Sunday Bucks Notes

• Gov. Jim Doyle met with Yi Jianlian today in Beijing. So to recap, Yi has now met with the state's governor and senior senator despite having neither set foot in the state nor played a minute of NBA basketball.

  "The whole community is very excited about you coming to Milwaukee," said Doyle, who held a face-to-face meeting with Yi shortly after arriving in Beijing following a brief trip to Xian, China, where he met with the provincial governor.

  Clad in a blue jeans, a white T-shirt, navy blue Nike jacket and white, low-top Nike athletic shoes, Yi greeted Doyle on a set of stairs leading into training facility. A select group of Wisconsin business delegates and government officials then gathered in a room adjacent to a gymnasium at the facility, where Yi and Doyle took seats next to each other.

  "I'm ready for it," said Yi, who spoke softly, provided one- or two-word answers, but smiled throughout the meeting, seeming at ease in the presence of Doyle and his entourage.

  Russ Feingold, get with the program. In all seriousness though, this only further underscores the idea that the drafting of Yi is much more than a basketball story. For a mid-market city always looking to raise its profile, Milwaukee could potentially benefit greatly from its association with China's most marketable young basketball star (Yao is of course an old man at 26).
  
• Yi had 20 points in the Yao-Nash charity game in Beijing. Watch some highlights here.
  
• Ty at the Milwaukee Bucks Diary has a great Damir Markota story from last December.
• In a move aimed clearly at easing Yi's transition to the NBA, the Bucks announced the hiring of Jarinn Akana as an assistant coach for player development. Akana had spent the past six years with the Nuggets, serving in a similar capacity from 2003-2005. In 2000 he spent some time "guest coaching" with the Chinese national team and he's also been a scout in Asia, so given the timing of his hiring--Tony Brown, Jim Todd and Bill Peterson were all hired within a two week period in June--it's obvious the Yi signing was the key factor here. Akana is a Hawaiian native who graduated from Hawaii in 1995.
• Bucks.com has a puff piece about Tony Brown and Awvee Storey being impressed with Yi's performance in Vegas.
• I've added The Bratwurst to our blogroll on the right. Great site for Bucks stuff, check it out.
  

Bell Gone...?

Charles Gardner reports Charlie Bell's days as a Buck are over, though where he's going hasn't been confirmed.

"A lot of frustration has built up throughout the summer," Bartelstein said. "The Bucks are certainly entitled to do what's in the best interest of the franchise.

"He feels the Bucks have sent him a message about how important he is to them. The waters have become poisoned at this point, and he doesn't want to be in Milwaukee any more."

"We're not sure what we're going to do, but he will not sign a contract with the Bucks," Bartelstein said. "Charlie has a lot of pride, and he has to do what's best for him and his family.

"Charlie wants to feel wanted and appreciated, and I don't see any way to repair it at this point."

Bartelstein said he spoke with Bucks general manager Larry Harris and conveyed Bell's feelings.

"There's no ill will," Bartelstein said. "I have great respect for Larry Harris. Each player wants to feel he's important to that organization's success."

There's no ill will? Actually it sounds like there's only ill will, but you can understand that Bartelstein himself doesn't want to embarrass the Bucks too badly in public given how much money he's made off them. Seemingly Bell's only other option would be to take Olympiakos' offer in Greece, though agent Mark Bartelstein's anywhere-but-Milwaukee stance does leave open the possibility of playing elsewhere in the NBA. The only problem with the latter being that the Bucks can match any offer for Bell, and even now I doubt they'd allow Bell to sign elsewhere just because he was angry at their lowball offers.

Still, that shouldn't obscure how big of a blow this would be. While Bell is likely never going to be a starting-caliber player and his statistics are pretty mediocre, his versatility and willingness to defend are going to be very difficult to replace at this point in the summer with only minimum contracts to offer. [ETA: as discussed in the comments, it's the timing which is the biggest problem in my mind. It's one thing for the Bucks to decide at the beginning of the summer they want a different guy, but doing so now leaves them very few options. The Bucks probably didn't think it would come to this, but at the moment Bell doesn't sound like someone who is simply posturing] But instead of giving Bell a reasonable deal, the Bucks appear to have been burned by overestimating their own leverage. You also wonder if this will leave a bad taste in the mouths of the other Bucks, many of whom openly campaigned for Bell's re-signing.

Not everyone will be sad to see Bell go: Lynn Greer, David Noel and even Awvee Storey just saw their chance for real minutes skyrocket given Bell was a critical part of the backcourt rotation. We'll see if the Bucks make a move for a player like Dee Brown, Mike Wilks or even Troy Hudson in the coming days, or whether it's still possible for the Bucks and Bell to kiss and make up (after Yi and Mason, never say never). Either way, it's hard to imagine the Bucks just helped their chances of returning to the postseason.

