Milwaukee Bucks: 49 years in 49 days – 2006-07 season
By Ti Windisch
The Milwaukee Bucks couldn’t defend anybody effectively during the 2006-07 season, and it cost them dearly in the standings.
The season: 2006-07
The record: 28-54
The postseason: LOL
The story:
The Milwaukee Bucks were just plain bad during the 2006-07 season. It wasn’t the fun kind of bad, made up of a bunch of engrossing young players growing and learning, or the productive kind of bad that results in a team getting the first overall pick.
It was the nauseating kind of bad that can only follow a fairly young team getting to the postseason the year before. Any time a season that should be about growth and steady improvement turns into a disaster, the fans of that team are going to be despondent.
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The Bucks’ best three players were Michael Redd, Mo Williams and Andrew Bogut during the 2006-07 campaign. That not-so-big three was not made up of ancient veterans, but they weren’t spring chickens either, with Redd being 27, Williams being 24 and Bogut being 22.
A 22-year-old Charlie Villanueva was in Milwaukee for that season too, but when Charlie Villanueva is a big part of a young core that speaks volumes about that unit’s potential. Villanueva had come over in a trade with the Toronto Raptors, who took T.J. Ford and cash in exchange for the former seventh overall pick.
A few other trades saw the Bucks acquire their other role players for the season. Ruben Patterson was acquired in exchange for Joe Smith, and Milwaukee traded for Steve Blake and then later traded him away. As was tradition, the Bucks roster went through a lot of churn. Mostly young players getting minutes tanked the Milwaukee defense, which was 29th in points allowed per 100 possessions during the regular season.
Through it all, Redd just kept on scoring. He put up what was then and still is now his career high in scoring, totaling 26.7 points per game to go with his 3.7 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.2 steals. It didn’t help all that much.
Injuries didn’t either. The Bucks were sunk by March, leading to head coach Terry Stotts being relieved of his duties on March 14. A week later the team announced both Bogut and Villanueva would miss the rest of the year with injuries. In early April, Redd also was sat down for the season.
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Losing those three didn’t matter all that much at that point, honestly. The Bucks were 23-41 with Stotts, making the rest of the season relatively unimportant. His replacement, Larry Krystkowiak, led Milwaukee to a 5-13 record for the remainder of the regular season.
At least late December was fun. The Bucks got six of their 28 victories–more than one fifth of their total wins on the season–in a winning streak that lasted from December 16 until December 29, when the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Bucks.
More could be written about this season, but the gist was it was a long year for Milwaukee Bucks fans. The team was bad, and clearly needed something to change. The coaching switch was not it, meaning the needed change had to happen during the offseason.
Next: 49 years in 49 days: 2005-06 season
Unfortunately for the Bucks, their first round pick in the 2007 NBA Draft would not be much help with the team’s much-needed turnaround.