you can actually believe that as a reason to hold on to Michael Redd.

The reality is that he is getting better at it, occasionally even locking his man down when he becomes sufficiently motivated (that out of 41 games so far this season there is only one game, against former Team-USA teammate Kobe, which I can reference to support this claim is one of the main criticisms of Redd). He just doesn't consistently make his defense a priority and that enables the lack of effort team-wide.

But Michael Redd does have the tools to do it, and even if it takes a painful unlearning of bad/lazy habits, one thing he has shown season to season is a dedication to improving his game. This is a man who came into the league as a 2nd round draft pick, played sparingly his first couple years, and earned his place as an NBA all-star by making progress each and every off-season. It would be shortsighted to not appreciate his history of improvement and trade him now just because the team as a whole has not yet found the chemistry and discipline necessary to play winning basketball.

Beyond all that, the other reason not to trade Redd and move Mo Williams to SG is that fact that most SG's in this league are in the 6'5"-6'7" range and Mo is generously listed at 6'1". Given that he is probably closer to 5'11" in real life and not known for shut-down defense himself, how will Mo match up defensively? So even if he finds the defensive focus that has so far eluded Michael, does he have the size to defend 2-guards? If you shift Royal Ivey over to cover for Mo, does he have the size/skill to get the job done?

Why not just hold on to Mo and Redd, keeping all their other skills on the court for you, and find a way to get them to buy into the defense/team-first/share-the-ball philosophy that is really the problem that has hamstrung this team? I think the point Larry Harris was trying to make is that this is a team with a lot of talented parts, that for whatever reason hasn't come together yet. And given the probable returns from blowing up the team, the best course is to let these guys struggle through this and figure out the path to winning basketball.

Which is actually a pretty solid conclusion to reach, unsatisfying as it may be to disgruntled fans and columnists alike.