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It's official: Scott Skiles is the new head coach of the Bucks, signing a fully-guaranteed four-year deal on Monday afternoon. For all the reasons that Tom Ziller explained yesterday, Skiles is a good fit: the Bucks need to improve on defense and sharing the ball, both of which can be improved with effort and focus. If anyone can get that out of a team, it's Skiles. His personality may wear thin after a few years, but he's a great stepping stone for a team starting near the bottom.

Skiles is actually a close friend of the recently fired Larry Krystkowiak, but I hope Michael Redd doesn't hold that against him. Krystkowiak talked about his firing over the weekend, and the way he tells it, Redd's selfishness during games sabotaged Krystkowiak's best efforts to get the team to share the ball. From the Milwaukee J-S:

"There was a different mind-set in practice than there was in a game," Krystkowiak said. "It was like two different types of teams so we could never address sharing and moving the basketball because we did a decent job of it in practice. It was in games where it didn't happen. . . . Things became very focused on scoring points and that's Mike. Truly great players make the players around them better.

"A lot of times in practice he would defer and wouldn't be as scoring-minded and so I don't know how you're supposed to get better as a team when . . . practice was different than games."

For the record, Redd did make a conscious effort to distribute the ball this year. He talked about it early in the year, and he finished the season averaging two fewer field goal attempts and four fewer points per game than he did a year ago, all while averaging a career-high 3.4 assists per game. Maybe he didn't do enough, but you can't say he didn't try.

I stumbled across this BetUS "Prop Talk" column (no need for you to inquire how I do my stumbling, thank you) a few days ago, and obviously it's not fresh or anything, but it seems pretty appropriate at this stage in Isiah Thomas' career. See, Zeke was a -2000 favorite to be the first coach fired this season.

Donnie Walsh has been hired to replace Isiah Thomas as the Knicks president of basketball operations. It is widely assumed that Walsh will also relieve Thomas of his coaching duties after the regular season ends on Apr. 16.

Wanna bet? Thomas is a –2000 sports betting favorite to be the next NBA coach who either gets fired or resigns. The field is priced at +800. However likely it may be that Thomas' four years and change in the Big Apple are about to end on a sour note, he's not the only one with his head on the block.

I actually tried to find the odds themselves, and was unable to for whatever reason. I wish I had, because had I bet on anything, it would have been "field". There were plenty of people -- Jim Boylan and Larry Krystkowiak come to mind -- that were eligible to be canned before Zeke, especially considering that Donnie Walsh probably wasn't interested in finding an interim coach to manage the circus for just a few games.

But more than anything, I think what's funny about this particular gambling line is that it is pretty metaphorical for Isiah's entire tenure in New York. -2000 is one of the highest money lines I've ever seen. Think about it. 1:20 odds is beyond anything Tiger Woods or the 2008 Patriots ever sniffed. Yet ... he still beat them!

And that's what Isiah has been doing in New York for years. Sexual harassment lawsuits, horrible free agent signings, 30% winning percentages, embarrassing trades -- none of them could get Isiah booted immediately. Finally, James Dolan caved and brought in Donnie Walsh, who canned Thomas, but when we all think back on Zeke's career in New York, yes, we'll be amazed at how awful a job he did. But I think in the end, we'll be more amazed at how long he actually kept the job.

We're barely a day removed from the end of the regular season, and we already have our second head coaching casualty. Earlier today the Bulls relieved Jim Boylan of his duties, and now the Bucks have decided to similarly part ways with Larry Krystkowiak.

The Bucks' Coach K had a dismal first season as head coach, as the team basically refused to play defense and finished with a dismal 26-56 record. Krystkowiak (try typing that three times fast) blamed the lack of defensive-minded players on the team, and a shoot-first mentality by some of the players for the team's issues.

"It's more about a team concept instead of a bunch of talent," Krystkowiak said. "I think we have a lot of guys looking to score, and we've had a heck of a time with chemistry. I think that probably needs to be looked at a little bit more, the aggressive, physical, defensive-minded blend to go with some of the guys that we have."

Defense was a problem for sure, but I think the reason Larry is unemployed today is because this team simply gave up on him. There's no excuse for getting blown out night after night the way this Bucks team did, and they had some horrendous losses. Losing by 31 at Toronto, 43 at Philadelphia, and recently giving up 151 points in regulation -- to Boylan's disappointing Bulls -- are likely indicators that the team desperately needed a change in leadership.

It wasn't a huge surprise that the Bucks fired head coach Terry Stotts this afternoon, but it did seem a little odd when they didn't name an interim coach right away. Well, the wait is over: Milwaukee's Sports Radio 1250 AM (WSSP) is reporting that assistant coach Larry Krystkowiak has signed a two-year deal. Krystkowiak, 42, was in his first year on Milwaukee's bench after serving as the head coach of the University of Montana from 2004-2006.

Why didn't they announce Krystkowiak's hire sooner? Perhaps because there was some competition for his services. University of Utah officials were in Milwaukee on Tuesday interviewing Krystkowiak for their vacant head coaching position. The Utes were believed to be on the verge of hiring Krystkowiak ... that is, until Milwaukee's job "coincidentally" became available.

But this can't be a coincidence, right? I mean, in hindsight it seems obvious to me like the team fired Stotts now rather than wait until the end of the season because they didn't want to risk losing their prized assistant. They must have already decided they wanted Krystkowiak, who spent four of his nine years as a player in the NBA with the Bucks, to be Stotts' successor considering they gave him a two-year contract instead of having him finish out the year wearing the "interim" tag.

And with a plush college job apparently his for the taking, Krystkowiak suddenly had the leverage to force Milwaukee's hand into making a coaching change now. It's pure conjecture, of course, and I don't intend for it to sound so devious -- it's possible that he simply wasn't comfortable having a secret agreement with the front office while ostensibly working under a lame duck boss. But either way, this had to have been in the works before Stotts got the call this afternoon.

(via Larry Brown Sports)