Deflated Game Ball Award - Season

[paulpressey25]

Here is your chance to vote for who should get the deflated game ball for the season. Pick the one Buck who had the greatest impact on the tank. If I'm forgetting someone, let me know.

As for Drew and Hammond? They would be automatic winners, so they are not eligible to play.




Larry Sanders: Went out partying right after the opener, fought with Albanians, smoked weed all season.

Gary Neal: Thought he was a younger version of Kobe most nights and shot us out of many games. Also bonus points for getting in locker-room dust ups.

Luke Ridnour: Back bad from day one. Was never able to provide stabilizing influence at PG you would have expected.

Ersan Ilyasova: Came into camp with a broken down body perhaps from off-season play w/Turkey. Shot .00001% for the first month. Didn't exactly rise to the occasion or his contract.

Brandon Knight: Scored enough points to fool Bucks brass into thinking he could actually run the team at point guard, so they played him long minutes. May have been the best in the NBA at putting up stats that never moved the needle.

Caron Butler: For thinking he still was the Caron of 2006. He happily chucked whenever possible, while claiming he needed to be a starter getting big minutes. His chucking at critical times was key to certain early season losses.

O.J. Mayo: I forgot to add him in the original post. That says a lot. Some of us assumed he'd be an 18ppg guy and provide consistent scoring. Signing was a disaster of epic proportions.

[LUKE23]

This is a tough one. Losing Sanders definitely hurt us the most in terms of wins. Ersan played unreal bad and missed a ton games. I'm going to vote Knight though, because of the amount of minutes he played, and the fact that he is completely inept at running anything resembling a NBA offense. He completely killed all flow, and also didn't score that efficiently himself.

[ReasonablySober]

Sanders in a runaway.

[Matches Malone]

Hard not to vote for Neal or Butler as they played so poorly, they literally shot us out of games as PP mentioned. However, I think if Larry was healthy and not a dumb piece of garbage all season, we could have easily won another 6+ games and Philly would have surpassed us in the tank rank. So I think Larry gets the tank award as his off the court antics helped seal the deal for us.

[PkrsBcksGphsMqt]

Sanders both for his work on (injuries and poor play) and off (fights, drugs, and suspensions) the court. Quite the year for our "franchise" center.

[chonestown]

Where's OJ Mayo's Fat Ass?

In this poll, I mean. I'm well aware dude is at a Shoney's buffet.

[StillABucksFan]

Larry Sanders for starting the season off with problems and managing to continue to be ineffective until he was injured and suspended in a season where he was expected to be a leader of this team.

[PkrsBcksGphsMqt]

Delfino should get some sort of honor as well.

[Swan Vox]

Sanders in a runaway.

Yep. Larry really sh*t the bed this season. He pretty much turned failure
into an art-form.

[LUKE23]

It can't be overstated how much the Sanders, Ilyasova, and Wolters injuries helped us this year. If healthy, those might be our three most impactful players on wins.

[glenn]

I still like Sanders a lot, but it’s hard for me to not to see him as the symbol of this **** season. I don’t think any one of his transgressions on their own were that atrocious, but the consistency in which they occurred was dumbfounding.


If they had stuck around for the full season I may have given the nod to Butler or Neal.

Edit: Actually, I'd give Mayo runner up status.

[Thunder Muscle]

Sanders without a doubt. The guy set the tone for the season starting out playing poorly and then going all knucklehead. I think they win some of those games in November and December if they had his presence in the middle & assuming he played somewhat to last year's ability. And then obviously later in the season he got hurt again which solidified the deal. His entire season summed up the season, but I think if he plays 70+ games we're looking at quite a few more wins.

My runner-up has to be Mayo. He was flat awful in most every aspect and also gave Knight more opportunity to play SG where he is a much better fit.

[msiris]

You forgot the Mayo. This season is totally on Hammond. How can you blame anyone player when none of them were that good to begin with. Going into the season not one player averaged more than 15 ppg a season. What did people expect?

[raferfenix]

How can it not be Larry?

It makes sense that our team was absolutely rudderless and utterly demoralized after hearing about how Sanders was going to be the team leader and then watching him get a huge new deal which he didn't even pretend to try and live up to this season.

[[MIKE C]]

Neal, Butler, and Ridnour were all amazing tank commanders, but not having Sanders on the floor for a good chunk of the season is the main reason for all the losses, and the main reason why we won't be in this position next year.

[Ron Swanson]

Symbolically, the answer is Larry. His bar fight, subsequent injuries, and now suspension are going to be the lasting images of this season when we look back on it.

But on-the-court wise? How is OJ Mayo and his fat, bloated $24 million contract not an option?

[tski1972]

I looked back on my pre-season prediction and saw this..

Bucks Disappointment: Larry Sanders (too many T's, is a headcase)

God bless Larry.

[BigDee]

Clear cut winner is Larry.

[msiris]

This is a tough one. Losing Sanders definitely hurt us the most in terms of wins. Ersan played unreal bad and missed a ton games. I'm going to vote Knight though, because of the amount of minutes he played, and the fact that he is completely inept at running anything resembling a NBA offense. He completely killed all flow, and also didn't score that efficiently himself.

And if everything stays the same he will get extended.

[LedZepp007]

Yeah Mayo needs to be an option. It's bad that there are several very valid choices here lol. I'm going with Larry. Short of killing a man I'm not sure if he could have **** this year up any worse.