Weekly Bucks Report

Last week when I was drinking at Wolski's it was made aware that I post for the National Online Blog "Chuckie Hacks." Immediately a patron of the bar (avid reader) insisted I write more about the Milwaukee Bucks, claiming the writers at Hacks "ignore" the team. While the word "ignore" might be relative in regards to our Buck's coverage, I will try to implement a weekly post about the team that would probably be the best team in the East if they only had Chauncey Billups on their roster.

The hot news about the team right now is how the "tough" part of their schedule is over. The team is trying to sell the fact that by playing the majority of their remaining games at home, they still have an outside shot of making the Playoffs in the atrocious Eastern Conference. The journal sentinel had a cute little article about it today. Also, a few times a year GM Larry Harris sends out a letter to all the Buck's season ticket holders. My boss is such a holder, and gave me a copy of the letter, along with a post-it note that said "CRAP!" on it. My boss' favorite parts..."I'm excited about the quantity of home games that remain on the schedule...I believe that we have made progress and are getting better. I understand the record doesn't indicate that today, but I believe it will begin reflecting this improvement as we continue our pursuit of an Eastern Conference playoff berth."

Playoffs?

I guess anything is possible. Lets break this thing down statistically (crude analysis time!) and see where the Bucks are at. Their current record is 19-31 (13-8 home, 6-23 away, wow). There are 20 home games left, along with 12 road games. They have won 62% of the time at home and 21% of the time on the road. Take this into consideration for the remaining games and we can project the Bucks to go 12-8 at home and 3-9 on the road for the rest of the season. This will give them an AMAZING 34-48 record.

I'm not done yet. Since the Bucks are in the worst Conference in history, they are currently only 1 and half games out of the 8th playoff spot! I'm too lazy to break the teams ahead of them down into home and away...but Chicago, Indiana, & Jersey all currently have winning %'s between .400 and .408. That's only a projected 33 wins for the season people!

Wooo bleeping hoo. Say the Bucks win 34 games and sneak into the Playoffs with the 8 seed. Are we supposed to be excited about this? Should we go and pay outrageous value for a playoff ticket to watch them get blown out by the Celtics? Are we just supposed to forget that Dan Freaking Gadzuric is guaranteed 6 million a year when he plays 10 minutes a game?

These are all just hypothetical questions. Here at Chuckie Hacks, we say go for the 8th seed Bucks, you've got our support.