Dead to me.
That's what the Milwaukee Bucks are, now that they're losing at home to teams like Toronto and their star is dishing out Kobe-eque cheap shots while flipping off fans on his way to the locker room.
I really, really want to like pro basketball, but respect the game (and the guys who play it) less and less. The prices, the officiating, the strategy and the network's belief that there are only four or five teams worth telecasting (Lakers, Suns, Spurs,Mavs, Pistons, and Heat, in all their possible combinations) killed my taste for the league, but I always cared about the Bucks. They're the home team, for the love of God, and the guys who I lived and died for since the their inception in 1968.
It's getting easier to do without.
Sure, Michael Redd seems to be a nice guy and the rest of the roster stays out of trouble. I was all for drafting Andrew Bogut and saw him as another in the wave of foreign players coming to the NBA to show how basketball is really played.
December brought hope--a playoff spot seemed within reach after a dismal start, but then a rash of injuries dented their chances.
That's what the Milwaukee Bucks are, now that they're losing at home to teams like Toronto and their star is dishing out Kobe-eque cheap shots while flipping off fans on his way to the locker room.
I really, really want to like pro basketball, but respect the game (and the guys who play it) less and less. The prices, the officiating, the strategy and the network's belief that there are only four or five teams worth telecasting (Lakers, Suns, Spurs,Mavs, Pistons, and Heat, in all their possible combinations) killed my taste for the league, but I always cared about the Bucks. They're the home team, for the love of God, and the guys who I lived and died for since the their inception in 1968.
It's getting easier to do without.
Sure, Michael Redd seems to be a nice guy and the rest of the roster stays out of trouble. I was all for drafting Andrew Bogut and saw him as another in the wave of foreign players coming to the NBA to show how basketball is really played.
December brought hope--a playoff spot seemed within reach after a dismal start, but then a rash of injuries dented their chances.
I'd heard through the grapevine about guys beefing about Coach Terry Stotts, the offense he called, the way everything supposedly had to run through Redd, of Bogut supposedly being disappointed by his role to the point where he no longer spoke to Stotts. That was BEFORE the rash of hurts that idled four of the team's starting five.
Everyone's healthy now, and the team is in the midst of a seven game home stand--one that could've propelled them back into post-season relevance and made spring kinda fun around here.
As of this writing, though, they've lost two of the first three Bradley Center tilts and four of the last five overall. Some were gut wrenching, involving blown late leads. The one Monday night was disgusting--the Bucks never seemed into it and Stotts ripped his club afterward for a lack of first-half effort. Effort, being called into question on your home floor when you're struggling for your playoff life. How lame is that? Toss in Bogut's flagrant foul on Chris Bosh in garbage time, combined with the dirty digit he shot the crowd on his way to the showers shows me he's more Todd Day than Bob Lanier.
I've watched a lot of years of crappy Packers football in the 70's and 80's...plenty of dismal Brewers clubs in dank old County Stadium since the Pilots came in 1970, lived through decades of Wisconsin football embarrassment (as well as Don Morton's "veer offense") but always felt that the home club gave it's all. I don't remember many of those coaches ever calling out one of those squads for "effort" issues.
Stotts' post game comments Monday night sealed what I'll be doing Thursday night when the Bucks are hosting San Antonio in another late-season home clash.
Watching the NCAA.
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