What If?

When I was growing up there was this comic book called What If?, where Marvel comics could put their "alternate universe" stories (DC, on the other hand, put their alternate universes in actual alternate universes, which ended quite badly for them I'm afraid). The comic went something like this: There would be the story's title in huge letters on the cover -- i.e., "What if so-and-so succeeded in taking over the earth?". Behind it would be some picture desribing the alternate universe event, such as so-and-so sitting on a throne or somesuch. I mention this for no other reason than I was thinking last night about what the Milwaukee Bucks would look like if they had simply made no trades, and signed no free agents -- only keeping the players they drafted. Here's what I came up with:
Starting Five:
PG -- Stephon Marbury
SG -- Michael Redd
SF -- Glenn Robinson
PF-- Dirk Nowitski
C -- Dan Gadzuric

Bench:
Eric Snow
Ronald "Flip" Murray
Joel Pryzbilla
Gary Trent
Pat Garrity
Danny Fortson

12th man (take your pick of these point guards)
Keith Bogans
Jason Hart
Moochie Norris
Rafer Alston
TJ Ford's broken body

Can you imagine: a) the amount of basketballs you would need to please the first four of the starting five; and, b) how many points that team would score? The mind boggles. It also proves that all you really need in a GM is someone who can draft well. If a mythical Bucks GM has just kept all the draft picks and done nothing else, the team would have been much better off.

Last night I also watched Ray Allen score 40-some points for the Seattle Sonics, not the Milwaukee Bucks. I'm happy for him, because I love him, but every time he does that my soul gets one inch closer to the giant circular saw of total annihilation. He beat his career playoff high in that game last night, previously set in 2000-2001 in the historic game 6 that saw the Bucks go up on the Sixers by 40 and only win by 10, and in which Scott Williams committed the historic flagrant foul that got him suspended for Game 7. I remember all of this very well. Maybe I'm the only one who does anymore. When he set his little record, it's not like they did a cut-away to highlights of that 2001 game. Everyone forgets Ray was a member of the Bucks. When he goes into the Hall of Fame someday, he'd better be wearing purple and not just green, that's all I have to say.