Milwaukee Bucks

Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports I believe everyone in the state of Wisconsin would agree that the No. 1 person the Milwaukee Bucks should hire as their head coach is Stan Van Gundy. Unfortunately, Van Gundy is one of the highest sought after free agent coaches on the market, which means Milwaukee most likely does not stand a chance. Should the Bucks look at another top candidate, such as Avery Johnson, to lead the team in the ensuing years? Let’s be honest, Van Gundy would be quite the catch. His track record is unbelievable and he could pull in some talented players to a city that no one wants to play in. However, Van Gundy wants to go to a top contender where he can win an NBA Championship, and Milwaukee will simply not be that place next year. In fact, there is a good chance the Bucks will lose three of their stars in the offseason. There are still several valuable coaching candidates available besides Van Gundy. Johnson is the quickest head coach to reach 150 career wins, which only took him 191 games to accomplish. He also has a 254-186 career record in the regular season, but drops off to 23-24 in the playoffs. Regardless of his postseason record, he is capable of getting the most out of his players. Even though Johnson has had the privilege of coaching some talented players, he also has shown the ability to coach up players that need help. He likes to utilize an aggressive style of basketball, something that would fit perfectly in Milwaukee. The Bucks have shown in the past that when they play fast pace, aggressive basketball, they can hang with the best of them. It is hard to say if Johnson would even accept the job if he were offered the position in Milwaukee. The fact is he is another sought after coach that will be looking for a quick way to an NBA Championship opposed to a fixer-upper, which the Bucks clearly are. With that being said, Milwaukee would be foolish not to even interview him to see what his thought process is on joining the organization. Michael Terrill is a Senior Writer for Rant Sports. Follow him on Twitter @MichaelTerrill, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.

Flynn Robinson, a former Milwaukee Bucks All-Star who was on the 1971-1972 Lakers team that won Los Angeles its first NBA title, has died at age 72.

Sanders earns trip to Team USA Vegas campHe may have been overlooked in the Most Improved and Defensive Player of the Year voting and outright screwed in the all-defensive balloting, but Larry Sanders hasn't been completely overlooked. Just found out I got selected to workout/tryout for the USA Basketball team this summer! Such and amazing honor,Glory be to God! #Olympics — Nappy Gilmore(@LarrySanders) May 22, 2013 The Team USA Select camp runs from July 22-25 in Vegas, but it bears repeating that there's a big difference between going to the Select camp and making the real Team USA. Example: last year's Select team included DeJuan Blair and Taj Gibson. Nice players, sure, but not guys who feel very...Olympic. So while we probably shouldn't expect Larry to be with Team USA at the 2014 World Cup in Spain or 2016 Olympics in Rio, it's still nice recognition for the Bucks' MVP and a complete 180 from his disappointing performance the last time he was in Vegas. Sanders' selection marks the first time a Buck has been involved in the Team USA camp since Michael Redd was a bit player in the 2008 Olympic Gold Medal squad, though Brandon Jennings did make headlines back in 2010 when he complained that his exclusion from the roster was linked to his Under Armour endorsement not going over well with the Nike demigods who supposedly run USA Basketball. Whatever. Jennings not surprisingly looks to have missed out once again, with Marc Stein reporting that Anthony Davis, Ryan Anderson, John Wall, Bradley Beal, Harrison Barnes, Klay Thompson, Chandler Parsons and Kawhi Leonard are among the others to earn an invite. Bucks.com: More draft coverageFor more of your draft fix, Bucks.com has Jim Paschke's latest video features on Glen Rice Jr. and explosive Miami point guard Shane Larkin. SBNation.com: NBA coaching search matrix clarifies candidate situationWho's interviewing where? Seth Pollack breaks it down in simplest terms. Bucksketball: Word clouding the 12/13 seasonMitch Vomhof gets, ah, cloudy with his review of the Bucks' season. Canis Hoopus: DrafttasticOur Timberwolves sister site has a great analytical series on the draft, utilizing 30 years of win share data to project pro performance based on collegiate productivity. There are too many invisible variables outside of the stats to make any system like this fool-proof, but it's another interesting angle from which to view the latest crop of young players.

Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports Milwaukee Bucks center Larry Sanders will follow up his terrific 2012-13 NBA season with an invite to the USA Basketball Select Team camp this summer in Las Vegas. Sanders tweeted the following after he found out he was one of 25 players who got invited: “Just found out I got selected to work out/try out for the USA Basketball Team this summer! Such an amazing honor. Glory be to God.” The 24-year-old made quite the stride in his third season in the NBA. Sanders improved greatly in all facets on offense and defense. In fact, he finished third in the NBA Most Improved Player voting behind Paul George and Greivis Vasquez. George deserved the honor after his outstanding season, but to be perfectly honest, Sanders appeared to be the more improved player of the two. He went from being completely non-existent to being a blocking machine that opposing team’s had to game plan around. In fact, his 2.83 blocks per game ranked second in the league behind only Serge Ibaka. Sanders also went from a big man on the court that had no purpose to someone with a very bright future in Milwaukee. The Florida native will have a great opportunity to show how talented he truly is when he appears in the Select Team camp. He will undergo three days of training and exercise that will be topped off with a USA Basketball Showcase game on July 25. This is a chance for him to be a part of something special when Team USA plays in the 2014 FIBA World Cup in Spain and 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Sanders averaged 9.8 points, 9.5 rebounds, 1.2 assists, 2.8 blocks and 27.3 minutes per game in 71 contests (55 starts).  That is quite the step up from his 3.6 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game during the 2011-12 season.

Mitch Vomhof back to take a look at all of the articles written on Bucksketball.com this season and break down the words we used. Man, I write “just” like, constantly. – JS If we’re being honest, the Bucks aren’t having the most exciting off season. JJ Redick probably won’t be back, the team was happy just to meet with Jerry Sloan, and the rest of the coaching search hasn’t exactly titillated. The Bucks even continued their legacy of being just good enough to remain in the middle of the draft order, so we can’t even get excited about that. But we here at Bucksketball don’t like to dwell on the negatives. So instead of talking about tanking to get Andrew Wiggins next year or writing sad acoustic love songs to Tobias Harris, we decided to reflect on the past season on the site using the most current of 2011 internet trends: a word cloud! We took every article we posted about the Bucks during the 2012-2013 NBA season and turned it into a colorful, informative look at the most relevant topics of the year: The biggest player name, unsurprisingly, belongs to Brandon Jennings. We saw the good (a game-winning shot on the first night of the season), the bad (constant rumors that he wanted out of Milwaukee), and the surprising (the one magical week after the Redick trade that he turned into an assist machine). With decisions looming for the franchise on his restricted free agency, it’s no surprise that Jennings was a consistent topic of discussion. Will he stay? Will he go? Who knows! Will he be disgruntled if he stays? Probably! Monta Ellis and LARRY SANDERS! come in tied for second in our Most Talked About Bucks category. Both gave us good moments (fourth-quarter theatrics and Larry Blocks, respectively) and bad moments (Monta’s 1-14 near-record setting game on December 19, Larry’s 3 ejections in 6 games, and their alleged near-fight in the locker room during the playoffs.  Between those three players, we had nearly endless topics of discussion this year, and that’s not even mentioning Tobias Harris and JJ Redick! *a tiny tear rolls down my cheek* On the coaching end, Scott Skiles’ name is significantly larger than Jim Boylan’s, despite the fact that Boylan coached 50 games to Skiles’ 32. That proportion leads us to calculate that Skiles was 127% more interesting to talk about than his successor this year (accuracy of this math is still unverified). In other words, Jim isn’t the most interesting man in the world. If he were, maybe he would still be coaching this team. Word clouds are also useful, as it turns out, to describe what happened this year. Let’s ask the cloud how Ersan Illyasova did this year: “Illyasova”, “long”, “made”, “pretty”, and “three” – why yes, Ersan did make many long, pretty threes this year! Word Cloud, what do you think about Luc Richard Mbah a Moute? “Moute ball, know defense”. One could take issue with “Moute ball” as he didn’t ball especially hard this year, but you have to agree that he knows defense! The wise Word Cloud is right again! How about Larry Sanders, oh wise Oracle of Words? There’s a lot going on in this one – “much better” is encouraging, “good” and “playing” are both accurate, and “rim” even finds its was into the picture. All we need is “protect”, “defense”, and an exclamation point to round out the picture. Let’s take one more look, this time at Mike Dunleavy: “Dunleavey played well.” That about sums it up. I’ll miss you, Mike. There are some more gems to be found in the cloud – “Dalembert shooting” is guaranteed to make you shudder, while the caveman-esque “Skiles like” seems like a sentiment that wasn’t said much in the team huddle this season. Finally, the implications of “coach Redick” are simultaneously terrifying and intriguing. Hey – if you can’t be good, at least be interesting, right? Stay interesting, Bucks. Follow Mitch on Twitter.

