Jason Kidd, a Do or Die Decision for Milwaukee's New Owners

Milwaukee Bucks seems to have some momentum building in the last couple of months. They had new ownership. They added a top draft pick with Jabari Parker whom received standing ovations all over the city of Milwaukee over the weekend. Everyone really liked what Milwaukee was doing, but then they went for the remix by trading for Jason Kidd as their head coach. Larry Drew is now out as the head coach something he just found out today which is not the way to do things in coaching circles. Kidd made a power move and it worked, but at the same time, there are a great deal of consequences if this doesn't play out in Milwaukee's favor although there is always a chance this will work out for everyone.

Many people are wondering why people are coming to the defense of Drew, a head coach whom won only 15 games, the answer is simple. Drew got taken out back and drilled in the back of the head instead of being done the right way. It was a ruthless decision. Sure, it happens all the time in the business world, but Milwaukee flexed its muscles like the 5'6 bro tank-wearing guy at an O.A.R. concert wanting to start a fight with a 6'6 mountain of a man. Bucks have zero muscles to flex with their owners, General Manager and everyone else involved. That's why the furor is there from people. It's not what the Bucks did, rather how they handled the situation given the position they are currently in.

Bucks are not one of the best five organizations in the NBA. They are an organization with an arena and attendance problems. Some could argue they belong in the bottom five. If this thing blows up in their faces, Milwaukee could be left in the dust. What coach wants to come to Milwaukee if this is how they treat people? Not many will see the job alluring if you combine the lack of winning, the arena issues and the mob mentality of the organization. Sure, two out of those three could be fixed, but at the same time having people live in a perpetual state of fear isn't always the best business practice. Many people can make the argument Drew deserved to be fired given only winning 15 games out of 82, but at the same time, he is at least owed some respect instead of looking like a complete clown.

 If Milwaukee's owners knew this was going to happen, they should have told Drew to skip everything involved with Parker. The fact the Bucks trotted him out with their owners talking to Kidd without his knowledge makes him look like a puppet in a scheme. Some can say Drew looked like it was coming but there is not a chance in hell he realized his new boss was the Frank Underwood of the NBA. Anything to get what he wanted and attempt to take this team to the top. Marc Lasry was Kidd's financial advisor and now he's Kidd's boss, the head coach will have more protection than the President of the United States. Even though this thing went down in the dirtiest way imaginable, there is a chance it works out for Milwaukee and their ownership.

Kidd is not a bad coach based off one year. That's unfair. People cannot immediately claim he is terrible. Further, a first-year coach dealing with a team full of guys like Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Jason Terry, Deron Williams were all his peers at some point in his career. Kidd is coming to a Bucks organization where most of the guys watched him play throughout his career and may have looked up to him. He could do wonders for a guy like Brandon Knight. And most of these players are going to listen to Kidd and instill his beliefs as a coach even if many people from outside Milwaukee will want to see this Bucks team fail given what happened this weekend. Kidd gets a team full of young guys which I have always argued is easier on new coaches.

If Kidd brings the Bucks a Central Division title in the next three years, all will be forgotten. Even if Kidd leads the Bucks to consistent playoff appearances where they are higher than the seventh seed, I think people will be happy. No one will remember this little incident if the Bucks are winning basketball games. I don't know if Drew would have been better with this crop of talent or would have gotten fired mid-season if Milwaukee struggled again. If the latter would have happen, maybe it's better this way even if it did not happen in the greatest of circumstances.

The last concern for all Milwaukee basketball fans is Jason Kidd does whatever Jason Kidd wants. He has one of the biggest egos in the NBA and really does not give one damn about whom he hurts on the way. Kidd could easily find a better job in two months and tell the Bucks, he is moving forward. The man has consistently burned bridges throughout this entire career, both playing and now coaching. Hopefully, Milwaukee doesn't give him a need for gasoline and matches.

Charlie.

Tapping The Keg Podcast Episode 90

Tapping The Keg set for another edition with your two lovely hosts, Charlie and Mitch. Kind of a slow week, but we find a way to get 45 minutes of pure listening joy out of this one. We begin the podcast talking about your Brewers drinking team and what guys would be the most fun to go out with. It continues with a discussion about the hot Brewer hitting in the last week with a little All-Star talk as well. We move on to talk NBA Playoffs looking at both Spurs-Thunder and Heat-Pacers which are both headed for at least six games. The discussion continues with talk about the Bucks as Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens will be hanging with the common folk tonight plus why Mitch wants new jerseys. It finishes with the ridiculousness of criticizing Johnny Manziel.

Charlie.

Lasry & Edens: A New Hope

We've had about a week now to digest the full transfer of ownership from long-time owner, former Senator Herb Kohl to New York based billionaires Marc Lasry and Wes Edens. I'll hopefully get into more detail later about these guys' comments later but I'll just say that the arrows are definitely pointing up with these two gentlemen.