UPDATE: Charlie Bell's MySpace page no longer has any of his blog posts. Also, in a breakfast meeting with season ticketholders today, Larry Harris supposedly said the Bell situation is not over. Stay tuned...

Thursday Bucks Notes

Aside from the ongoing Charlie Bell saga...

• The Bucks have invited Puerto Rican national team forward Angelo Reyes to camp. The 6'8", 220 lb Reyes finished second in the recent FIBA Tournament of the Americas with 9.5 rpg. With Damir Markota gone Reyes should have an outside chance at a roster spot, but don't bank on it.
  
• An Australian RealGM poster was nice enough to transcribe a recent Bogut article from Melbourne's MX newspaper (no real website unfortunately). The highlights:

  "In my first year i didn't really go out at all and then one of the veterans told me sometimes you've got to let yourself go. You can't waste time dwelling on your past games."
  
  "I've got a long way to go to get to the player I want to be in my career. I don't think I've really proven yet that I can cut it week after week. I've shown glimpses but I definitely have to improve. The one word that sums it up is inconsistency."

  
  

Charle Bell Has a MySpace Page

A RealGM poster found Charlie Bell's MySpace page, and it's got some interesting entries suggesting a decision about Bell's future should come in the next day or so. First off, you immediately wonder whether it's real or not, but judging by the massive amount of effort that's gone into it (785 friends, all the personal pictures) and the fact that other NBA players have MySpace pages as well, I'd guess it's legit. Either that or someone has been expending massive amounts of time trying to make people think they're a rather random NBA player on the internet. Anyway, he posted a couple entries in his blog yesterday that are worth looking at. The first one about visiting Greek club Olympiakos:

I have a very difficult decision to make today. Olympiakos is easily the best team in Europe and the fans are the best. The city is beautiful and you have the best owner in all of Europe. Thank you Olympiakos fans for all the support and emails. I know I will be happy if I choose to come to your team. If I don't, It would only be because my opportunities right now are better here in the United States. If I choose Olympiakos, it will be because the Bucks are mistreating me, and at Olympiakos we can win a championship this year. No matter what, if I do come back to Europe to play this year, or any year after, it will be with Olympiakos, as long as they will have me. I will talk with my family and friends tonight for one last time, and I will decide. Thank you again!!

The second one is also from yesterday, claiming the Bucks gave him an ultimatum.

The Bucks gave me an ultimatum today to either take the deal that they are offering me with absolutely no negotiating any parts of it, or they will sign another player immediately. They gave me 24 hours. I don't know what to do because it is not a fair offer in my opinion, but time is ticking... gotta make a decision. I'll be praying for an answer.

Sounds like Bell is rather displeased with the way the Bucks' negotiations are going, and isn't too thrilled with the idea of taking the Bucks' reported three-year $9 million offer. Which you can understand given the deals that players like Jason Kapono (five years, $30 million) and Matt Carroll (six years, $27 million) got this offseason. And certainly the fact that the Bucks dished out fairly generous new deals to Mo Williams, Desmond Mason and Jake Voskuhl probably doesn't make Bell feel any better either.

UPDATE: Over in that same RealGM thread it was noted that Bell put up another post a couple hours ago saying that he was willing to take the Bucks' offer IF they made the final year a player option, but that the Bucks had even refused that. The whole post is in the link above, but it is now gone from his blog. So you wonder if the Bucks might have relented, or if there's some other wrinkle in the negotiations; either way he decided to delete it. Certainly by the sound of it Charlie is not at all pleased with the Bucks' hardball stance. It's also worth noting that Larry Harris supposedly said yesterday on the radio they had given Bell a revised offer, but I'm not sure what that might be--more than three years, $9 million?

If a player option is all it's coming down to then there's little reason to haggle any longer. If the Bucks can get Bell for $3-4 million per season for two seasons they've done pretty well for themselves, and at that point the contracts of Lynn Greer and Ramon Sessions will also be expiring, so they could pick from that group who to retain and who to let go. Bell's not a youngster, so locking him up long term isn't as important as assuring that he's around for the near future. And as of now it would be a big blow to replace Bell with a veteran off the street like Dee Brown, Scoonie Penn or Mike Wilks (all of whom worked out recently for the Bucks).

Wednesday Bucks Notes

• Charles Gardner with details on the ongoing Charlie Bell discussions.

  "We're still talking and a good dialogue is going on," Bucks general manager Larry Harris said on Tuesday. "I would say progress is being made, and hopefully something will be done soon. "We're trying to financially get to a number where we both can be happy."

  Read: a deal will probably get done soon. The Bucks have brought in some free agents to work out, including former Jazz and Illinois PG Dee Brown, but the bottom line is Bell is far more valuable than anyone they can find on the street right now.
  
