From: mw@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Marcella Williams)
Subject: Re: Bucks and Moses
Organization: Computing Services Division, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 17:13:57 GMT

>
>>Now that Del Harris has quit his job as GM(?) up there, it's quite
>>likely that they won't keep what's-his-name the interim coach.
More than likely.  I would say that it is a given.  
>to come back next year as a head coach.  On a Clippers-Bucks game,
>the Clippers sportscasters were describing how he'd been an assistant
>coach for 23 years before finally getting a head coaching slot --
23 years as an assistant in any occupation is enough to make management
shy away from given you  a promotion.  That is why Harris left in
midseason to assure Hamblen the job.  Last year, the owner encouraged
Harris to move into the front office so he could hire Donleavy.  Harris
tried to talk him into Hamblen then.  Herb Kohl said no, so Harris stayed
on and Donleavy went to LA and the finals.  The Milwaukee papers were
full of the management rift then.
>     Hamblen had some interesting comments about his personnel.  He said
>the Bucks missed the team defense provided by Jack Sikma (retired) and
>Danny Schayes (injured).  He also said that, this season, Frank Brickowski
>was their best low post player.
All bull.  Sikma had not been a defensive force for some time because of
age and injury.  Although he was better than Schayes or Brick.  Management
is mad with Moses because he brought here to rebound and be a defensive
force, but he had to pick up the offensive slack from the forwards with
stone fingers....Brick, Roberts, Lohaus,Schayes.  They guys couldn't score
over jello. Now rebounding is just terrible.  Moses a fantastic rebounder
showed us his stuff at the beginning of the year, but after he saw the
other 4 guys in bad position with their hands down and feet bound.  He
realized at his age that he couldn't do it all.  So he scored.  He took
the ball in the black hole.  I can honestly say that most of the time
he got the point or the foul.  Isn't that what they teach you to do
in basketball.  At 37, Moses or any player should be expected to
score, rebound, and be fouled.  Those million dollar stoned finger
forwards should be able to help.    I saw Moses at the beginning of
the year pass to Roberts and have him miss a layup and the same for
the others.  So he black holed it.  It is not his fault, but
Harris and others are trying to blame him. Amazing.  I cannot go
through another season of starting Fred Roberts at forward.  What does
he offer the Bucks...no points, no defense, no fouls, no rebounding.
But he gets plenty minutes while Grayer who has shined in all of his
"starts" gets little playing time.  
>     The reason I find this interesting is that the Bucks after all did
>pick up Moses Malone this season -- but Hamblen didn't include Moses
>in any of his listed superlatives. 
A couple of weeks ago before Harris' much waited demise,  he gave an
interview blaming Alvin Robertson for not picking up the scoring
after Ricky Pierce was traded.  IN essence, Harris and Hamblen are
trying to pin the blame on everyone but themselves.   He also chided
Moses.  The players, I understand were incensed.  Alvin and Humphries
were made out to be the goats because they don't score 20 points
a game every night.  What are do they have forwards for.  True todays
game allows guards to score, but they are paying Lohaus and etc millions
for something. Dale Ellis has been a total waste of time.  He should
never have been relied on for 20 points a night.  It is a bad move
for Hamble to join Harris in the bad mouthing of his team escpecially
the players that he is badmouthing.
>     I mean, he was implying that Moses wasn't as good defensively as Sikma
>or Schayes or as good in the low post as Brickowski.  I've never been a big 
>Moses Malone fan but I certainly had to admit that he was a major force who 
>fully deserved the 2 or 3 MVP awards he won.  And I liked Sikma a lot,
>but to rank all those guys ahead of Moses seems kind of strange to me. 
Now you know why these guys lost and I losing their jobs.  No basketball sense.
The latest rumor out of Milwaukee is that Herb Kohl wants to sell the team.
I can tell you when it began to unravel, when Sidney Moncrief was released and
not allowed to retire a Buck.  The next year, Nelson left and revealed that
Kohl wanted Sidney out of Milwaukee and Nelson thought that he was the
character builder of the team.  Harris got the job because he brown nosed
to Kohl behind Nelson's back.  He was blackballed in the NBA before Nellie
gave him a job as an assistant.  He will not get another NBA job because of
the mess he has made in Milwaukee.  It is a joke all over the league that
the Bucks traded Ricky Pierce and Harris was behind the whole debacle.



Marcella Williams
UW Milwaukee
Milwaukee, Wisconsin








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