Hammond Speaks-Season Ticket holder event

[paul]

Where did I say I agree CV shouldn't be part of the team moving forward Luke? If you read my post you'll see that the first thing I said about CV was that I am worried about losing him for nothing. I just think some people need to acknowledge the possibility that neither Skiles nor Hammond want to pay him big dollars to keep him around. What's happening here isn't an accident - if Skiles or Hammond were desperate to retain CV at all costs they would have taken that sh*t deal for RJ, simple as that. Just because you or I don't agree doesn't necessarily make them wrong.

There's a hell of a lot of water to pass under the bridge between now and 2011 - I find it pretty amusing that Hammond obviously strongly considered trading RJ (we know for a fact he was on the table) this past deadline yet some on here have managed to convince themselves that he now won't be dealt no matter what until he expires because of some comments Hammond made at a dinner. We also know they were shopping Redd before he was injured, yet again some believe he'll be retained until he expires.

I'm just not going to get worked up about a situation that won't even begin to play itself out for another 6 months or so. If we lose Sessions, CV, or first and whatever else this offseason on no return through any fault of Hammond's you can bet I'll be abusing him louder than anyone, until then all comments need to be taken with a grain of salt and some fans need to take a chill pill.

[midranger]

What do people think the typical time from team blow-up to team contention is? 4 years? 3 years if everything goes perfectly? I ask because this is what Hammond wants, a blow-up in 2011 THEN a rebuild. Of course, we'll be starting at a relative advantage though, because we'll have lost much of our young talent and draft picks to keep our overpaid veterans. Let's just say, 4 years from blowup to competing.

Hammond's plan was "I'll have this team competing for more than the 8th seed in 7 short years."

At this point every Bucks fan should walk out.

[trwi7]

The fact that he's coming out and saying "we can win 40 games" is really telling of what his vision is. Even if you think that is the best you can do, you don't say that to the fans.

Especially to season ticket holders.

[paul]

To put it rather bluntly....

If you're not disgusted with John Hammond right now, you're not a Bucks fan.

Oh come on, really? If someone disagrees with you they are not allowed to call themselves a Bucks fan

Relax.

They can disagree all they want with other things, but not with this.

Hammond's plan from Day 1, "Wait three years." That is disgusting.


In fact, it'd be nice to change the title of this thread to "Phase 2: Wait until 2011."

Yep, that's why both RJ and Redd have been on the block this season - because he's not planning to make another move before 2011. I really need to start using green font.

[midranger]

Putting them on the block and doing nothing. The Hammond way.

What moves will he make with them? He saw the NBA's best offers this year and declined them all. Those offers will DECREASE next year as the economy continues to slaughter the league, the cap and the tax continue to drop, more teams focus their attention on the pending FA orgy, and RJ and Redd continue to decline. What makes you think Hammond will take a worse offer next year?

[Duncanfan]

Translation: "We didn't trade CV for anything this season as we needed him to carry us to the playoffs. But once the playoffs are over and the season comes to a close, CV can pack up his bags as we don't really see him as a long-term option on this team"

Kick in the nuts to CV.

[steger_3434]

Hammond is going to make it very tough to be a Bucks fan, and if I'm ever done with the Bucks I'll be done with the NBA.

[WEFFPIM]

Was it so hard to say 42 wins? I mean, at least aim for the positive end of things, please. This team's been treading in mediocrity since the Carter administration, at least do the fans a favor and give us hope for a winning season. 40 wins as a goal? That's the goal?

And then the biggest kick to the nutsack is the "Wait until 2011" line. You're telling your season ticket holders, who you'd like to hold onto in this fledging economy, that they should renew for the next two seasons and hope you do something in the summer of '11? What if there's a lockout in 2011? Then what? What if nothing happens in the summer of '11? Then what do you tell your season ticket holders and what few casual fans you have left?

I agree with twirl in an earlier post when he said Hammond is in way over his head. That first line about Ramon, saying one or two assets may have to go, to me is Hammond saying he underestimated or flat out misunderstood the financial structure of this team this offseason, or at least when it comes to re-signing Sessions.

And if he doesn't see CV as a part of this team next season, then you trade him at the deadline so you don't lose him for nothing.

The RJ stuff has been commented on ad nauseum so I'm not going to go into that.

[EastSideBucksFan]

Hammond's plan was "I'll have this team competing for more than the 8th seed in 7 short years."

At this point every Bucks fan should walk out.

