samwise

While I am upset the guy is going to miss 50 games next year, I am not totally shocked by this. PED's, human growth hormone, etc., are a far more prevalent part of professional athletics than we as fans like to think. While it is a little out of the ordinary that such a prominent player got caught, this is never going away. This time it just happened to fall on our guy. It hurts but I am not shocked. When I was younger I believed that athletics were a pure proving ground. Yeah I was naive, but I thought that no matter where you came from, how much money you had, or the color of your skin, it all went out the window when you walked in between the lines. Commitment, courage, and desire paved the path to winning. Games were played, and won, by the pure of heart and the pure of spirit. But the fact of the matter is baseball, football, basketball, and any other sport, can no longer be considered games. They are Professional Athletics, the game is not won by the hardest worker, or even the most talented, it is won by the best manipulator. The man who works the game outside of the game. Money, power, and drugs run the show. I guess I always knew this, but I stashed it away as I watched my heroes chase destiny and glory. It would never be my golden idols that would fall. But, I have seen my idols (Braun, Favre) prove to be false. Was it their fault, or really, was it mine? My fault for becoming invested in them? My fault for believing that something greater than an athletic competition was taking place? It is not their fault, it's mine. I feel like a chump, a stooge, a sucker, for buying what Professional Athletics are selling. They are selling garbage ladies and gentlemen, and I don't want any more of it. End Lament.

Holding on to black metal....... black metal

I sat and looked at that post for 5 minutes and came to the conclusion that, constantly rebuilding, and never rebuilding, are the same thing. No matter what way you say it, the Bucks are there.

I agree that it was not a totally fair question but it speaks to the point I want to make. Many of the people upset with the trade, whether on Brewerfan, realgm, or at the Village Pub, seem to be more upset with previous moves Hammond made, specifically, Maggette, Salmons, and Gooden, then with this trade. /The past is the past and moving forward is the only option. The vitriol being launched at the Bucks, specifically John Hammond, is for simply spinning their wheels, constantly rebuilding, always on the fringe, and never being true contenders. I agree with all of these statements. But with Salmons and Maggette this team was never going to be a true contender, they really were not rebuilding, and they were stuck in neutral. (Some would say park, and after last year, some would say moving in reverse). So you make the most out of what you have. You turn 2 overpaid players, while moving back in a mediocre draft 9 spots, into a quality backup PG (Udrih), a starting SF (Jax), another backup PG (Livingston), and still get a potentially solid SF in the draft. The money is essentially a wash (actually we duck Salmons last year) and with a new CBA there may be a 15-20% salary reduction on each contract as well as the glorious Alan Houston clause where we can remove someone's contract from the salary cap (potentially Jax or Gooden). My stance, we are a better team on the floor today than yesterday, in no way was our future compromised (I never saw anything special in Burks, Fredette, Thompson), and we still got a good player in the draft. At worst this was a lateral move and in no way deserves to be trashed. Trash the previous moves all you want but this trade, in this moment, was a good deal. For the record, I believe Harris is a beast. Paul Pierce 2.0. Just my opinion.

A question to those who did not like the trade. Are the Milwaukee Bucks a better basketball team today then they were Thursday morning?

On the surface I can understand where you are coming from but I look at this another way. 1. The team last year was a sinking ship and there was no way we could go into next year with the two turds, Salmon and Maggette, on the same team. So to remove ourselves from Maggette's 9/year for 2 years and Salmons 8/year for 3 we had to do something like move back in the draft. 2. Moving back in this draft is not a mortal sin by any stretch. There is a good chance you get the same level of player at 19 that you would get at ten, or even 7 for that matter. 3. Jackson is an old guy on a big contract, but to remove Salmons and Maggette the money needed to match up and Jackson's contract did that. Udrih won't light the world on fire, but will provide back up to Jennings (if he is even on the team by the end of the night) and provided a salary filler. In the end this was a moldy cheese for moldy cheese trade. Hopefully the bucks can trim some of the mold and make something edible.

Just about flipped over my desk when I heard this. Captain Jack is my favorite player and with him and T-Plush we will be treated to a full year of awesome soundbites. http://cdn1.sbnation.com/imported_assets/349143/jackson_front_flat-thumb-400x400-10244.jpg

Is it 2002?

See Yeasayer.

Nice article on si.com. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/frank_hughes/07/15/bucks/index.html?eref=sihp

I don't think that is the reasoning. I think guys like RJ and Pierce are opting out is because of the upcoming new CBA. The new CBA will shrink the cap and limit the amount of years players will get. A guy like Pierce is willing to give up his 21.5 of 1 year to get a longer deal that will pay him more over the long run. Something like 3 years 35 million. If you are RJ and you are looking at 28 million remaining on 2 years, doesn't it make sense to opt out now, get a 4 year 36 million dollar contract? The money will not be there in 2 years. It is there now. Things will be very different once the new CBA kicks in. Stern is going to kill the players in negotiations. He will get lower salaries and fewer guaranteed years. Why? For many teams the current business model loses money. Trying to attract investors to a business model that loses money (I know these are very very very wealthy people, but no one enjoys losing money) is a difficult task.

I want to start a full year rotisserie league but I want to know if anyone would be interested. Let me know by posting in this thread. We can have the draft sometime later next week.

Up 2-0 thirty minutes in.

This will never happen. Period. There was an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about this, it is summarized here in another article. "According to the Chronicle story, the NCAA reported that median loss for an upper-division college baseball program was approximately $700,000. And while approximately half of the major college baseball programs are based in cold weather cities, the NCAA still starts the season on February 1 with every team forced to play 56 games within three months. A team from a cold weather climate begins its season on the road, then typically returns home to play in front of less than a thousand fans. Only ten percent of college baseball programs draw more than 2,000 fans a game, and approximately half of the college baseball season overlaps with college basketball. Worse yet, teams are allowed only 11.7 baseball scholarships to disburse across a 30 (and soon to be 27) man roster. The Chronicle story stated that some schools make do with less. And the colleges still contend with major league player drafts. The major league clubs draft students not only out of high school and community colleges; they also draft college juniors and seniors." As for your friends letter, the people at Madison will not shed a tear about his decision not to attend. (Was he accepted?) Especially if his choice of college is decided by if a school has a baseball team or not.

I am leaning towards waiting one more month and then putting in notice that I am going to leave. That will give them a one month notice and allow me to have a little extra money in case they do show me the door immediatly. I was thinking about it this morning and I realized that I really do need the checks in the coming weeks.