No one has ever questioned Kelvin Sampson's basketball IQ or his coaching ability. Well, they may have, but it seems pointless; the guy can coach. People have beef with him because of his inability to put down the freaking telephone.

This is a huge problem in the world of college basketball, because of the possibility for NCAA violations. In the world of professional basketball, where Sampson will now be residing as assistant coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, this is not as large a problem.

Former Indiana University coach Kelvin Sampson has agreed to become a Milwaukee Bucks assistant under Scott Skiles, a person with knowledge of the hiring told The Associated Press on Friday. The person requested anonymity because Sampson has not yet signed a contract, although the signing could come later in the day.

This is a second chance for Sampson, who resigned as the Hoosiers' coach Feb. 22 and accepted a $750,000 buyout after an NCAA report charged him with five major NCAA rules violations.

There is certainly reason to wonder why Milwaukee would do this: Sampson is admittedly a consistent violator of the most basic of rules while Skiles is the king of disciplinarians. Just ask Ben Wallace's headband.

On the other hand, Sampson knows what he is doing on the court and has -- as evidenced by his relationship with many of the Indiana players -- been known as a player friendly coach in the past. That attitude could certainly offset some of the grating relationships that Skiles seems to develop because of his coaching style.

There's more than one way to play defense. Everyone celebrates the ones most commonly found on highlight reels -- the vicious block that sends the ball five rows into the stands, the sneaky steal at mid-court that results in an easy fast-break dunk -- but people tend to ignore another fundamental tactic: holding your ground and drawing a charge.

As Alex from BrewHoop pointed out this weekend, Andrew Bogut is one of only a handful of players who excel at both the highlight-reel block and drawing charges:

While the Bucks finished dead last in the NBA in defensive efficiency, Andrew Bogut completed the 2007-08 season with exactly 100 more blocks than he had the previous season, good enough for 1.7 per game. The third-year center also broke through with career highs in points (14.4), rebounds (9.8), and steals (0.8).

There's more: Bogut finished second in the NBA in offensive fouls drawn, with 53. He's placed in the top three overall each of his first three years in the NBA. Drawing charges is arguably more beneficial than blocking shots, which can result in the opposing team still holding possession.

ESPN.com's Marc Stein reported last night that new Milwaukee head coach Scott Skiles is trying to hire disgraced former Indiana U chief Kelvin Sampson as an assistant. Sampson was last seen carousing with the Spurs, apparently after finding out disgraced former Missouri chief Quin Snyder got a gig with San Antonio's D-League affiliate. (Gregg Popovich is like the Dr. Drew for folks with an addiction to recruiting violations.)

Should Sampson land on Skiles's bench, it would complete (we hope) a massive shuffle of coaches in the Great Lakes region. As FanHouse's PostmanR (a Chicagoan) noted in an e-mail: Skiles (who lives in Bloomington during the summer) got canned by Chicago and went to Milwaukee, Sampson got exiled from Bloomington and could end up in Milwaukee, while Indiana hired Tom Crean ... from Marquette, in Milwaukee.

Since it seems unlikely the Bulls (or anyone) will hire deposed Bucks boss Larry Krystowiak, the only remaining solution: hire Detroit assistant Terry Porter, who previously coached the Bucks (check), was born in Milwaukee (check), and played at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point (checkmate). (Presumed Bulls frontrunner Rick Carlisle -- formerly of the NBA franchises in Detroit and Indiana -- would make plenty of "sense," too. And hey, maybe Flip Saunders can get canned and take the long-rumored/long-LOLed Minnesota Gophers gig.)

It's official: Scott Skiles is the new head coach of the Bucks, signing a fully-guaranteed four-year deal on Monday afternoon. For all the reasons that Tom Ziller explained yesterday, Skiles is a good fit: the Bucks need to improve on defense and sharing the ball, both of which can be improved with effort and focus. If anyone can get that out of a team, it's Skiles. His personality may wear thin after a few years, but he's a great stepping stone for a team starting near the bottom.