When the excitement of the 2013 NBA Draft Lottery ended on Tuesday night, Milwaukee Bucks fans were once again left to ponder their team's placement in the middle of the NBA pack. General manager John Hammond has somehow managed to pull off a rare triple play for his team heading into the draft: no lottery pick, no playoff wins and no head coach. Now the only one of those things that Hammond will address this summer is irritating me. John Hammond works really hard. He is a good man. That's what he wants us to say, and he told us so in his introductory press conference (around the 8:37 mark). He's a nice guy who doesn't mind being known as a nice guy, and I think it shows. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but at a critical juncture where the perception of serious culture change is so important to a broken down fan base on the brink of a revolt, his steady approach has left me feeling like the Milwaukee Bucks are still squarely in the middle of the pack, even on something as basic as a coaching search. It's not just the fact that the top two candidates -- Jerry Sloan and Stan Van Gundy -- turned Hammond and the Bucks down without even making a formal interview. And it's not that Milwaukee's GM said he was "honored" that an out-of-work head coach known to be interested in returning to the NBA (Sloan) was gracious enough to welcome him to a farm to chat casually about a legitimate NBA job opening. That stuff was bound to happen. Hammond hasn't made Milwaukee a prime destination for the cream of any NBA crop. Instead, it's the timing of the recent failures that really bothers me. When the Bucks were quietly eliminated from the postseason by LeBron James and Miami Heat, Hammond moved quickly to wipe Jim Boylan out of the picture for 2013-14 and beyond. I would have asked our GM to give himself a round of applause for making that move, but I assumed at the time that he was still sitting on his hands. Recall that he was too nice to call Boylan an interim coach, despite the obvious reality of the situation. I truly believe that he wanted to give Boylan a full vote of confidence. Hammond probably thought there was a universe where things could work out just right and everybody could stay. It's the same optimistic impulse that led him to give big second chances to failed team leaders like Corey Maggette, John Salmons, Drew Gooden, Stephen Jackson and Monta Ellis. It's why the Bucks are still feel like they're fighting for scraps that other teams discard. I don't think he ever even considered starting the real coaching search in January, like he should have, because that's a bit more cutthroat than most nice guys are willing to be. The moment Skiles walked away from the team on Jan. 8 -- or at least by the time Hammond received a three-year extension on Jan. 24 -- the Bucks' GM should have been finalizing his list together and working the back channels with NBA agents to gauge the interest of various coaching candidates. The largely unfortunate informal conversations with unemployed coaches like Stan Van Gundy, Jerry Sloan and Nate McMillan should have taken place months ago. The so-called "top targets" should have been crossed off the list long before the Heat swept the Bucks out of the playoffs. It would have saved the team a bit of public embarrassment, and it could have helped the front office focus on finding the best young assistant (from current candidates Kelvin Sampson, J.B. Bickerstaff and Steve Clifford) to target with an offer they would not be able to refuse. Instead, it feels like the process has stalled and the franchise is scrambling to react to bad news. They're now cobbling together a longer list of secondary candidates that other teams don't want (Larry Drew and perhaps Lionel Hollins). It's become yet another layer of frustrating inertia for fans to deal with. At a moment in Bucks history where perception feels like reality, Hammond and Milwaukee are stuck in the middle without a clear plan to communicate to

Last year Bucks center Larry Sanders was playing in the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, trying to show he belonged in the league.

Spruce Derden – USA Today Sports Images The Milwaukee Bucks made the 2013 NBA Playoffs, but that’s about the only positive thing that can be said about their postseason and, really, their season as a whole. Their season was largely a power struggle between head coaches, Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis that culminated in falling backwards into the playoffs and getting swept in the first round. The Bucks are likely going to be cleaning house this off-season in more than one way. Jennings, Ellis and J.J. Redick will all likely be going into the free agent market and fleeing for other destinations. Milwaukee also has a vacancy at their head coaching position which they are going to be trying to fill this summer. According to reports, the Bucks are going to be swinging for the fences as current Memphis Grizzlies head coach Lionel Hollins is on their radar and at the top of the list. Hollins’ contract runs up at the end of this season and the Bucks are looking to lure him away from the Grizzlies, who are still playing in the playoffs as of right now. There’s no telling whether Hollins would want to leave Memphis, if Memphis will offer him enough money, or if he would even want to take a job in Milwaukee. Hypothetically speaking, though, if Hollins were to become the next head coach of the Bucks, it would be fantastic to see the work he could do with Larry Sanders. Hollins is currently coaching two elite big men in Memphis: Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph. Randolph is an offensive threat and an elite rebounder. Gasol is the Defensive Player of the Year and a solid rebounder as well. Part of that is their ability, but they also benefit from Hollins’ coaching as Hollins has also learned from them. If Hollins were to come to Milwaukee, he would be able to help shape and form one of the brightest young frontcourt players in the game in Sanders. Sanders is already an elite shot-blocker and rebounder, but his skills and game still need honing. Hollins is the perfect guy to help him grow in that regard. No one knows if it will actually happen, but Sanders could be a Defensive Player of the Year real soon if he were under the tutelage of Hollins. Cody Williams is a Senior Writer with Rant Sports. Follow Cody on Twitter @TheSizzle20 and like his Facebook page.

