Richard Jefferson

One of the complaints you hear about professional sports is that with free agency it’s hard to get excited when new players come to your team because they will eventually leave the team. It’s not like in the old days, fans say, when players stayed with their teams for their whole career.

The reality, however, is that in today’s MLB, NBA, NHL and NFL, players come and go. In some cases, their stay is a few years. In other cases, it might only be one year.

Let’s take a look at one of our local pro teams, the Bucks. Over the past several years they have had players who have had a successful season with the team and then they were gone the next season, either via trade or free agency. For them, the Bucks were a stopover in their career.

A good example of this was Richard Jefferson, who the Bucks obtained in a trade with the New Jersey Nets in June of 2008. Jefferson started all 82 games for the Bucks in 2008-09, averaged 19.6 points per game and scored the most points for the team that season. Almost to the day when he was traded to the Bucks, Jefferson was sent to the San Antonio Spurs a year later in a trade that brought the Bucks three players, Bruce Bowen, Fabricio Oberto and Kurt Thomas.

Here are the players who scored the most points with the Bucks in the only season they played in Milwaukee.

Player, season, points
Richard Jefferson, 2009, 1607
Ruben Patterson, 2007, 1194
Wayne Embry, 1969, 1023
Ken Norman, 1994, 979
Swen Nater, 1977, 938
Fred Hetzel, 1969, 843
Lindsey Hunter, 2001, 825
Corey Maggette, 2011, 805
George Thompson, 1975, 780
Jamaal Magloire, 2006, 752
Bob Boozer, 1971, 728

Let’s add a slight wrinkle to the above stat and look at the players who scored the most points in their career with the Bucks in less than 100 games with the team. Jefferson retains the top spot with 1607 points in 82 games, but Moses Malone takes the second spot in this list with 1329 points in 93 games with the Bucks. Patterson (1194 points in 81 games) and Embry (1023 points in 78 games) are third and fifth on the list. The other addition to the list is Terrell Brandon who is fourth on this list with 1044 points in 65 games with the Bucks.

Follow Jerry on Twitter @StatsonTapp