• Over at the JS Forum there's a thread detailing two conference calls today with Jim Paschke and Larry Krystkowiak. All the details seem fairly reasonable, save for the part about Andrew Bogut being up to 270 pounds and that being a good thing. Last year Bogut showed up supposedly around 255 but he lost a step and didn't carry the added weight particularly well. Over the course of the season he shed some of those pounds and looked a lot more comfortable, once again being able to face up and beat guys off the dribble, especially to his left. A guy like Bogut needs to build core strength more than pure upper body bulk, so if he is heavier hopefully it's because he's strengthened his base. But I'm not sure how likely that is, especially given he was recovering from his foot injury at the beginning of the summer. Still, some good tidbits in there.
• Word is Damir Markota has signed with Spartak St. Petersburg.
  

Sessions Signs

Ramon Sessions talks to Jim Paschke at Summerfest

Second round pick Ramon Sessions has signed a two-year deal with the Bucks. Sessions was selected 56th overall, which was the pick acquired from the Rockets in the 2005 Mike James/Reece Gaines trade. The Bucks' own second rounder (33rd overall) was shipped to the Spurs in order to get the Artist Formerly Known as Damir Markota. In case you're wondering, that pick was used to draft Arizona swingman Marcus Williams.

About half of this year's second rounders have signed thus far, so the timing isn't all that unusual. Though for what it's worth, David Noel (July 3, 2006), Damir Markota (July 25, 2006), and Ersan Ilyasova (August 23, 2005) all signed earlier in the summer. As TrueHoop noted this morning, virtually all 2nd rounders sign for the minimum, though no word yet on how much is guaranteed.

I don't remember watching Sessions in college at Nevada, but he's a taller PG at 6'4" / 185 who showed pretty good vision in Vegas. DraftExpress notes that he helped himself a great deal at the Orlando pre-draft camp, and what he lacks in scoring he makes up for in decision-making and defense.

Sessions clearly has that natural knack for running a team, something he first displayed as a freshman. After injuries derailed his sophomore year, Sessions got back on track this season, showing major improvement as a scorer. His mark was all over this camp, and he does it with solid decision making, and a patient, probing way of making a defense commit to stopping him or stopping the pass. At this point Sessions would probably rather pull defenses toward him and use his excellent court vision to find teammates, but he is improving with the pull-up jumper and a creative array of floaters and other finishing moves if he makes his way into the lane.

I wouldn't read much into this in terms of the Charlie Bell situation, as the Bucks were going to sign Sessions regardless of whether Bell is re-signed. Potentially good news for the Bucks is that two of the European teams that had talked to Bell are likely no longer interested. Barcelona finally signed Alex Acker a week ago, while Greek side Olympiacos--the team Bell visited last weekend--reportedly signed Milos Teodosic after Bell left. The latter comes from a reliable poster over at RealGM, but I haven't seen it in the mainstream media (nor do I speak Greek unfortunately).

My guess is Sessions spends most of the season in the D-League unless one of the Bucks other PGs--Mo, Bell or Greer--goes down with an injury. So yes, I'm still assuming Charlie Bell will be a Buck next year. Longer-term his size and rep as a floor general could certainly give him a future in Milwaukee, since he could eventually provide a good change of pace from Mo Williams.

Monday Bucks Notes

• Dime has a cool interview with Charlie Bell. Nothing new on his contract situation, and from what I've heard the contract numbers they're quoting are wrong--it's $5 million total, not per season, for two years. Either way it's interesting to see Bell's take on his previous adventures in Europe.

  “When I was in Treviso, we were looked at as celebrities, but we weren’t as big as the soccer team there. When I was in Spain and leading the league in scoring, I was really popular there. People would come up to me like, ‘Charlie Bell, you’re the greatest.’ Everybody called me ‘Santo Dios,’ which is like a saint. I was the Michael Jordan of Spain at the time. I’d go downtown and have crowd of kids following me around.

• The Michael Redd Foundation is holding a two-day basketball tournament in Columbus.
• Former Wolves combo guard Troy Hudson claims he's talking to the Spurs and Bucks.

  Point guard Troy Hudson, who received a $10 million contract buyout from the Timberwolves this summer, is talking with the San Antonio Spurs and Milwaukee Bucks but wants his role defined before he'll sign.

  I suppose it's worth putting in a call to Hudson given the ongoing Charlie Bell saga, as Hudson's one of the few experienced guards still left who is available for the minimum. But let's be clear, the Bucks would surely prefer to lock up Bell than settle for the oft-injured Hudson even at the minimum. It's been five years since Hudson's career season (14 ppg/6 apg in 02/03), and at this point the 31-year old might stands a good chance of not even being in the NBA next season. At this stage of his career Hudson is a one-dimensional, shoot-first PG who isn't even very good at shooting anymore.
• Bob Wolfley at the JS adds some logic to the discussion about Yi's minutes. I've always liked Wolfley a lot--he's not a beat guy so he doesn't seem to mind expressing his opinion (good or bad), but he also isn't a columnist who has to slap together a big, contrived column once a week.
  