Skiles is actually a close friend of the recently fired Larry Krystkowiak, but I hope Michael Redd doesn't hold that against him. Krystkowiak talked about his firing over the weekend, and the way he tells it, Redd's selfishness during games sabotaged Krystkowiak's best efforts to get the team to share the ball. From the Milwaukee J-S:

"There was a different mind-set in practice than there was in a game," Krystkowiak said. "It was like two different types of teams so we could never address sharing and moving the basketball because we did a decent job of it in practice. It was in games where it didn't happen. . . . Things became very focused on scoring points and that's Mike. Truly great players make the players around them better.

"A lot of times in practice he would defer and wouldn't be as scoring-minded and so I don't know how you're supposed to get better as a team when . . . practice was different than games."

For the record, Redd did make a conscious effort to distribute the ball this year. He talked about it early in the year, and he finished the season averaging two fewer field goal attempts and four fewer points per game than he did a year ago, all while averaging a career-high 3.4 assists per game. Maybe he didn't do enough, but you can't say he didn't try.

Few league followers remain sympathetic to Scott Skiles; after Chicago's disaster of a start this season, followed by a disaster of a middle and a disaster of an end, it seems clear he poisoned the well quite a bit with his angry, abrasive style. Chicago had good defensive talent, and most of the guys were ones you would say work hard. The team needed offensive creativity, if anything, and Skiles nor successor Jim Boylan could provide that.

Milwaukee needs some offensive creativity, too; weapons like Michael Redd, Mo Williams and Yi Jianlian should be able to boast an offense better than 22nd in the league -- the Bucks did have the #13 offense in the league just a year prior with the same pieces, after all. But the defense remained consistent: consistently awful.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Tom Enlund reports the Bucks will likely hire Skiles as their new coach within a few days. With the above findings in place, it makes too much sense. If the Bucks offense can get back on track while Skiles incites some team defense out of the bunch (and there's potential for this -- with long Andrew Bogut and Yi, and good quickness in the backcourt), this team can easily vault into the Atlanta-Indiana-New Jersey range. With a(nother) top 10 pick and some reassignment of assets, they could get even better.

Of course, this supposes new GM John Hammond doesn't want to immediately make his mark by detonating the locker room. Of course, Skiles could be a star candidate for that gig, too; it was, after all, the incredibly young 47-win 2004-05 Bulls which stands as the coach's greatest bench triumph. This could work, folks.

Who's going to be the new coach in Milwaukee? The online sportsbook Bodog lists odds for six candidates plus the field -- Scott Skiles is easily the favorite with 1:1 odds, followed by Larry Brown at 3:1, Rick Carlisle at 7:2, Tom Thibadeau at 4:1, Jeff Van Gundy at 6:1 and Mike Fratello at 8:1.

What about the Bulls? Carlisle and Van Gundy are tied with 7:4 odds, followed by Fratello at 7:2, Terry Porter at 9:2 , Thibodeau at 6:1 and Mark Jackson at 8:1. Personally, I'd peg Carlisle as the favorite to land with the Bucks over the Bulls due to his history working with John Hammond, but all in all I can't disagree with these odds.

But what about the Knicks job? This is where it gets interesting. In talking with a contact from Bodog over email, I was told Bodog almost didn't post any odds on candidates since "Jackson is such a prohibitive favorite." What they settled on was a straight-up question: "Will Mark Jackson be named the new head coach of the New York Knicks?" The only option bettors can select is "no," which pays +150. In other words, which means they're so sure he's going to get the job they're not willing to risk a single dollar for people wanting to bet "yes," no matter how long the odds.

Granted, all of this might change once Donnie Walsh starts bringing in candidates to interview, but it's interesting that the snap judgment from a company whose business is based on making correct guesses is that the job is absolutely Jackson's to lose.

Previously on FanHouse:
Zeke Could Have Made You Some Money

We're barely a day removed from the end of the regular season, and we already have our second head coaching casualty. Earlier today the Bulls relieved Jim Boylan of his duties, and now the Bucks have decided to similarly part ways with Larry Krystkowiak.

The Bucks' Coach K had a dismal first season as head coach, as the team basically refused to play defense and finished with a dismal 26-56 record. Krystkowiak (try typing that three times fast) blamed the lack of defensive-minded players on the team, and a shoot-first mentality by some of the players for the team's issues.

