By Jake McCormick
Wisconsin sports fans have been riddled with the getting the H1N1, battery acid to the face, and a bee sting.
The Packers loss was enexpectedly brutal, but it’s treatable with a dose of the offseason and a good draft.
The loss of Wisconsin Badger basketball’s best player, Jon Leuer, for potentially the rest of the season has crippled the Badgers’ hopes for a Big Ten title and a deep tournament run, barring major reconstructive surgery of an already small lineup.
That leaves us with the bee sting that elicits a “meh” shoulder shrug when you notice it’s happened, because you’ve had more than a few of them before: Milwaukee Buck Michael Redd’s potentially career-ending left knee injury.
Redd was the white star on a team of mostly black holes over the past half decade, but it looks more and more clear that his time in Milwaukee is coming to a close, whether on his own, his knee’s, or the team’s terms. Most box scores would tell a story of Redd’s unfortunate detriment to Milwaukee over the 2009-10 season, but some advanced statistics can show the effect he had on the overall structure of the team. (Courtesy of 82games.com)
Unlike baseball and even football, basketball player production and value can’t be completely justified by “advanced” statistics. Zach Randolph is averaging a 20/10, but only Tom Izzo would take him over Chris Bosh, who is putting up very similar numbers. However, Redd’s 2009-10 production, when “healthy”, was well below his career numbers and had a negative effect on the Bucks offense and defense, including the play of Brandon Jennings.
Let’s start simple: the Bucks were 6-12 with Redd on the court, and he would be the first to point out that he has not been 100% at all this season. The team is 9-8 without him, but most of those wins came at the beginning of the season when Jennings got off to a scorching start against relatively weak opponents. Jennings has been thinking with the ball too much since Redd has seen a spike in minutes; part of that can be attributed to Jennings’ hesitancy. With Redd out, I would expect the team to get back to the pick-and-roll with Andrew Bogut that was working so well at the start of the year.
Looking a little deeper into the stat book, specifically the +/-, Redd is last on the Bucks in net team points when he’s on the floor, with an even -100. He also has the lowest points/team possession while he’s on the court (.94 on offense).
A lot of Redd’s drop off in production can be attributed to getting back into basketball shape and he only logged 28% of the team’s total minutes on the year, but so far he’s made the man replacing him look like a better option at the two. Charlie Bell is most likely to benefit from increased minutes throughout the rest of the season, and he has posted a +10 and 1.02 offensive team points per possession while on the court for 49% of the team’s total minutes; all better than Redd.
Although it sounds pretty laughable that Bell would be better than Redd for Milwaukee’s run at the playoffs, a look at the various lineups coach Scott Skiles has used this year supports that notion to some degree. The only lineup with Redd that had a positive +/- was without, and it was only +3:
At this point, Carlos Delfino is NOT an option anywhere on the court, and the likeliest lineup from tonight on out will feature Jennings, Bell, Mbah a Moute, Ilyasova and Bogut. Coincidentally, that’s the only one not shown above.
When Redd began to start on a regular basis, Bucks fans could only dream of the speedy Jennings dishing out to Redd for a three, pick and rolling with Bogut, or just pulling up for a shot. However, the chemistry with Redd never materialized as the Bucks continued to move further from the .500 mark after an 8-3 start.
Now Milwaukee is back to the lineup that was largely responsible for that start, and more pressure falls on Jennings and Bogut to maintain a consistent relationship if the Bucks want to even sniff the postseason. We’ll continue to see how this team does Redd-less as they continue their six game, 10 day road trip against Portland tonight.