Umm, have you looked at the standings? Hammond has this team competing for an 8th spot in his first year with two major injuries, Redd and Bogut. We're also 2 games out of the 6th spot.

At the beginning of the year if you asked most fans if they would be OK with us 2 games out of the 6th spot on March 1, they would probably take it. And were doing this without Bogut or Redd.

I agree with paul, I think you guys are making way too big of a deal out of this.

Hammond never wanted this years pick, JA shouldn't even be on this team. Hammond probably is not too interested in next years pick. I'm not too upset about using either of those assets to clear out some space. Hammond wanted to move Redd, but probably didn't get an expiring offered (which wouldn't have been accepted) and he wasnt willing to take back a Kenny Thomas or Brian Cardinal type of garbage contract/garbage player back for him. Ridnour will likely be packaged to be given away as he is an expiring next year. We already knew some assets would be given away to keep our RFA's.

Its very possible at the beginning of the year that Hammond and Skiles had already preconceived notions of not having any intentions of keeping CV and with the way Sessions played early on, they probably weren't too scared about losing him either. CV and Sessions play in conjunction to the injury situation have thrown their plans for a major loop. And they weren't willing to dump RJ in attempt to clear space to resign CV who maybe they are not still convinced is the long term answer. Without Bogut and with CV as starter we are getting absolutely killed on the boards. Reading Skiles comments about our recent wins, I truly believe he hates playing this brand of basketball and does not want to sign up for another 3-4 years of it.

I am going to be severely upset if we lose CV for nothing, but I am also going to be severely upset if this team cleared out space to resign CV, only to watch the Grizzlies give him a huge offer and we end up overpaying...or we end up losing him anyway and the assets we cleared to keep him.

I don't fault Hammond refusing to give up Sessions to get rid of RJ and I don't fault him turning down RJ for Wally.

Bucks fans, you would've been happy to let CLE turn Damon Jones, Joe Smith and Wally Sczerbiak into Mo Williams and Richard Jefferson?

Really? You would've lauded those moves? Really?

[Sigra]

To put it rather bluntly....

If you're not disgusted with John Hammond right now, you're not a Bucks fan.

[trwi7]

Bucks fans, you would've been happy to let CLE turn Damon Jones, Joe Smith and Wally Sczerbiak into Mo Williams and Richard Jefferson?

Really? You would've lauded those moves? Really?

Well let's see, it would've signaled a direction. So yes.

Honestly, why are some of you guys so concerned about what Cleveland is doing? We weren't going to be as good as they are with Mo and Jefferson, so clearing all that money off the books would've been fine with me. But instead of clearing all of that money, we took back Ridnour instead and have his $6.5 million on the books. And instead of trading RJ, we now have pretty much no money to spend and we'll have to give up one or both of Alexander/our 1st this year just to keep an overpaid RJ.

Do you guys not see why some of us have a huge problem with what Hammond is doing?

[Sigra]

At the beginning of the year if you asked most fans if they would be OK with us 2 games out of the 6th spot on March 1, they would probably take it.

Many of this people who now atack Hammond expected Bucks to be one of the worst teams in NBA this year. Yes they did, and therefore all of this is even more funny now

[paulpressey25]

It is scary though that he's flat out saying that the Bucks will need to move "an asset or two" to get space to sign Ramon. Does that mean we just dump our first round pick and that we also send Ridnour, Potsie or Gadz out JUST for space for Ramon? i.e. there is no chance in heck we'll sign CV?

I see a battle brewing here where Kohl takes a more active role in personnel matters come June. Charlie V. these last few months has provided far more highlights to the BC crowd than Bogut has the prior three years. I agree that Kohl won't go over the luxury tax, but I just can't see Kohl not meddling. He's just going to get very ticked at Hammond if CV would be pitched over the side, assuming we could resign him for the QO or only $5-$6mm a year.

[trwi7]

He's just going to get very ticked at Hammond if CV would be pitched over the side, assuming we could resign him for the QO or only $5-$6mm a year.

And can you blame him? We're pretty much trading CV, Alexander, our 1st, which will probably cost a combined $10-12 million for RJ who makes $14 million. That's insane.

[GrandAdmiralDan]

-"We will have to give up an asset or maybe two to re-sign Ramon. But since he is an Arenas designated free agent, the first two years of his contract have to be at the mid-level. We think the mid-level will be down or about $5 million. So we should be able to resign Ramon."

I hope Hammond doesn't actually believe that the average salary will be "down or about $5 million"

If he believes that, we are in trouble, because it is a fundamental misunderstanding of an important CBA concept.

