The NBA wants to expand to Europe. Jason Kidd may be going to Dallas. Shaq is with Phoenix, Pau Gasol with Kobe.
The league has found ways to make itself appealing at the all-star break.
Then there are the Milwaukee Bucks, lost in their own town.
"This is where amazing happens," is how the public-address announcer, as usual, earnestly tried to sell the Bradley Center to the church-quiet crowd that half-filled the building just before tip-off Wednesday night
Then the sound of crickets chirping was played as the New Orleans Hornets' starting lineup was introduced.
The Bucks have got to know that this little dig at the visitors backfires, don't they?
But there was some truth in the hype, the part about 40 years of tradition, genuinely great tradition. You should have been there at the Arena or even the Bradley Center for the 2001 run at the Finals. It was goose-bump-raising stuff that captivated the city.
This used to be a very good and worthwhile franchise, a real community asset, but one that has so badly lost its way.
It's time to start getting it back before no one cares anymore.
So what to do?
The Bucks can fire another inexperienced general manager and then a fifth coach in six years. They can try to dump the malcontents who have quit on the coach, but good luck there.
Even if they implode the roster by the trading deadline, clean out the front office and change coaches, it won't matter because, really, all of that would just be minutia against what really needs to happen.
The Bucks have tried all that, and still the bad contracts, the overmatched coaches and the losses stack up as high as the snow banks. The only constant is Herb Kohl and his small inner circle.
The Bucks will change only when the culture of the franchise changes. The times have changed, and the only real concession the Bucks have seemed to make is jumping on the NBA's garish in-game entertainment train. Except that real change doesn't come at the barrel of a T-shirt gun.
There is a model for culture change the Bucks could emulate right here in town. The Brewers used to have that provincial feel about them, the mom-and-pop store against a league full of Saks Fifth Avenues, but credit the Seligs greatly here before they sold: They hired Doug Melvin and Jack Zduriencik. Vice presidents with World Series experience, from San Francisco and Anaheim, were brought in. And Mark Attanasio has created a big-league atmosphere that has allowed the Brewers to compete again.
No one can force the senator to sell, and when he does you can only hope he keeps to his word that it will be to local investors who would want the Bucks to be here forever. Until that time, it is incumbent upon the senator to identify big-picture NBA people, pay them to change everything about the way the Bucks operate and get out of their way.
To an extent, he did it once before with Ernie Grunfeld and George Karl. There is no reason he can't do it again. He owes the city that much for the way it has supported his team even in the abundant bad times.
The crowd finally got on its feet when the Bucks had a chance to beat a very good team from New Orleans. But then there was a really bad shot at the end and another disappointed gathering left the building.
This has got to change.
Pretty bad when Mike Hunt is owning you. Whether things change or not, at least the public is starting to see where the immense problems of this organization originate. Three old, well past their prime executives who know absolutely nothing about building a team in today's NBA.
