FanHouse MichaelRedd

FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.

Luc Richard Mbah a Moute is not going to set the world on fire. But he's the type of player that can provide the gasoline.

To say Mbah a Moute was under the radar last season is to vastly overestimate the strength of radar systems. Coming out of UCLA, Mbah a Moute was considered a project like so many rookies. He didn't possess the wowzer tangibles (standing only 6-8 and being listed as a power forward will do that to you), didn't stir the senses with playmaking, and was considered a good college player that he might make it with some time.

And then Mbah A Moute actually hit the floor.

FanHouse previews all 30 NBA teams in advance of the 2009-10 season.

The Bucks were awful last year, but at least they had an excuse: Michael Redd, the team's leading scorer six years and counting, and Andrew Bogut, the franchise center who signed a $72 million extension before last season, each missed more than half of the season with injury.

The good news? Both players are healthy entering camp and should be primed to make up for lost time. The bad news? GM John Hammond has rebooted the supporting cast in their absence, trading Richard Jefferson to the Spurs in a cost-cutting maneuver while losing Charlie Villanueva and Ramon Sessions to free agency.

When a fifth-place team loses three of its top four scorers and doesn't even receive a legitimate starter to show for it, you know it's going to be a long year.

The term "revisit" might be a little inaccurate for this one. Re-miserating -- if that's a word -- may be more appropriate. The 2000 NBA Draft is perhaps the worst of all time. Of the 13 players picked in the lottery, only one has made an All-Star Team, Kenyon Martin in 2004. Nine years after the draft, four of the 13 lottery picks are out of the NBA, four averaged double figures in points and none has won an NBA title.

It's not as if a number of gems were passed up -- this was just a poor crop players coming out, filled with collegians who made putrid mistakes in leaving school early such as Erick Barkley, Donnell Harvey, Jerome Moiso and Khalid El-Amin.

If that wasn't enough evidence that this was a forgettable draft, the best player in this group was drafted 43rd, Milwaukee's Michael Redd, perhaps the biggest oversight in recent draft history.

As teams get eliminated from the 2009 NBA playoff picture, Fork 'Em figures out what went wrong.

Through the first half of the season, the Bucks rode as one of the great surprises of the NBA. A team sunk in the dead space between truly atrocious and just plain bad in 2007-08, Scott Skiles (and Michael Redd and Andrew Bogut) had Milwaukee back on the map, threatening to crash the postseason and even peeking into one analyst's Top 5 around the New Year.

You know what actually made Milwaukee famous? The soul-crushing agony of defeat.

The Bucks had recently turned things around to a certain degree with Scott Skiles and Richard Jefferson. They were a half-game ahead for the 8th playoff spot, had been playing competitively, and had some young talent to complement their core.

And now this: Michael Redd blew out his knee last night, tearing his ACL and MCL, putting him on the shelf for the remainder of the season. Ouch.

Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.

Michael Redd has been a-blaze in January, and Friday's performance against Sacramento didn't cool him off: 44 points, all of which came in the first three quarters. Redd scored on quick trigger threes (six for nine behind the arc), open lay-ups (10 for 17 on twos) and from the line (six for six).

Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.

Sacramento's Kevin Martin is one of the league's most efficient scorers, but after missing most of the season with an injury, the team wanted to work him back in by bringing him off the bench. I think he's ready to start now.

Martin poured in 36 points on 11-21 shooting (25 came in the first half) against the Nets, after dropping 45 on the Pacers in the previous game. Martin set an NBA record by scoring the most points off the bench in consecutive NBA games, besting Calvin Murphy's 80 back in the 1980-81 season by a single point.

Milwaukee Is a Tough Place to Play: The Bucks are 7-1 at home over their last eight games, and with performances like the one from Michael Redd put up against the Raptors, you can see why. Redd finished with 35 points, six rebounds, and four assists. His teammate Charlie Villanueva added 25, six, and four off the bench, including 13 in the fourth quarter to get the win over a previously hot Raptors team.

