Behind the Buck Daily Dimes: Ranking Milwaukee’s offense/Fan Fest

Every morning, Behind the Buck Pass brings you the reading material you need before you start your day at the office. We bring you the morning’s Daily Dimes — Milwaukee Bucks Links from across the web to get you ready for the day.

Basketball is here! Welcome to preseason game week. Yeah, basketball isn’t fully here but at least we finally get to see Basketball across the league.

On Saturday, the Bucks held their 2nd annual fan fest, where we saw the team scrimmage against each other. Fans took in a lot of great events, including a halfcourt shot contest where contestants were each teamed up with respected players for a chance to win some prize packs if either them or their “teammate” nailed the shot from half court.

I don’t know what was more impressive — the showing for the fest, or the super amount of comb overs that made their way to the live stream. I don’t know, maybe I’m just jealous as a balding youth of the nation..

Anyways, let’s get to the best of the weekend in this morning’s Daily Dimes.

— We start from Fan Fest, where Brew Hoop’s Frank Madden recaps Saturday’s scrimmage. He felt that Jabari Parker and Brandon Knight were two of the top performers from the three quarter scrimmage with 10 minute running clocks.  He also reviewed the play of the point guards, including Kendall Marshall.

"As for Kendall Marshall, his Bucks debut wasn’t particularly memorable one way or the other. Starting alongside Giannis, it was interesting to see him float off the ball to the corner for spot-up threes on a pair of occasions, something that we never really saw him do in L.A. last year–just seven of his 178 threes last season were corner attempts. It’s not a normal place to find your point guard (just 10% of Knight’s three attempts came from the corner as well), but with other playmakers on the court it’s an interesting look for a guy who hit 40% of his threes a year ago."

Madden also noted that Larry Sanders was received well by the local fans and that Chris Wright was nowhere to be found, further swirling the rumors that he might be heading to Greece to play in the Euroleague.

— Fan Fest gives those that love the Bucks a great chance to connect with players and such. It also gives fans the chance to be creative. Including one fan, who came up with this new logo for the Bucks and their home court. I think that deer might be possessed and I hope I never run into him in the deer woods..

— Fan Fest brings out the best and worst of fashion. I’m still wondering two days later what Brandon Knight was thinkin’ with these pants.

You can’t touch tropical pants. And you can’t count out seeing sweet jerseys. Or mean mugs….

— Okay, enough with the pineapples on legs. Let’s get to the real business. Everyone is predicting that the Greek Freak is going to go all crazy on people this season. Including Joel Brigham at Basketball Insiders.

"Watching Giannis Alphabet play is about as entertaining as basketball gets. His long frame and freakish athleticism make him an asset on both ends of the court, but as the youngest player in the league last year with relatively little professional hoops experience, Antetokounmpo was much too raw to make big waves immediately. This year, though, he’s working on his point guard skills (he’s 6’10” with a 7’3” wingspan) and with a year of experience under his belt he should exhibit a bit more polish. Jabari Parker might be the best player on the team, but Antetokounmpo’s unbelievable physical gifts make it hard to believe he won’t be a star sooner than later."

Brigham ranked him second in his list of top five breakout performers. Dang, that’s hotter than Alphabet Soup on a fall Sunday.

— There were rumors that Steve Balmer was considering throwing his name into the mix as the new owner of the Milwaukee Bucks. He even drove through every community of Milwaukee to try and convince himself… He was probably also answering emails on hotmail.. Sam Amico at USA Today got the scoop from the former Microsoft man.

"“So I went to see Adam Silver, and he was a brand new commissioner. And I said, ‘You know, my dream would either be to have a team in Seattle, or, frankly, in L.A. Those would be my two perfects.’ And he reminded me of a couple things, that teams don’t sell all the time. Milwaukee was in the process (of selling), and I had passed on Milwaukee. I had gotten a text when I was still running Microsoft, or an e-mail from Allen & Co. (the New York-based investment firm that handled the sale for former owner Herb Kohl), and I’m saying, ‘No, I can’t be (the owner).’ But then I retired. Literally, until the day I walked out the door I didn’t feel like I could consider it. And then I said, ‘Oh shoot, I’d better think about Milwaukee. So I spent a day, I drove around Milwaukee, in every neighborhood. Now I was late to the process, so it didn’t develop. But I told Adam, ‘the two places that would be best for me would be Seattle and L.A.’ He didn’t give me a lot of hope. He said, ‘You know, Seattle someday does make a lot of sense, but we don’t have any expansion discussion going on, and we are trying to support cities in keeping their teams, like Sacramento.’ And he said, ‘L.A., I just don’t think either of those teams will sell.’ And so I said, ‘OK, well I’d better go look at Milwaukee,’ so I did. And then the whole thing broke with the Clippers. And since things don’t sell all the time, and I love basketball and I knew I wanted to do something and I’m now retired, I said, ‘Boom.’ Dive in on this Clipper opportunity.”"

— So, Jason Kidd has been preaching defense at the start of training camp. Maxwell Ogden at Hoops Habit believes it’s the offense though that needs work. He ranked all the offenses of the league, and placed the Bucks 26th on his ratings.

— Sheridan Hoop’s Dan Sinclair breaks down five things to watch from the Milwaukee Bucks this season. One thing on the list is updates on a new arena.

"The Bucks will play under new ownership for the first time in almost 30 years, but the future of the team in Wisconsin is not yet totally secure. New owners Wesley Edens and Marc Lasry have infused a new optimism (and plenty of cash) into the fan base, but the ominous “arena” question still hangs over the franchise. The NBA has already made it clear that the BMO Harris Bradley Center is not a viable option moving forward, which means the Bucks are effectively on the clock with their current lease set to expire in 2017.The $200 million commitment from Edens, Lasry and exiting owner Herb Kohl is a big boost, but public money is likely to be required in the end. That means convincing the public that the Bucks are worth subsidizing to some degree, a tall task considering the apathetic nature of the current fan base. A new direction and some exciting young players should help to energize the city a bit, but showing a consistent vision – and results – will be key to convincing people the team is worth the cost.milwaukeeskylineFor now, mobilizing local business and civic leaders is a top priority, as is finding an agreeable location for the team’s long-term home. Edens and Lasry have suggested they want to have a location selected by the end of the year, but there’s still a lot to work out in that regard as multiple parties try to finagle their way into the plans in search of a little extra cash."

— So, Kendall Marshall is ranked in the top five in passer rating on the new NBA Live 15. Sweet. He is rated below Chris Paul, Rajon Rondo, Ricky Rubio and just above Tony Parker.

Tweet of the Day:

Speaking of KButter… Sometime his twitter account scares the living daylights out of me…