Howard: With Skiles, Bucks seem to get it right
Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 3:13 am
Howard climbs out of his bed to write one of his three yearly columns...and credits the wrong guy.
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The noted basketball firm of Kohl, Walter, Burr, Babcock & Steinmiller is finally off the clock. . . .
And you have nobody else to thank but the very capable John Hammond, the Milwaukee Bucks' spanking new general manager who, in just one week, rebuilt the team's brain trust into one that most can actually trust.
With the hiring of Scott Skiles, the former Michigan State star and erstwhile NBA point guard, as the team's latest anointed savior at the coaching position, Bucks owner/czar Sen. Herb Kohl, VP Ron Walter, CFO Mike Burr, director of player personnel Dave Babcock and VP of business operations John Steinmiller will not have to rely solely on themselves for what is sure to be one of the toughest transformations in the league next season.
And this is a good thing.
After sifting through Terry Porter, Terry Stotts and Larry Krystkowiak, Bucks fans should be more than satisfied with Skiles' no-nonsense approach to the game.
But therein lies the rub.
A majority of the players on his last team, the Chicago Bulls, thought that Skiles was inflexible. He didn't even blink, for instance, before telling Ben Wallace that he could not play on his team while wearing a headband. The headband was just Skiles' comfort zone, nothing more, yet it was just one tiny instance of Skiles pushing his players in the opposite direction.
And when the Bulls' record headed south, Chicago gave Skiles his walking papers.
But one man's garbage is definitely something different to another. Just ask the Denver Nuggets, who picked up George Karl after he wore out his welcome with the Bucks.
Denver was rewarded for its confidence in Karl with a post-season berth that rings of promise for the franchise's future.
That is all the Bucks' season ticket-holders want at this point.
The same can be done again in Milwaukee and would have had Kohl (I can't believe Larry Harris picked Larry The K) not opted for Krystkowiak, a coach who was just too inexperienced to handle the many different facets of the pro game.
Skiles can surely bring this franchise back to the post-season as he did with Phoenix and Chicago, but this time he needs to be more aware that this is a two-way street in the new millennium NBA.
"I'll set the tone," he said at his news conference Monday. "It's no mystery as to what I expect."
No, it is not.
And depending on his roster - and that is a huge depend - Skiles should have an infinitely better group to put on the floor. But he needs to work more closely with this team than he did with his crew in Chicago, meaning leading . . . not preaching, pushing and bullying.
Don't get me wrong, he needs to do some of that, which is one of the reasons he was hired, but if he were to start this summer by building a solid relationship with Michael Redd, his lone, certified star, then Skiles would be one giant step ahead in his quest to jump-start the Bucks. Andrew Bogut has improved greatly and should take another step forward next season, and Charlie Villanueva was obviously handcuffed by Krystkowiak. Those three should be a solid nucleus but we'll leave the rest of the roster squarely in Hammond's lap for major restructuring.
Still, the big steps have finally been taken and Milwaukee has new leaders in Hammond and Skiles, two basketball men who know more than a little bit about the NBA.
Yes, the Bucks' basketball firm got not one, but two right in the past week, and you know what. . . .
It's about time.
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