Offseason Evaluation

ESPN’s Marc Stein ranked all fifteen Eastern Conference teams “based on who has done the East's finest shopping and trading” this offseason. He rated the Milwaukee Bucks a very respectable fourth.

An excerpt from the article:

“Is Mo Williams really a $52 milion player? Was Yi Jianlian worthy of the sixth overall pick in the June draft? You have to believe "yes" to like what Milwaukee did this summer.

Yet you can understand why the Bucks feel victorious no matter what skeptics say. For awhile there, it looked as though they were going to get neither of their top two offseason targets, with Williams threatening to bolt for Miami because the Bucks' initial offer wasn't close to where it ended up ... and with Yi seemingly determined to hold out well into the season in an attempt to force Milwaukee to trade him.

To have secured both signatures by Sept. 1? A dream double for Milwaukee.”

At a time when most fans feel refreshingly optimistic about their team’s chances, Bucks fans are sure to feel a little worn out as summer nears its end, following the nonstop drama of negotiations. In times like this, it’s important to look at the bottom line, and what happened rather than how it happened.

Another way to think about this is to ask yourself what priorities you had for the team entering the offseason and reflect on whether or not they fulfilled those priorities.

When you think in these terms, you see the team added more than subtracted, and retained the important parts. While simplistic, this much is not terribly debatable.

As intense followers, sometimes we are prone to overly critical views. It’s difficult to take a step back from the situation. In this case, Stein offers a more removed perspective, and finds a lot more that went right than wrong. That’s not to say he’s correct, but it’s a view certainly worth considering after an exhausting summer.