Even Against the Warriors, It's Still Impressive: It's not usually fair to put up players' stats when the play the Gol*en State Warriors (no D -- see what I did there?), but Deron Williams' 25 points and 15 assists -- on 9-of-15 shooting with just three turnovers -- is a line definitely worth noticing.

FanHouse's NBA Guide gives you a daily look at all the games that matter ... and some that don't.

A short Wednesday slate that begins at 2PM EST. Also, be sure to tune in for Matt Watson's live Twitter updates from Nets-Pistons, which tips at 3PM EST.

HEADLINER
Milwaukee at Houston, 7PM EST

The Bucks have been better than they ought to be under Scott Skiles. The Rockets ... let's say the team's still finding their way. David Berri noted this morning that Houston's point margin is a chunk worse than last season's result, despite the addition of Ron Artest. No one wants to dismiss Houston after last season's shocking 22-game win streak with this roster and before the team has reached any semblance of health. But you can't help but feel nervous the vogue titlist will come up way, way short.

FanHouse's Tom Ziller argues his ranking of the top 50 players in the NBA.

It's amazing how a guy can be vastly underrated for four years, sign a massive contract, and immediately become a scapegoat for the troubles of a troubled franchise led by troubling decision-makers. Until signing his $90 million contract in 2005, Michael Redd topped any list of quiet stars. Money equals fame, I guess -- overnight, Redd become a burden instead of the sole bright light in Milwaukee.

It's a shame Larry Krystowiak, MIL's 2007-08 coach, bought into the nonsense. In 2006-07, under Terry Stotts for most of the season, Redd showed exactly what he is: one of the absolute best scorers in the league. He finished 5th in per-game scoring, dropping 26.7 on less than 20 FGAs. Krystowiak, though, blamed Milwaukee's rough season in part on Redd's scoring focus, and forced Mike to diversify his game, shooting less, passing more, going at the glass, taking on tougher defensive assignments.

The result? Redd scored less and less efficiently. Milwaukee got no better. What Krystowiak -- and some Bucks fans and national pundits -- failed to realize is that Milwaukee has been bad in spite of Redd's performance, not because of it. Setting the table has never been a part of Redd's game. Forcing him to take on that task distracts from what he's really, really good at.

Despite a 2-0 start and an average points margin of +26, it's not hard to find problems with Team USA's performance. As you know, neither Angola nor China are among the top teams in this tournament: China stands #11 in the world, and Angola #14. Iran is the only team worse than the U.S.'s first two opponents.

As such, the Americans should be winning by 26 against these squads. Spain, Lithuania, maybe the Croats or Greeks -- those teams will perform far better, and the United States will need to be at full-throttle to win easily (which would be the goal, you'd think). And Team USA is not playing at full-throttle.

The biggest blemish is the awful three-point shooting performance. The Americans have hit only 12 of 45 long-range attempts ... despite the much shorter distance compared to the NBA and the stated aim of rebuilding the team as a team with, you know, role players. Two visages of that plan -- Michael Redd and Tayshaun Prince -- have fewer minutes than everyone but Carlos Boozer, the third-string center.

This team is not full of good long-range shooters. Kobe, Kidd, LeBron, 'Melo, Wade, Paul -- all shoot no better than 34% on their careers, and this set of bigs rarely shoots that deep. Deron Williams does have a reliable stroke, and is 2-for-5 in the Olympics. But Redd is the only prototypical three-point shooter on this team (39% on his NBA career, taking 5/game last season) ... and he has played less minutes than Jason Kidd, who is like a -17% shooter for his career. (Slight exaggeration.) Redd's a good teammate, and he practically begged to be on the team. It's worth it on a program-building level to respect his commitment, at the least.

Kobe's not as bad a shooter as he has portrayed (more on him later), but it seems the no-brainer solution to Team USA's shooting woes is to let the good shooter play more. And garbage time doesn't count.