New faces, trip to China highlight Bucks camp

Tuesday, September 30, 2008 12:38 PM CDT

MILWAUKEE (AP) - The Milwaukee Bucks start their 41st season in the NBA with a revamped front office, plenty of new players and a trip to China.

Bucks owner Herb Kohl decided last spring that his team, which finished last season with its second consecutive record of less than 30 victories, desperately needed a shock.

Milwaukee hasn't been to the playoffs since the 2005-06 season and finished 26-56 last season and 28-54 in 2006-07.

Center Andrew Bogut, the first pick in the 2005 NBA draft, sensed something was going to happen.

“You knew that there's going to be some changes, but this extensively not,” Bogut said.

ADVERTISEMENT

“From the front office to the players to the janitor, everyone is new. It's good to see. Obviously with change, it becomes hard to adjust, meet new faces and all those fun things, but we got a lot of time to do that because we go to China.”

Kohl went outside the organization he's owned for the past 23 seasons to find help.

John Hammond was hired April 11 as the Bucks' general manager after spending seven seasons with the Detroit Pistons as vice president of basketball operations.

Hammond knows becoming a top-tier team in the Eastern Conference is not going to happen overnight, but he said the first step comes with having the right players.

“What we need to do is to put a competitive product on the floor,” he said. “When the fans walk out of the Bradley Center after watching us play, we want them to have a respect and appreciation for our team.”

Only eight players on the 16-man preseason roster wore a Bucks uniform last season. The key holdovers are Bogut, guards Michael Redd and Charlie Bell and forward Charlie Villanueva. Gone is forward Yi Jianlian, the team's first-round pick in 2007 who, at first, did not want to play in Milwaukee.

On Aug. 13, the Bucks retooled with guard Luke Ridnour, guard Damon Jones, who has since left the team, and guard/forward Adrian Griffin who were acquired in a three-team trade with Cleveland and Oklahoma City. As part of the deal, the Bucks sent guard Mo Williams to Cleveland and forward Desmond Mason to Oklahoma City. Joe Smith moved from Cleveland to Oklahoma City to complete the trade.

Turning out a team that plays together and owns both ends of the court falls to Scott Skiles, the Bucks' new head coach, their fourth in the last five seasons and 11th overall.

“I like the personnel,” Skiles said. “It's just a matter now of we have to move quickly, quicker than most teams because we have 20 out of 33 on the road to start the season.”

Skiles, known for his tenacity and no-nonsense approach, said he realizes the Bucks' unity and chemistry will be tested, especially early in the season.

“It's great to say, 'Hey, you got a new staff, you got new players.' We like everybody, which we do, but we got to hang in there during that stretch which means we have to be playing some pretty good basketball early on in the season.”

The team will have time for bonding when it joins the Golden State Warriors as participants in this year's NBA China Games. The preseason games are in Guangzhou on Oct. 15 and in Beijing three days later.

Skiles, a first-round draft pick of the Bucks in 1986, was coach of the Phoenix Suns earlier in his coaching career. His most recent run was with Chicago, but the Bulls fired him last Dec. 24 after the team failed to build on three straight playoff appearances and won just two of its first 12 games.

The Bucks fired general manager Larry Harris March 19 and coach Larry Krystkowiak a month later.