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Don Walker has a new piece up noting that the Bucks are narrowing the new arena site choices down to areas in Park East and vicinity. We encourage you to read the piece as background before you read our thoughts on the options being considered. The site location debate is coming to a head and most parties expect some announcement to be within the next 30-60 days. As always, we’ve some opinions on things, so let’s go! Continue reading
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The Save Our Bucks billboard went up approximately one year ago. Since that time, it has been a great ride to be a Bucks fan. A new ownership group, winning the #2 overall pick, drafting Jabari Parker, strong arena momentum and the emergence of Jason Kidd as a top tier coach among other things have all been tremendous developments. Nevertheless, the franchise right now finds itself at an important inflection point as it relates to developments on and off the court. Over the next 60-days, Bucks ownership will have to come to a resolution on two critical issues that will impact the next decade of basketball in Milwaukee.
The first inflection point is how the Bucks should approach their roster going forward, given the Jabari Parker ACL injury. We address that topic in Part I below. A future Part II will take a look at the arena situation given the apparent reluctance of Journal Communications to sell their building, resulting in the Bucks needing to postpone the site selection announcement while they sort out alternate locations.
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Don Walker with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a new piece up where he interviews Bucks owner Wes Edens on a number of arena related topics. This is a must read for Bucks fans as Edens highlights some important points and foreshadows where he’d like to see things head in the arena debate.
Here are the important takeaways from that piece:
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Both Rich Kirchen of the Milwaukee Business Journal and Don Walker of the Journal Sentinel have been doggedly pursuing the new arena story for the past six-months and have done a great job. However they got scooped last night by Jim Owczarski of OnMilwaukee.com, who tweeted out:
Sources say #Bucks negotiating w/ Journal Comm. to purchase the 2 buildings on State St. as part of new arena site. http://t.co/oNvooyvWKF
— Jim Owczarski (@JimOwczarski) October 31, 2014
Kudos to Jim on breaking this news. Now let’s talk about where we go from here. Continue reading
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Details are leaking out tonight about the new TV contract that the NBA is about to enter into with their broadcast partners, Turner and ESPN. The numbers are a stunner and larger than initially thought. We are going to break down the details for you, as they explain a great deal about why the Bucks sold for so much money last Spring and why the team’s future in Milwaukee should be very bright.
| By: SOB Spokesman Paul Henning | Follow Paul on twitter @brewcitypaul
While Bucks new Head Coach Jason Kidd preached patience for the Bucks young players as they develop on the floor, new Bucks owners Marc Lasry & Wes Edens spoke about finalizing an arena site by the end of the calendar year.
New owner Marc Lasry and coach Jason Kidd.
The Bucks new era didn’t waste any time getting to work this week. From the Cultural Task Force Meeting on Monday morning at the Milwaukee Public Museum to discuss possible funding mechanisms to the Cousins Center where players took pictures and spoke with members of the media, the City of Milwaukee was abuzz with the task at hand. Build a championship team. Build a new world class arena to revitalize downtown Milwaukee and keep the Milwaukee Bucks tradition alive in the City of Milwaukee and State of Wisconsin. Seems easy enough right?
It will be no easy task, but the Bucks are loaded with resources to compete and succeed in both battles this season. Starting with the talent on the floor the Bucks have added arguably the best college player from one of the best programs in the country in Duke star Jabari Parker. We’ve always argued you need Top 5 pick talent to succeed and we are adding him to budding star Giannis Antetokounmpo who spent his summer competing for Greece and currently stands 6’11, a full two inches taller than when he was drafted.
Bucks fans haven’t seen a duo this talented since the days of Ray Allen & Glenn Robinson, but we have to remember it took 4-5 years before that duo saw any real success. So while we will hopefully see many flashes, this season is a developmental year focused on our young players honing their craft.
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Yesterday, David Uihlein, the son of BMO Harris Bradley Center benefactor Jane Bradley Pettit, released a public letter advocating that the community tear down the BMOBC, tear down the Arena (or Mecca or Milwaukee Panther Arena if you prefer) and also tear down the Milwaukee Theater. On said land should go a new arena wrote Uihlein.
Before going further, we encourage you to read the coverage of this letter by Don Walker at MJS here and/or the coverage by Rich Kirchen of the Milwaukee Business Journal here as both provide excellent summaries of the letter itself and background for our commentary below.
When we first saw this story, we tweeted out that it might be game-changer. No, a mere letter won’t build a new arena, but the content of the letter will bring about some needed dialogue on a number of fronts: Continue reading
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Summer league is complete, LeBron and Love are settled in Cleveland, Packer season is upon us and the Brewers are in a tight division race. All reasons why the NBA and new arena will likely slip from the minds of Bucks fans for the next 60-days.
We want to use this opportunity to offer our thoughts on where the new arena should be located and how the building should be designed taking into account some of the lessons learned from the 1985 construction of the Bradley Center. Strap in and let’s go!
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Are the Bucks saved yet? Not quite. We’ve still got that messy arena project ahead of us. Only when the new arena is underway can we relax under the assumption the team is then locked into Milwaukee for the long-haul.
That said, it has become evident to us over the past week that when fans and NBA historians will look back at what saved the Bucks, the answer will be clear: The turning point was the 2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement (“CBA”) between the players union and the owners that came about as a result of the lockout.
Senator Kohl and his staff were critical players behind the scenes in the negotiation of this agreement, primarily as it relates to how small markets are treated. Did the small markets get everything they wanted with the 2011 CBA? No, but it becomes clearer by the day they got enough, as evidenced by LeBron James decision to return to small-market Cleveland. Let’s discuss!
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Happy Independence Day!
We thought we’d take this time for some thoughts coming off this past week’s umm, interesting series of events.
As it relates to the head-coaching position, the Bucks experienced a significant upgrade with the hiring of Jason Kidd. After a rough start, by all accounts Kidd made significant adjustments in New Jersey last season, allowing the team to finish with a 34-17 record down the stretch, including reaching the second round of the playoffs. He employed some creative lineups and helped reclaim the careers of a few veterans as well. Kidd appears to hold significant promise as a coach in the NBA and we welcome him to Milwaukee.
Our questions of Kidd relate to his future input into player personnel matters. We at SaveOurBucks.com have been consistently in favor of an organizational model whereby the Bucks locate and hire a sharp General Manager, and provide that person with full organizational control. The GM in turn then hires their own coach, much like the model employed by the Green Bay Packers in 1991 when the team hired Ron Wolf, and he in turn identified his coach, sending a second round draft pick to the San Francisco 49’ers as compensation to free Mike Holmgren from his contract to come to Green Bay. That model is the one that works more often than not and has the fewest inherent conflicts. Models where there is an unclear delineation of power between the owner, coach and GM aren’t always the most successful.
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