"It's more about a team concept instead of a bunch of talent," Krystkowiak said. "I think we have a lot of guys looking to score, and we've had a heck of a time with chemistry. I think that probably needs to be looked at a little bit more, the aggressive, physical, defensive-minded blend to go with some of the guys that we have."

Defense was a problem for sure, but I think the reason Larry is unemployed today is because this team simply gave up on him. There's no excuse for getting blown out night after night the way this Bucks team did, and they had some horrendous losses. Losing by 31 at Toronto, 43 at Philadelphia, and recently giving up 151 points in regulation -- to Boylan's disappointing Bulls -- are likely indicators that the team desperately needed a change in leadership.

The video is already a few days old, but it's still relevant considering Ramon Sessions set another career-high by scoring 25 points to go along with 14 assists in Milwaukee's season finale against the Timberwolves. Now, I imagine most of you probably just asked yourself, Ramon who?

Well, in case you haven't been paying attention (and I understand if you haven't been -- the Bucks did end the season on an eight-game losing streak), Sessions is Milwaukee's rookie point guard who's come out of complete obscurity to average a double-double the last month of the season (11.3 points and 11.3 assists), including an obscene 20 point, 24 assist performance earlier this week. For more, read up on BrewHoop.

You want to know the crazy part? He didn't even make his NBA debut until March 9th, instead spending most of the league terrorizing the D-League. Seriously, Larry Harris, you deserved to be fired just for that. Needless to say, but I'm guessing the first order of business for new GM John Hammond is putting Charlie Bell squarely on the trading block.

Bill Simmons dream of running an NBA franchise may have hit a little speed bump today. And by "speed bump" I mean it has been totally derailed. The Milwaukee Bucks, according to Marc Stein, have reached an agreement to "lure" John Hammond away from the Detroit Pistons to run their front office.

Hammond's first task in Milwaukee, according to sources, will be hiring a veteran coach to help the Bucks make a firm assessment of their talent after a group expected to compete for a playoff berth in the Eastern Conference woefully underachieved in Larry Krystkowiak's first full season on the bench.

Sources say Hammond is expected to make a strong push to hire former Pistons coach Rick Carlisle. Working as an ESPN analyst this season after leaving the Indiana Pacers, Carlisle is also widely considered as a strong candidate to coach the Chicago Bulls next season.

If you are a Bucks fan -- even one that was staunchly behind the potential of the Sports Guy experiment -- you have to be thrilled right now. Hammond has resisted overtures for quite a while now -- and it appeared he was resisting Milwaukee's as well -- and in case you don't watch basketball, he and Joe Dumars put together a decent team in Detroit for the past few years.

Maybe it's just me, but assuming that nothing else changes (which it probably will) and Hammond and Carlisle get hired (I don't see why not) but the Bucks are immediately about 10 times more respectable than they were yesterday. Or would have been if they'd let the Sports Guy run the team. It will be interesting, of course, to see how much leeway Herb Kohl will give Hammond, but you have to think that if he agreed to move to a rebuilding project of his own, he's at least getting more or less carte-b to make the Bucks decent again.

HT: JCM, Esq.

The Rotation is a weekly study on the NBA by one of our All-Star voices. In rotation this week is Brett Edwards.

The Draft Lottery is a convoluted system put in place so that the teams finishing with the worst records in the league don't automatically receive the top picks in the draft (see: the madness of the 2007 lottery). But the lottery is still weighted according to record, meaning it's still to a team's benefit to tank their remaining games once a playoff spot is out of the question. Bad, bad, and more bad.

Take the Miami Heat, for example -- the way they have treated the end of the regular season has been an absolute embarrassment. After compiling the league's worst record and trading away Shaquille O'Neal, the team only played Dwyane Wade 11 more times before shutting him down for the season. More recently, they have also shelved Shawn Marion, whose injuries would probably not have been season-ending if the Heat were still in contention for the playoffs.

Combine all of this with the fact that the team is gleefully auditioning players from the D-League while their head coach skips out to catch some NCAA Tournament action, and one can only come to this very obvious conclusion: the Heat have long ago stopped trying to compete.

And you know what? I can't blame them, because it's not their fault. They're simply working within a system that rewards teams with no playoff aspirations for losing as many games as possible. The system that the NBA uses to hand out draft picks is broken, people. Continue reading for some interesting ways that it can be fixed.