While the last few years haven’t been very kind, Milwaukee is a proud franchise with a long tradition of winning. Led by Lew Alcindor, they won a championship in 1971, and in the ’80s, the team advanced at least as far as the Conference Semifinals in nine of 10 seasons. The team has a nice 1-2 punch now with Jennings and Andrew Bogut, and if Michael Redd can get healthy, this team is a good bet to make the playoffs in the East.

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The win is especially impressive given David West’s off night (6p, 4r, 2-11 shooting), but the Hornets had a balanced attack with four other players in double figures.

Not since the 2001 Playoffs have I been this excited about the Milwaukee Bucks. That was the year George Karl led the so-called “Big Three” — Ray Allen, Glenn Robinson and Sam Cassell — to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they faced Allen Iverson and the Philadelphia 76ers. They were just a missed Robinson jumper away from making the NBA Finals.

For a small market team to develop into a serious contender, they have to get lucky. Big name free agents generally don’t want to play in Milwaukee or any other small market, so they have to acquire their superstar through the draft. The Spurs landed Tim Duncan. The Magic landed Dwight Howard. The Cavs landed LeBron James.

That Bucks team won the first pick in the 1994 lottery (Robinson), swung a draft day trade in 1996 (Allen) and traded for an underrated point guard (Cassell) during the 1998-99 season. Robinson wasn’t a franchise player like Duncan, Howard or LeBron, but with Allen and Cassell (along with an up-and-coming reserve named Michael Redd), the Bucks were able to make a run in a watered down Eastern Conference.

This summer, the Bucks got lucky again. While it would have been nice to win the lottery and the right to draft Blake Griffin, the next best thing happened — they struck gold with the #10 pick. As the draft grew closer, it appeared that the Bucks had zeroed in on Jennings, but as Chris Sheridan writes, they didn’t think he’d be there.

“The thing that stood out for me with him was just his quickness — and his quickness in playing in a slower-tempo game,” McKinney said. “And when you watch the Euro game, they play a slower tempo there, and you would think that would be an advantage for the bigger players defending him, yet he was able to handle the pressure and pretty much do what he wanted to do.

“The only question I had at that time was it looked like he had some technical flaws in his shot, minor flaws, and he didn’t play a ton of minutes. So I came away from that game with a lot of questions, which is what you do in the scouting process — instead of making a final evaluation you come away with questions — and that’s how you evaluate him in workouts, and those questions were answered.”

They were answered in a workout the Bucks held in mid-June for point guards Ty Lawson, Jonny Flynn, Jeff Teague and Jennings.

“From that workout, in addition to what we saw on the DVDs, he really opened our eyes as to how good he was and how much we weren’t able to see in some of the games we saw overseas,” McKinney said.

It was also in that workout, general manager John Hammond said, that the Bucks saw a player whose ability to get to the basket and finish was similar to that of Tony Parker.

“We thought he’d go at No. 5, 6 or 7,” Hammond said.

Before heading to Italy, Jennings’s resume was already impressive. He was the 2008 Naismith Prep Player of the Year, which is a pretty good indicator of success in the NBA. The previous 12 winners were Kevin Love, Greg Oden, Louis Williams, Dwight Howard, LeBron James, Ray Felton, DaJuan Wagner, Gerald Wallace, Donnell Harvey, Al Harrington, Shane Battier and Kobe Bryant. There are three superstars on that list (Kobe, LeBron, Howard) and other than Harvey and Wagner, they’re all significant contributors in the NBA.

I remember watching Jennings’s draft stock over at NBADraft.net as the 2008-09 college season wore on. He started the year in the top 3-5 of the site’s mock drafts, and as reports out of Italy had him struggling to fit in, he slowly dropped into the back half of the top 10. During the pre-draft workout phase, he was in the 10-15 range. It didn’t help that the 2009 Draft was heavy on point guards, including Ricky Rubio, Tyreke Evans, Stephen Curry, Jonny Flynn, Jeff Teague and Ty Lawson.