  If the report is literally the truth - if it was something given to Yi beyond assurances - that's bad precedent.

  But the issue of a guarantee is a moot one given what players taken in Yi's slot have averaged in playing time.

  Over the last 15 seasons, No. 6 draft choices have averaged 28.2 minutes, three minutes over the maximum Kohl allegedly guaranteed. Of those 15 players, only three averaged less than 20 minutes, 11 averaged more than 25 minutes and six of them averaged over 30 minutes.

Markota Waived!

So just days after we were discussing Damir Markota's uh, interesting reasons for not trying hard last season, the Bucks stepped up and waived him. I figured the Bucks would be loathe to do so given it'd be simple to just stash him in the D-League for another season rather than admit their mistake, but being both bad at basketball and immature off the court does apparently count for something. At least in the NBA.

I'd have to guess his latest comments were perhaps the final nail in the coffin, and with Krystkowiak trying to build a more disciplined team Markota was probably viewed as a bad apple not worth wasting time on. Given he was friends with Bogut this might also be a bit of a wakeup call to the former #1 overall pick--no more coddling, Drew. In fairness Bogut doesn't have a rep for being much of a party animal, but his friendship with Markota was largely rumored to have been a reason the Bucks acquired Markota in the first place (and for a high '07 second rounder no less). I'll be curious to hear how much of his remaining two years' salary (about $1.5 million total, the minimum for a player of his tenure) was guaranteed.

Friday Bucks Notes

Guangdong says goodbye and gives Yi...well, whatever you'd call that.

• Sean Deveney touches on the Bell situation in his latest column.

  But with Bell, the Bucks are gambling that the European threats are just a negotiating ploy. Remember, Bell has played in Russia, Spain and Italy, and though he hasn't bad-mouthed his experience, he has never seemed eager to go back. He once told a reporter, "Honestly, the food over there is good, but I prefer Pizza Hut and Olive Garden." ...

• Yi Jianlian had a big farewell ceremony in Guangdong, bidding goodbye to an arena full of fans. Check out some pictures here. Apparently Nike designed a special logo for Yi that's on the shirt he's wearing in the pictures. Kinda cool--perhaps it will find its way to the Bradley Center next year?
• Israel stunned Croatia 80-75 in the Eurobasket tournament. The Damir Markota Experience electrified the audience in Spain with 5 points and 7 rebounds in 21 awe-inspiring minutes (box score). In the previous game Markota had 6 points, a rebound and 2 assists in 14 minutes as Croatia upset defending World Champions Spain 85-84 (box score).
  

Thursday Bucks Notes

The next question for CB: Greece or Milwaukee?

• According to Greek papers, Charlie Bell is in Athens to visit with Olympiacos officials. The contract offer is reportedly a net-of-tax $5 million total over two years, so in pre-tax terms that's probably about $8 million or so. In other words, with Bell having stated a preference for staying in Milwaukee (and the NBA), the Bucks should have no problem retaining him for a fair amount. Keep in mind the last time Mark Bartelstein had a client make a trip to a competing city, Mo Williams wound up doing quite well for himself. No one seems to know what the Bucks are offering Bell, though in general the Bucks seem to be content to lowball Bell (or at least not roll over for him) and wait for someone else to force them to do something. Given they can match any offer sheet from another NBA team, the pressure hasn't really been on the Bucks to do anything. Clearly disappointed that he hasn't been able to fleece the Bucks again, Bartelstein has turned abroad to see if he can manufacture some leverage, but it still just doesn't seem possible that the Bucks would let Bell leave when a three-year, $10-12 million deal is probably enough to bring him back. Given the kinds of deals UFAs get you can understand why Bell would be hesitant to sign for a (gasp!) reasonable price, but it looks like the Bucks might be negotiating...well?
  
• Damir Markota's Croatia took down Portugal 90-68 in their second game at the Eurobasket tournament in Spain. Markota appeared sober and came off the bench to score 13 points (3/4 fg, 2/2 3fg, 5/6 ft) along with a rebound, 2 assists, 2 steals, and a block in 23 minutes (box score).
  
• Ersan Ilyasova's Turkish team also won their second Eurobasket game, beating the Czech Republic 80-72. Ersan started for the second straight game but struggled, scoring just one point and going 0-8 from the field with 6 rebounds in 22 minutes. I was hoping Ersan would have a breakout tournament, but so far in the EFES World Cup and Eurobasket he's really struggled to find his shot. Looks like stashing him away in Europe for at least a season could prove a wise move on the Bucks' part.