It’s probably safe to say that the Milwaukee Bucks didn’t want it to go down like this. Andrew Bogut, the franchise’s number one overall draft pick of seven years ago, was the long-term anchor in the middle of the lineup; the piece to build a team around. As Bogut developed in the league to where he is now — nearly a double-double in points and rebounds as career averages as well as the reputation for being one of the league’s best defensive centers — he was this initial cornerstone the Bucks needed to start drafting the rest of the blueprint, except when he wasn’t.
Crippling, freak, excruciating-to-watch injuries have seemed to hamper Bogut again and again; his currently fractured ankle will likely keep him on Golden State’s sidelines for the good part of the rest of the season. It simply got to the point where, watching the Bucks, you got used to him not being there. Milwaukee’s constant ceiling was “When Bogut comes back healthy,” sort of a purgatory inside the purgatory that the Bucks still find themselves in (more on that in a moment) on a franchise-level scale. Giving up on Bogut couldn’t have been an easy path to choose, but in a literal (for the street-clothed center) and figurative sense, the scars were just too numerous, too obvious to ignore any longer. At the least, it removes the safety net and blockade of the idea that the Bucks are only being held back by a Bogut injury. It should also be quickly mentioned that with this trade Milwaukee washed its hands of Stephen Jackson, who, in hindsight, never once looked like a good idea, but compared to Milwaukee’s previous version of Scoring Swingman Who Didn’t Work Out, Corey Maggette, Jackson admittedly did seem like an upgrade at the time. Alas.
This brings us to Monta Ellis, the centerpiece of the package Milwaukee receives in return that also includes another promising athletic young forward in Ekpe Udoh to add to the rotation and Kwame Brown, who was playing serviceable minutes before his season-ending chest injury in January. When Ellis is on one of his scoring binges — which he seemingly sets out to purge from his fingertips on a nightly basis — his acrobatic grace and scoring effortlessness can almost not be topped in the league in terms of sheer marvel. While his many detractors claim he brings little else to a team (making the union of Ellis and Bucks coach Scott Skiles something other than an ideal fit), he does bring that electricity from Golden State, where the Warriors were often appointment League Pass material late at night. Nobody said Ellis could lead a title team, but he sure as led fun, captivating ones.
Paired with like-minded point guard Brandon Jennings in the backcourt and no, I’m not necessarily sure how it works on paper, but it changes the Bucks fundamentally for the present. The future of Jennings, or really anyone else, since the lynchpin Bogut is gone, in Milwaukee is uncertain; right now, though, they’re an awesome basketball experiment. As mentioned above, this doesn’t change much on a grander scale: the Bucks are still in limbo, in that good, not bad, not bad enough, not good enough spot that no team wants to be in in this league. Ellis will put them on the Eastern Conference’s radar concerning the eighth seed in the playoffs, but that’s about the limit.
That isn’t the point though. With Skiles as coach, and being in a Midwestern city, the Bucks were the blue-collar, working to get above their means defensive-minded team with no luck. Jennings has brought flair and attitude and improvement this year, but probably with rushed, unrealistic expectations after the postseason run a few seasons back. Bringing in Monta Ellis makes the dichotomy of what the Bucks were (what Skiles will still try to mold them to be) and what they are now — basically a west coast team without a coast — even greater. And honestly, why not? The Bucks were done with Bogut and, further, had an offer to get a scoring dynamo and a couple other solid players in return for the currently injured center and a guy in Jackson they desperately wanted to move.
The Jennings and Ellis-led Bucks, if nothing else, will be appointment viewing for people with an interest in crazy basketball ideas brought to life. The Bucks will be small, yet springy and athletic with Ersan Ilyasova, Udoh, Larry Sanders and Luc Mbah a Moute leading the cast of forwards. They’ll be undersized in that aforementioned backcourt, but who knows what kind of trouble could be stirred up with Ellis and Jennings if they can find a way to rejuvenate one another, rather than playing on separate islands and going shot for shot.
Make no mistake, the Bucks remain in NBA purgatory, the future is as unclear as it has ever been, but this change is a radical one and a potentially highly entertaining one for someone watching the Bucks on a nightly basis, rather than simply the big, bleak picture of a small market team in the NBA. This way the race for the eighth spot is going to be a new adventure rather than yet another holding pattern for something that may never have came.
Griffin Gotta contributes to The Hoop Doctors and is a co-managing editor of Straight Outta Vancouver. The story arcs and infinite weirdness of the NBA are addictions he deals with every day. Email him at griffingotta at gmail dot com.
