By and large, Bucks are gettin the gettables

Traveling around the state, its obvious alot of sports radio commentators don't know or don't care to inform themselves about this season's Milwaukee Bucks. They are not "the same old Bucks" as I keep hearing. People who make such statements are ignorant and should shut up.

The Bucks are crawling their way back to respectability. They've played a brutal schedule with a shorthand roster and yet they are still poised to improve upon last season's win-loss mark.

What they are doing that is so satisfying to this Bucks fan is they are "getting the gettables". What I mean by that is, the first mark on a team's journey back to contention is to win games they ought to win. By and large, the Bucks are doing that.

They ought to defeat all but the top 10 teams at the Bradley Center (that's being generous... given the NBA's historic 64/36 home road winning percentage, it probably should be the top 7, but I'll leave my marker at top 10 for now). And, the Bucks should be defeating the bottom half of the NBA on the road (that might actually be too stringent, but I'm just drawing thumbnail sketches here).

By those standards, the only losses I might quarrel with this season are the Toronto home loss early on (although Toronto was at full strength at the time and arguably a top 10 team), and the Detroit loss on the road. I'm tempted to throw the Atlanta road loss in the mix, but its hard to tell what the Hawks are at the moment. They started out looking like a top 5 team, then everything bottomed out for them.

Anyway, the bottom line is the Bucks are basically coming close to "shooting par" so far this season... in my book. By that I mean, when they go on the road against a Memphis or Charlotte, they win. When they get a Chicago or a San Antonio at home, they win. That's what they need to do as a first step back, and they seem to be doing it. Props to Coach Skiles.

BTW, did anyone else hear Bucks television voice Jim Paschke utter the phrase "Skiles Effect" prior to the Chicago Bulls game on Wednesday night? Where in the world did he get that phrase from?