Miserable end to bad Bucks month

One time when we were watching The Sopranos on HBO, the GF asked me what the difference was between the mafia's "No Show" construction jobs and their "No Work" jobs. I said you get paid for both kinds of work. But the first kind you don't have to show up for, whereas the second kind you have to show up, but you don't have to do anything.

I could have used last night's Bucks game to illustrate the distinction. Last night's game was a "No Show" for Michael Redd, and a "No Work" for the rest of the Bucks.

Bogut is Buck of the Month for January

It wasn't too tough to choose the Buck of the Month for January. There were only two Bucks who even played above average basketball. With a nod to Mo Williams and Bobby Simmons who were just below average, Andrew Bogut and Charlie Bell were the only Bucks who ended the month with above average production.

Of the two, Bogut was clearly the choice for Buck of the Month. He had one of his best months in Green and Red. I would have said the same thing about Bell at the middle of the month, but he tailed off badly in the month's last nine games. Bogut, on the other hand, had only one truly bad game (last night's).

On the other hand, Michael Redd had his first negative month of the season, as did Mo Williams. Yi Jianlian was so brutal he actually cost the Bucks victories with his horrible play. Jake Voskuhl was good in a couple of games and totally horrendous in others. Somehow he was able to cost the Bucks more victories than Yi in just a fraction of the time. Dan Gadzuric was also terrible all month until garbage time last night.

As I told someone recently, the greatest indictment of Larry Harris' regime is not that he hasn't assembled any talent. Its that he has sunk a ton of money into role players who are simply awful. That has nothing to do with limited revenue, it has to do with terrible judgment.

Bucks Performance Numbers for January

Here are the production numbers for the month. The number in parenthesis is the player's percentage of above average games for the month of January. The next number is the player's Position Adjusted Win Score. It tells you how the player's statistical production correlated with victory, compared to the average statistical production at his position. The third number is the player's Win Contribution. That is a product of the player's Win Score multiplied by his percentage of the Bucks overall court minutes (240 per game). If you add up all the player's Win Contribution's a team with a zero overall Win Contribution is a .500 team, so each player's Win Contribution number indicates the player's contribution to a winning or losing team. The final number is the player's Wins Produced. That takes the formula developed by the authors of the book The Wages of Wins and translates it into the actual number of victories that can be credited to the player. It is generally 95% accurate.

Andrew Bogut (83%).....(+3.19).....(+.470).....2.65 wins

Mo Williams (60%).....(-0.10).....(-.014).....1.23 wins

Michael Redd (50%).....(-0.45).....(-.040).....0.60 wins

Charlie Bell (58%).....(+0.67).....(+.078).....1.26 wins

Bobby Simmons (62%).....(-0.22).....(-.023).....0.82 wins

Charlie Villanueva (37%).....(-1.85).....(-.148).....0.28 wins

Royal Ivey (29%).....(-2.43).....(-.292).....0.22 wins

Yi Jianlian (6%).....(-4.56).....(-.486).....(-0.45) wins

Awvee Storey (20%).....(-4.10).....(-.089).....(-0.06) wins

Michael Ruffin (38%).....(-1.70).....(-.075).....0.17 wins

Dan Gadzuric (20%).....(-7.20).....(-.070).....(-0.11) wins

Jake Voskuhl (22%).....(-14.00).....(-.119).....(-0.29) wins

Total Win Contribution %: -.808

Win Contribution Translation: 6.52 wins

Total Wins Produced: 6.32 wins

Actual Wins for January: 7 wins