Scouts questioned his jumper and his attitude. Thus far, he is getting rave reviews on both counts. He is averaging 24.8 points per game, and is shooting 48% from the field and 56% from long range. Is he going to be a 50%+ 3PT shooter? No, but he’s looking like he might settle somewhere in the low- to mid- 40’s, and for a guy with his quickness, that would make him very difficult to defend. He’s also getting along very well with Bucks head coach Scott Skiles, who has a reputation for being a hard ass.

He’s drawing comparisons to other lefties Kenny Anderson, Nick Van Exel and Tiny Archibald. To me, his game is most reminiscent of Allen Iverson’s, though right now, Jennings looks like he’s going to be a better distance shooter — Iverson has hit just 31% from 3PT in his career — and he doesn’t seem to dominate the ball as much as AI does.

Not only is Jennings a scorer, but he’s a capable playmaker (5.8 apg) and rebounder (4.7 rpg). His assists will likely grow as the Bucks start to get a few more pieces around him. Right now, along with center Andrew Bogut, the team is starting Carlos Delfino, Hakim Warrick and Luc Mbah a Moute. Those aren’t exactly marquee names, and the Bucks are still 6-3. Granted, six of the team’s nine games have been at home, but that’s a good start nonetheless.

Of course, it is early. He’s only played nine games, and it’s going to be tough for him to keep up this pace. But all signs point to the Bucks striking gold at #10. Hell, the Clippers can keep Blake Griffin. We’ll take “Young Money.”

Photo from fOTOGLIF

With the win, the (finally) healthy Wizards advance to 3-7 while the Cavs drop to 8-4. Cleveland was without Shaquille O’Neal and Anderson Varejao due to injury.

…okay, not really. But LeBron did say recently that he could succeed in NFL if he put in the time and Browns head coach Eric Mangini has a helmet waiting for him if he ever wants to give it a try.

From ESPN.com:

“If I put all my time and commitment into it, if I dedicated myself to the game of football, I could be really good,” he said Tuesday night, “no matter what team I was on.”

Mangini agreed, calling James “a freak athletically” and said the 6-foot-8, 260-pounder could be dangerous at tight end, wide receiver or even outside linebacker.

Quarterback Brady Quinn also heard about James’ football fetish. He would love to have a target to throw to like James in the red zone.
“That’d be great,” Quinn said. “Tell him to suit up and let us know, we’ll get him working. Obviously he’s an incredibly talented athlete. If he wants to try to play a little bit now, we’d be more than willing to pick him up.”

Browns nose tackle Shaun Rogers isn’t convinced James, as great as he is, could step into the NFL and be able to handle the pounding.
“I heard that comment,” Rogers said. “I have mixed emotions about that. A great athlete? Yes. A football player? No.”

Rogers then looked into TV cameras.

“Yeah LeBron, I said it,” he said. “It’s a punishing game. I just don’t think you can step off the basketball court after not going through this year in and year out and just play football. From that standpoint, I just don’t think it’s possible. You have to weather and condition your body to take this punishment.”

That’s all the Cavs and the city of Cleveland needs: For LeBron hurt playing for a 1-8 Browns team going nowhere fast.

Given how gifted an athlete James is, I could see him succeeding in the NFL if he put in the time. But I agree with Rogers in that he couldn’t just step onto the field this Sunday and have an impact. For starters, he’s never run a pro route and he’s never read a defense. If he was told to just run straight down the field and then look for the ball, I could see him making a play or two. But he’d be lost if he were to start a game without practicing and I could only imagine him getting laid out going across the middle.

The front office for the Cavs would rather die than see this come to fruition, but I would love to see LeBron play for just one game to see how he’d do – even if it were just for a couple of plays.

Of course, that would require Brady Quinn to throw a pass longer than three yards in bounds, which is something I seriously doubt he could handle.