The Milwaukee Bucks are going to try to make Lionel Hollins their next head coach. Can’t knock the hustle. (Photo: Yahoo! Sports) The Milwaukee Bucks coaching search hasn’t been short on its big names.  Though proven coaches like Stan Van Gundy and Jerry Sloan have not reacted favorably to overtures, that hasn’t stopped John Hammond and company from reaching out to others. Per Kurt Helin of NBC Sports, as first reported by Gery Woelfel of the Racine Journal-Times: If you believe some insightful NBA officials, it’s simply because the Bucks are playing the waiting game. They are biding their time until the Memphis Grizzlies’ season ends and they can talk to Grizzlies free-agent in-waiting coach Lionel Hollins. Awww. Hollins has amassed a 196-155 record since taking over as Grizzlies coach midway through the 08-09 season, with playoff appearances in the past three seasons.  He currently has his team battling for a spot in something other than the 2nd round The Finals.  It’s hard to believe that he’d be willing to come take over a Bucks organization after building up such a strong coaching rapport. How is this even possible, you might ask.  Well, Hollins is a free-agent coach after this Grizzlies season.  While it is widely expected that Memphis’ front-office will make a push to retain their coach, there is a tiny chance that Hollins hits the open market this offseason and, historically, the Bucks have not been adverse to paying coaches a lot of money to coach in Milwaukee. The Bucks have also discussed the coaching position with current and/or ex-Hawks coach Larry Drew, former Blazers and Sonics coach Nate McMillan, assistant coach Steve Clifford (Lakers), and both Kelvin Sampson and J.B. Bickerstaff (Rockets).

There hasn't been much action on the Milwaukee Bucks' coaching search front since the news broke that Atlanta Hawks head coach Larry Drew would interview for the position, which he did last Monday. According to a report from Gery Woelfel of the Racine Journal Times, however, Drew isn't the only current head coach the Bucks might be interested in poaching: If you believe some insightful NBA officials, it’s simply because the Bucks are playing the waiting game. They are biding their time until the Memphis Grizzlies’ season ends and they can talk to Grizzlies free-agent in-waiting coach Lionel Hollins. Hollins was hired back in 2008 as an assistant under newly-installed Bucks head coach Scott Skiles. Hollins had previously served as an assistant in Phoenix and interim head coach with the Grizzlies on two separate occasions. He didn't stay in Milwaukee for long, signing an agreement with the Grizzlies in January, 2009 to replace fired head coach Marc Iavaroni. In four-plus years as head coach in Memphis, Hollins has a 196-155 (.558) record. His teams have been very good the last two seasons, winning 41 games in the lockout-shortened 2011-2012 season and 56 this past year. The Grizzlies have improved dramatically on defense each year of his tenure, from 21st in defensive rating the year he took over to 19th, 9th, 7th, and finally 2nd in 2012-2013. Plenty of credit for that improvement should go to the emergence of Marc Gasol as one of the top defensive (and overall) centers in the game, as well as the presence of lockdown perimeter defender Tony Allen. PG Mike Conley has developed into a terrific player and the Rudy Gay trade pulled off by Memphis' new management looks brilliant. Hollins hasn't exactly had to work magic to get where he is--he's got a very, very good roster to work with. Like Drew, Hollins has no contract with Memphis beyond this season. Considering his success, he'll be a highly sought-after coach for many teams. So why would the Bucks, who were recently turned down by Jerry Sloan because they were too far from contending, have a shot at Hollins? Money, for starters. Herb Kohl may not entertain heavy luxury tax penalties from the roster, but he's shown a willingness to lure premier coaches from glitzier markets with generous contracts, including Mike Dunleavy Sr. and George Karl. Woelfel says that some NBA officials also believe Hollins has interest in the Milwaukee job due to his former tenure there and a roster that matches his style. Larry Sanders might not be Marc Gasol, but he's an emerging defensive presence and has lots of room to grow. Luc Mbah a Moute is also available as a perimeter stopper to emulate Allen. If Hollins is interested in building the team around a defensive mindset, he could have free reign in Milwaukee, which has plenty of financial and roster flexibility beyond this season. The calls will surely come quick when Hollins' playoff run with Memphis comes to and end, but don't expect the Grizzlies to let him go easy. The front office wasn't prepared to commit with an extension before or during the season, but if they judge him to be a crucial part of the team's improvement there's little doubt the money will be there.