Juuuuuuuuuust a bit outside...

I saw the Bucks today, oh boy.

This is something of an accomplishment as the Milwaukee NBA franchise makes it on national cable television about as often as...oh, I dunno, the city of Cleveland gets to celebrate a championship.

Indeed, ESPN networks are televising 72 regular-season games, which include 29 games on Wednesdays and 35 on Fridays. The slate consists of 27 doubleheaders.

TNT is televising 53 regular-season games, including 47 as part of Thursday night doubleheaders and a tripleheader on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. TNT also exclusively televises NBA All-Star 2009 festivities in Phoenix from Feb. 13-15, culminating with the NBA All-Star Game on Sunday, Feb. 15.

However, unless you have Fox Sports Wisconsin or pay good money for NBA-TV or Direct TV's NBA League Pass, you have a better chance of seeing Sarah Palin hug an illegal alien than watching the Milwaukee Bucks. Talk about your endangered species!

And yet, here were my Milwaukee Bucks on, of all places, ESPN Classic this morning as part of something called the NBA China Games 2008. This impressive monicker has been given to a couple of preseason games in China between two moribund NBA franchises -- the Bucks and the equally sad-sack Golden State Warriors -- who collectively could share space on a milk carton. Have You See This Team?

Still, here I was, watching my Bucks and feeling a lot like the guy in the beginning of Major League -- saying to myself, "you know, maybe they aren't so sh#$%#y." Of course, here is where the director would cut to the two Japanese groundskeepers replying, "no, they're still sh#$%#y."

The expectations are so low for the Bucks that even approaching the .500 mark will be considered a fantastic season. And a quick look at the sum of their parts reveals the makings of a decent basketball team.

This is where we cut for a moment to get you all up to speed on hoops-speak. Coaches are busy men -- along with some actual women in the women's game -- so they use numbers to define the five basic positions of a basketball team. To break it down simply.

• 1 = Point Guard
• 2 = Shooting Guard
• 3 = Small Forward
• 4 = Power Forward
• 5 = Center

So, for the next umpty months of the hoops season, you can now prepare for each and every coach telling the reporters after each and every game, "well, we thought we could play him at either the 3 or the 4 and if we had to, maybe at the 5, but then we were stuck by not having anybody who could cover their 1 or 2."

Still with me? Good, there'll be a test at the end of this column.

So, new coach Scott Skiles has Richard Jefferson who play as the starting 3, but  -- along with hold-over NBA All-Star and recent Olympic Gold Medalist Michael Redd -- can step back to be a 2, if the Bucks want to play a bigger lineup. Former No. 1 draft pick Andrew Bogut is firmly entrenched as the 5 with Charlie Villaneuva slated as the 4.

Yi Jianlian is gone and though we hardly know Yi, this is a good thing for the Bucks. I never quite understood why they drafted Yi anyway -- he was basically a unpolished rookie with the same skill set as a player already on your roster, Charlie Villanueva. It seemed to me that only reason in drafting Yi was to sell more Milwaukee jerseys in the burgeoning Chinese market. I mean, doesn't the Senator (Herb Kohl) have enough money?

So, I was elated that when the front office was cleaned out, Yi was sent out east and getting Jefferson was the proverbial frosting on the cake. I would have been happy if the Bucks had gotten Gary Sheffield and Pac-Man Jones in the swap -- receiving a very good small forward -- sorry, a 3 -- in the bargain made it a steal.

Another new acquisition, Luke Ridnour, joins Redd in the Milwaukee backcourt while two rookies will provide some extra firepower off the bench. Lottery pick Joe Alexander could be the next Larry Bird -- he does have much the same skill-set as the former Celtic -- while former UCLA Bruin Luc Richard Mbah a Moute gives some toughness with someone capable and willing to play defense and grab rebounds.

All of those parts were on display in this morning's victory over the Warriors.

Bogut messed around and got a double-double -- kudos for all who caught my pop culture reference to Ice Cube -- finishing with 18 points and 12 rebounds as the Bucks won for the first time in five exhibition games and recorded their opening victory under new coach Skiles. Ridnour added 16 points and 12 assists while playing 37 minutes, and Alexander finished with 11 points.

Jefferson added 13 points and five rebounds, and Mbah a Moute had 12 points and eight rebounds. And the Bucks were able to win a game -- albeit an preseason tilt over Golden State -- with Redd on the bench with left knee soreness.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Bucks' blog reports that  the two teams will meet again at the Olympic venue in Beijing on Saturday morning (10:30 p.m. Friday Milwaukee time). The Bucks headed for the airport directly after the game and were scheduled to arrive in Beijing around 3:30 a.m. Thursday (2:30 p.m. today Milwaukee time).

