Who do you want your offense to run through with the game on the line? Counting down from 30th to 1st (one per team), I’ve ranked the League’s go-to guys…

JOHN SALMONS, Milwaukee Bucks

For the most part, NBA teams will do one of two things when it’s high-pressure time to get a bucket: (1) High screen-and-roll with their best playmaker and their best big man, (2) Iso for their best 1-on-1 scorer. Or, if you’re the Spurs, you might run an actual play that requires more than two guys to move. But it’s those first two options that make the Bucks so tough to figure out when it came to identifying a go-to guy. Read More »

While everyone has anointed the Heat as the Eastern Conference frontrunner (I believe they are), and the Magic, Celtics and Bulls as the best bet to challenge them, one team has slowly solidified its status as a contender: the Milwaukee Bucks. They didn’t have max money to shell out on free agents, but that hasn’t stopped them from having a brilliant offseason – even if it has gone largely unnoticed. Read More »

On just about every level of basketball, a coach’s fate is largely determined by the expectations preceding him. For proof, look no further than the Atlanta Hawks and Milwaukee Bucks.

It’s been a couple of weeks since coach Mike Woodson‘s Hawks waxed Scott Skiles‘ Bucks in Games Six and Seven of their first-round playoff series, and yet today it’s Skiles whose team is considered moving in the right direction, while Woodson is unemployed and his former team faces a mini-rebuilding summer. It worked out that way because the Bucks overachieved beyond preseason expectations that they’d be one of the worst teams in the NBA, while the Hawks fell short of expectations, looking like they didn’t belong on the court with the Eastern Conference’s elite after eliminating Milwaukee.

So with Skiles’ job secure for the foreseeable future, what do the Bucks have to do this offseason to stay on the right track? Read More »

You knew it was going to happen sooner or later. No matter how old Tim Duncan gets, no matter how many steps he’s supposedly lost, no matter who else is supposed to be the go-to guy on his team, TD is going to take over games in the playoffs. In last night’s Game 2 against Dallas, kind of a must-win for San Antonio after they’d dropped the series opener, Duncan scored 10 of his 25 points in the fourth quarter — including eight in a row during a key stretch when the Mavs still had a chance — to steal Dallas’ homecourt advantage and take their heart at the same time … Read More »

Unlike this year’s NBA playoff bracket, where both 8-seeds are legitimately feisty and each conference has up to four teams that could realistically make the Finals, the NBA awards season is turning out to be pretty predictable.

Wire-to-wire favorite Dwight Howard won Defensive Player of the Year in a landslide, LeBron James is expected to similarly dominate MVP voting, Tyreke Evans is pretty much a lock for Rookie of the Year — and today Oklahoma City’s Scott Brooks was named Coach of the Year. Read More »

In turning themselves around from a Lottery team to a tough playoff out, the Milwaukee Bucks have thrived on a commitment to defense. While high-volume scorers Brandon Jennings and John Salmons currently get the headlines, it’s guys like Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Ersan Ilyasova and Kurt Thomas whose unsung efforts on the defensive end will ultimately give the Bucks its best chance at upsetting the Atlanta Hawks in the first round. Read More »

He’s not even the most famous second-round draft pick on his own team, but Luc Richard Mbah a Moute is a classic example of the crapshoot reality of the NBA Draft.

While injured All-Star Michael Redd is the Milwaukee Bucks’ signature second-round success story, Mbah a Moute is the one who can help the team make some noise in the playoffs right now. And unlike Redd, the UCLA product wasn’t even a marquee star in college; it was something of a surprise that he was drafted at all when he was taken with the 37th pick in 2008. Read More »

Even more than MVP, the Coach of the Year award needs a criteria makeover. Because while it’s kind of ridiculous in retrospect that Shaq only has one MVP when he was the most dominant game-changing basketball player in the NBA for several years, it’s patently ridiculous that Jerry Sloan was never deemed the best coach in the League over any of his two decades-plus run in Utah while continually placing his team in the title contending picture. Read More »

Dwight Howard isn’t as brand-new as you think. Though it doesn’t seem like that long ago since he took the stage on NBA Draft night ’04 with those braces shining on his teeth, and while his persona makes him seem younger than he is, Dwight is a veteran at 24 years old and now in his sixth pro season.

In other words, it’s not too early to discuss (or at least make realistic projections for) his place in history. Read More »

In case you didn’t know, Scott Skiles holds the record for most assists in an NBA game with 30. Setting the record on Dec. 30, 1990 during the Magic’s 155-116 victory over the Nuggets, Skiles broke Kevin Porter‘s previous record of 29 and went on to earn the NBA’s Most Improved Player award that season. Since then, no one has even reached 28 in the past 15 seasons. But who, if anyone, do you think has a chance to break it? Read More »