The sale isn't officially approved by the NBA's Board of Governers yet but commissioner Adam Silver has stated that he doesn't foresee any issues with the sale. 

Full disclosure: I went out and celebrated the ownership transfer last Wednesday night (after Charlie and I attended the final game of the Herb Kohl era), because I had to. It was perhaps a bit too much in the end but it happens. 

Now that that's out of the way, I must first pay tribute to one Herb Kohl. While he was very unsuccessful during his 25+ years of ownership, Kohl has single-handedly ensured that we've had NBA basketball in the 414 for the past 25+ years and (hopefully) for the next 30+ years. I cannot deny him of that fact. However, during the standing ovation the BC crowd that I was a part of last Wednesday gave, I had my fingers crossed a bit. It was almost like a "thank you, Herb, you son of a bitch" type ovation, at least from me.

The fact that he was really doing his best to drive the franchise into the ground by his constant push for the eight seed in the East had grown absolutely tired and the entire fanbase was completely sick of it. With these new owners, I have to believe the black veil that Kohl had over this franchise has been lifted.

One thing Herb did that may prove to be invaluable, is the provision in the contract that if a new arena deal isn't at least in place by November 2017. This should force the owners, who seem like highly competitive guys, to get the ball rolling as soon as they can. It should also prevent them from pulling a half-hearted attempt at an arena and then throwing their hands up and moving the team to wherever they please.

However, no matter how much young talent this franchise had accumulated over the past 12 months, it was still owned by Herb Kohl and the guise that he/they would do something stupid to screw up the foundation, was always there. Now, given the new billionaire owners, a new arena on the horizon and some young talent, Milwaukee might not be the wasteland of the NBA that it has seemed to be over the last approximately ten years.

Kohl flanked on the left by Edens and the right by Lasry

Who are these new guys?

Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens are each worth over a billion dollars. They are hedge-fund managers based in New York City.

Lasry is the co-founder and CEO of Avenue Capital Group and actually bought the penthouse at the top of the 55 Central Park West in Manhattan, commonly known as the "Ghostbusters Building". He has been a highly successful businessman in his life but while I can't find anything, I've heard he doesn't have the cleanest of hands. Let's face it though, you don't get to be a billionaire with out being a King Cobra sometimes. You can't make a cake without breaking a few eggs, if you will.

Edens is worth a little more than Lasry and is the one with a few ties to the state of Wisconsin. He stated in the introductory press conference that his mother was raised and educated in the state and he also employs approximately 700 people in the state.

He is the co-founder and co-chair of Fortress Investment Group, Inc. and has a bachelor of Arts and Sciences from Oregon State working against him (I'm a Ducks guy).

As I previously stated, some of these guys' initial comments make them seem genuine about keeping the team here and building a championship caliber basketball team and that's really all fans want. I feel a new arena would contribute directly to that idea but the fans will come back in droves if you can just give them hope. With Kohl there was no hope.

In a Q&A with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the two expressed their deep interest in basketball and that they both seem to understand that you need to have the right people in place, especially in management, to be success. That's music to my ears and says that they're not here to just collect the gate profits from making the eight seed in a sh*tty Eastern Conference to get buried by the Miami Heat twice at home. They are basketball fans and they are winners; a potentially great combination.

We'll see who they bring on as front office personnel on both the business and the basketball side. You'd have to think they'd at least consult with Milwaukee Brewers' personnel on what makes them so popular, if not plucking someone from the Brewers' organization to run the business side. That'd be the smart move, in my opinion.

Arena situation

Lasry & Edens are together putting down $100 million toward a new building from the jump. Couple that with Herb Kohl's $100 million he's vowed to leave toward the building and that's $200 million right away, approximately half of what it would take for a state-of-the-art, multi-purpose arena in Milwaukee.

That should be more than enough right? Well, I'm not sure it is. I could see "Ledens" needed to throw down a bit more, possibly Kohl throwing in a bit more (what else is he going to do with it?) and the parties needing to bring in other investors to get this thing entirely privately financed. Lord knows, getting any public funding for what fans think is exclusively an NBA (Bucks) arena is going to be an absolute bitch, but I digress.

The problem I have with a totally privately financed arena is that the city won't get a cut of any profit. The only way the city would then benefit is the bars and restaurants surrounding the new facility thriving.

I genuinely believe they will get this down at this point in time. The two new owners have said they plan on having a deal in place in the next 12-18 months. So if we get into that period and it's still crickets, I'll be worried but for now, I'm alright.

With new owners, Giannis Antetokounmpo and another top pick in the upcoming draft, the future looks a lot brighter than it did just one year ago.