Skiles said he expected Redd would be able to play in Beijing in the second game of the trip. Forward Charlie Villanueva suffered a neck injury in the second half today and had to leave the game, but it was not thought to be anything serious.

Alexander, who had struggled in his first two exhibition games, contributed some key baskets in the Bucks' fourth-quarter run.

"He was able to get a couple good looks and knock them down," Skiles said. "He still doesn't know what we're trying to do yet.

ESPN will also broadcast Friday night game.

The same paper also reports that Alexander has been the talk of the China road trip.

Before the Bucks’ practice Tuesday at the Guangzhou Gymnasium, the 6-foot-8 Alexander was swarmed by a huge group of reporters. His fluency in Mandarin was one reason for his popularity, and the fact he spent much of his youth living in Beijing, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

“They enjoyed me a little bit,” Alexander said in a phone interview. “There was a pretty fair amount (of media), more than I’m used to.”

The new Joltin` Joe didn't play in the Bucks' first two preseason game and is still acclimating himself to his new team and the NBA. Still, in the much weaker Eastern Conference, at season's end, Milwaukee -- with a new coach and many new players -- could be in the hunt for one of the last remaining playoff berth.

At least, they give the impression -- as those Cleveland Indians in Major League -- that maybe they won't be so sh#$%#y.

The World Series is approaching a Tampa Bay-Philly matchup, while FOX Sports might not appreciate this very distinct possibility, ESPN's Tim Keown would be eternally grateful.

If either the Phillies or the Rays -- or both -- advance to the World Series, this great country of ours will owe them an enormous debt of gratitude. The first two weeks of the postseason have provided us with indisputable evidence: Dodgers-Red Sox is a World Series matchup America simply cannot afford.

 This isn't about teams or individuals. This is about coverage. This is about nonstop Manny Ramirez versus the Red Sox, with every angle exposed and every past transgression unearthed.

Your rooting interest is beside the point. You know this as well as I do.

There's only so much Manny anyone can take. There's only so much Red Sox anyone can take. 

The combination? Sorry.

The Chicago Tribune -- surprise, surprise -- thinks that Da Bears have the best chance of the collective 3-3 teams in the NFC North to win the division. Call him provincial, but the Trib's beat reporter David Haugh makes the point that...the numbers clearly show neither the Packers nor the Vikings have a schedule loaded with more opportunity than the Bears.

The Bears' remaining 10 opponents have a combined 25-31 record, and the only team left on the schedule currently above .500 is Tennessee. And the Titans have to come to Soldier Field on Nov. 9. That's one of six home games left for the Bears—the most of the three first-place teams.

The Packers' remaining 10 opponents have a combined 28-28 record and Green Bay has to play three teams that currently have winning records: Indianapolis (on Sunday), Tennessee and Carolina. They have to play the Titans on the road, as well as the Saints in New Orleans and the Jaguars in Jacksonville.

The Vikings might face the toughest schedule of the three. Minnesota's remaining 10 opponents have a combined 29-28 record and the Vikings still have to play four teams with winning records: at Tampa Bay and Arizona and home games against Atlanta and the New York Giants.

Meanwhile, leave to to a Madison poltical wonk to crunch the numbers on our Liquid Assets feature the other day, MB did so and insists that this columnist indulged in a bit of fuzzy math.

Hey, I was merely sharing another reader's letter, MB. I didn't get paid for it and you didn't have to pay for it, so I think we're about even.

Still, MB makes the case that...DAL (Delta Airlines) was trading at around $20/share a year ago and now trades at $6/share. That’s, huge – but that $1000 investment would still be worth around $300 today. Whereas, $1000 in six-pack cans (assuming $5/six-pack, for 200 six-packs or 1200 empty cans) wouldn’t yield anywhere close to $214 unless you could find a recycler that’d pay $.18 per can – in which case I would only drink beer in cans and not curb them.

Okay, picky, picky, picky. Still, MB did offer to cop me a Obama yard sign, so it's all good

Finally, loyal readers might have noticed that your new favorite sports blog -- the column formerly known as Talking Sports -- has a lot of @$%#(&^%()* where there are clearly some words. This is not self-censorship, but many of my former editors would make the case for SOMEBODY, ANYBODY censoring my syntax, verbiage etc etc etc...

The proclivity for this ^%@*&^$(^*#@ is due to FOX Sports bleeping out what it deems as objectionable speech. For those who will claim that I've sold out to the Dark Side, I'll remind you again that I don't get paid for this, so the worst you can call me is a collaborator.

I can't even quote Dave Barry -- an award-winning columnist, if FOX Sports ever saw one -- saying the words Adolf #### without finding it bleeping bleeped.

Still, if I may once again channel my inner Ice Cube, I wrote this whole column and didn't even have to use my AK.

So I gotta say, it was a good day.