Will the Bucks survive November?

Can I start to worry now? Instead of building momentum toward the regular season the Bucks are starting to look like the skycycle Evel Knievel launched and promptly crashed into the Snake River. Last night they put on an extremely putrid performance losing to the Dallas Mavericks 88-71. Plain and simple, they look like a very bad basketball team.

The problems? Let me get my scroll.

Gadzuric suddenly can't make shots and isn't really rebounding. Villanueva has been half-hearted. Blake is shooting like he's TJ Ford. Greer left his game in Europe. Ilyasova doesn't look ready for prime time. Skinner looks like a smaller version of Magliore, complete with the bad shooting and turnovers. Markota is strictly NBDL material... and on and on. The only ones who have looked good at all have been Redd, David Noel, and Ruben Patterson. How will the Bucks win games with this roster?

And I don't want to hear that its just preseason, either. A team with talent and depth doesn't perform like the Bucks did the last two nights, I don't care if they're playing the Harlem Globetrotters in mid-August. Hell, its just preseason for the Bulls, too, and they look like gangbusters. They look like a young team trying to establish itself. A team who is using the preseason to develop young talent and to hone themselves for a big start. The Bucks look like vomit. Who would you rather be?

For the Bucks to have any confidence at all going into the regular season they need Mo Williams to suck it up, get over his hangnail... excuse me jammed thumb... come back and take charge of the offense. And they desperately need Charlie Villanueva to stand tall and show some heart. He must assume the role of threat 1A behind Redd. To do that he has to move his game beyond where it was last year. So far he's moving it backwards.

Photo credit: Tony Gutierrez of the Associated Press