Monday Bucks Notes

Yi vs. the Brisbane Bullets, take three

• Yi Jianlian had 18 points in three quarters worth of action in the third of three exhibitions between the Chinese national team and the Brisbane Bullets. Video above.
• Bucks assistant Brian James has a blog at Bucks.com about his Basketball Without Borders experience in South Africa.
• Truman Reed at Bucks.com also has a short feature on Awvee Storey. Not surprisingly, there's no mention of the time Storey annihilated Martynas Andriuskivicius' face.
• Steve Luhm at the Salt Lake Tribune speculates about a possible Charlie Villanueva/Bobby Simmons trade for Andrei Kirilenko. There's no factual basis for this article, but acquiring a defensive standout like Kirilenko certainly makes sense in a lot of ways for the Bucks. The $63 million still owed to Kirilenko is a pretty scary number for a guy who has flaked out, but even if he's just the world's greatest role player his defensive talents alone are intriguing. Both Villanueva and Simmons are on the low side in terms of trade value right now, so I doubt they're moved in the near term however. My guess is that the Bucks will want some proof that Yi is legit before they ship out CV, who should be motivated to prove the doubters wrong after an injury plagued sophomore season. But would the Bucks really want another max contract with Bogut's extension looming? And would the Bucks get the most out of Kirilenko by playing him at SF and Yi at PF?
  
• The master of all Bucks cap issues got the details of Charlie Bell's contract. The deal has an early termination option for the fifth year and the maximum allowable 15% trade kicker. The salaries add up to $18.01 million, or an average of $3.6 million per season.

  07/08 $3,106,000
  08/09 $3,354,480
  09/10 $3,602,960
  10/11 $3,851,440
  11/12 $4,099,920