That number is not tied to basketball related income like the salary cap and luxury tax threshold are.

It's a number that is already at a certain level.
The 09-10 average salary is computed by taking the total salaries paid during the 08-09 season, dividing by 13.2 times the number of teams (other than expansion teams in their first two seasons) and then adding eight percent. The number is not completely set yet, because total salaries paid during the 08-09 season will continue to rise a smidgen as guys are signed to 10 day contracts or rest of season minimum salary contracts (like Marbury, etc.) but that is only going to cause a small fluctuation. That fluctuation can only be a RISE though.

The other team was willing to trade RJ for an expiring but we were too uncomfortable trading RJ to that team. It turned our stomaches to think about it. "

As we all know (except for people living in alternate realities), this is a reference to the RJ for Wally trade with the Cavs that we turned down. If Hammond would have made that trade with another team, but turned that down just because he didn't want to give RJ to the Cavs, Hammond is an idiot.
I am fine with keeping RJ, but that isn't a valid reason.

Can we win with a core of Redd/RJ/Bogut? Yes, this year when all three were healthy for 22 games our record was 12-10.

Well, I know some people on this board wonder about europa's true identity, but the cat's out of the bag now and europa might as well come clean.

europa = John Hammond





j/k

-"In two years when the contracts of Redd, RJ and Gadz all expire, we'll really have flexibility to do things. You all saw this trade deadline how valuable expiring contracts were.

Um... we did?
The people with the expiring contracts ended up keeping them.

we really like our team from a salary flexibility standpoint in two years. With all three of those guys expiring, we'll really be able to do things."

Just wait until 2011 because we will have all sorts of options then to change our team once those three contracts expire. "

This is absurd.
If we're just sitting here waiting for those contracts to expire, then we absolutely should have traded RJ prior to this deadline.

Argh.

BTW, nice signature, midranger

Maybe the Bucks should add something on to all that lame "Ready To Rise" nonsense.

The Milwaukee Bucks:
Ready to Rise!... just wait until 2011.

[trwi7]

I'm surprised GAD was able to type a response to this. I figured he would've punched his computer after he read that Hammond didn't want to help Cleveland out.

I also like the Ready to Rise in 2011 slogan.

[GrandAdmiralDan]

Bucks fans, you would've been happy to let CLE turn Damon Jones, Joe Smith and Wally Sczerbiak into Mo Williams and Richard Jefferson?

Really? You would've lauded those moves? Really?

I wouldn't have been thrilled to have set Cleveland up like that, no. But the Bucks are in position to really care about that. We need to worry about our own team. We can be concerned about Cleveland winning a title INSTEAD of us, but we need to set ourselves up to have a reasonable chance to win a title before that should matter so much to us.

[aaprigs311]

Wow, scary comments.

[blueedwards]

Wish there would of been more questions asked. Some one should of ask what about our first rounder? Is it gonna be dealt for a future first or move down in the draft to save a few bucks or what? Whats this 40 wins with Redd and RJ and Bogut crap? Redd probably wont be ready until midseason. Not sure how Boguts back will be next season. Also only 9 players on the roster with Sessions signed and guess CV walks. How we gonna fill out the rest? Not sure if Kohl will pay CV or not and then make a trade at next season deadline for a non guaranteed contract like Stackhouse or what? Plus Redd might not be ready for a while. So Bell will be the starter at sg. Who the bench sg? Dont have money for Gill or Bogans even. lol If CV walks our starting pf is Prince with Allen backing him up? Next season is gonna be grim without CV.

[paulpressey25]

I hope Hammond doesn't actually believe that the average salary will be "down or about $5 million"

If he believes that, we are in trouble, because it is a fundamental misunderstanding of an important CBA concept.

That number is not tied to basketball related income like the salary cap and luxury tax threshold are.

This guy is in way over his head. He really is.

I think Hammond combined with Skiles can do a nice job of finding "gamer" type hustle players like Ridnour, Bogans and LRMAM (although he whiffed with his biggest asset to find a gamer in Potsie). But that's it.

But at least now we know his "plan". Wait until 2011 and we'll have flexibility to do things. In the meantime we'll lose CV, Ersan, Ridnour, probably two #1 draft picks and even his prized lotto pick in Alexander. It seems like we've got two more years to watch the Bogut/RJ/Redd/Gadzuric core here go for the Holy Grail of 40-wins and playoffs.