by Marcel Mutoni / @marcel_mutoni
The Milwaukee Bucks had a frustrating season last year, finishing two games out of the Playoff picture in the Eastern Conference. For their star big man, Andrew Bogut, things were even worse.
Bogut missed 17 games due to injuries, and had surgery to repair his right elbow (which he injured in a horrific fall on the court two seasons ago.) According to Andrew Bogut, the Bucks made a few too many roster changes, which led to bad team chemistry.
Hoopshype caught up with the Aussie to discuss the Bucks, the lockout (and possibly playing overseas), and what the future holds:
What happened to the chemistry of your team last season? AB: “I’m not sure. I wouldn’t blame one person specifically for that. After the success we had a couple of years ago, I think we made a lot of changes. Maybe too many. Some of them, we had to make for financial reasons and some others we made because they were appealing on paper. It’s nothing against those players that came in, but the chemistry of the team obviously wasn’t strong this year for whatever the reason and that’s why we had a bad season. This year, we also had a lot of injuries. Me, Drew Gooden, Carlos Delfino had problems with concussions… At some point we had three or four starters that had problems with injuries. Injuries played a big part. That was the biggest problem that we had.”
Playing for a team in a small market that has trouble landing stars, what are your thoughts on the Superteam trend? AB: “I think it makes the league more appealing when you have a lot of stars on one team. But on the other side, it’s going to hurt small-market teams like Milwaukee or Cleveland or Memphis. You have to be very careful with that. If every player, when he’s at the end of his contract, says, ‘Hey, I want to go to Los Angeles or New York or Miami’, where does that lead small teams? It’s very hard for them to land big-star players.”
Unlike most NBA players, Andrew Bogut views the potentially long lockout as a blessing in disguise — he thinks it will give his surgically-repaired elbow (which is still in pain) more time to recover, allowing him to return to the court fully healthy.
