Holy Bogut! But the Bucks still lose

What a night for the Croat/Aussie big man, Andrew Bogut. 20 points and a whopping 24 rebounds! An incredibly productive performance for the former top pick. Now the bad news: the Bucks still lost to the Seventy-Suckers.

But believe it or not, I'm not sweatin the loss too much. Sure, it would be nice to steal some wins, especially against crap teams. But, Bucks fans, take the long view. Sometimes losing lays the foundation for future winning.

Yeah, newspaper accounts will tell how the undermanned Sixers sucked it up better than the undermanned Bucks. Big deal. Look at the long view. The Sixers are undermanned because they have jettisoned their best players -- Iverson and Webber. They aren't getting them back. A win like last night's does nothing for them but harm their future draft status.

On the other hand, the Bucks are undermanned because of injuries. Thus, they are only looking at a medium term of suckitude. While wins are nice, the ultimate question is what happens in the meantime. Will the team emerge stronger, or just the same? Thus far key Bucks players are making good use of their meantime. And it looks like we just might have a stronger team on the other end, if present trends continue.

Bogut, Boykins, Bell... they can all use these games to get in the groove. Especially Bogut. These games are invaluable to his development. And he's playing like he knows it. He has 42 rebounds in the last two games. He's been marvelous.

The only thing that sucks is this stretch of games includes so many "automatic W's" that the Bucks are never going to be able to make up (Toronto at home, Philly, etc.). I wish that if we were going to have to suffer through a thin stretch like this, why couldn't it have been against top notch teams that we probably wouldn't have beaten anyway? That wouldn't have hurt so much. But losses to bottom feeders like Toronto and Philadelphia hurt bad.

But back to the good news. Bogut is finally asserting himself like nobody's business! He was Waltonesque last night. 24 rebounds! 42 in two games! That's like Bill Russell... Wilt the Stilt numbers! If he can keep this type productivity up, and carry it over when the team returns to full strength, then the stretch of suffering we have to endure will have been worth it. If Bogut finds his game during this down period, the Bucks will be a stronger team coming out of it. Maybe even championship level... but I didn't say that.