When the start of the NBA season was delayed for nearly two months because of the labor lockout, you knew this was going to be an atypical year in basketball. But I don't know that any of us bargained for this.

The Clippers are in first place. New Orleans and Charlotte, the two cities that have shared the Hornets franchise full-time, are only competing for who is currently more embarrassing. Meanwhile, the city that temporarily took the Hornets in after Hurricane Katrina, Oklahoma City, has the team with the best record in basketball.

Lamar Odom was devastated when he was shipped off in a trade. To the World Champion Dallas Mavericks, where they apparently do not have television cameras that can follow his ever move in another desperate Kardashian attention grab. Other stars are openly talking about other cities they might like to play in, to hell with their current teams and teammates. Dwight Howard, I'm talking to you.

These are indeed strange times for the NBA.

The misnomer of market size being the sole determining factor to a team's success has long been dead in this league. Sure, having the bright lights of New York City or Hollywood in your backyard helps lure players, but the Knicks and Clippers have been horrible; this season, while the Clippers have thrived, the Lakers, basketball's brightest marquee team, has struggled.

Then again, all of a sudden, some kid named Jeremy Lin is setting the NBA on fire in New York, a welcome sight for a franchise that has been blight on the league's landscape for most of the past decade.

Franchises that were once proud are now abysmal. What happened to the Detroit Pistons? What happened to the Sacramento Kings? Aren't they supposed to be the bellwether franchises that are models for the rest of the NBA?

But let's begin here at home.

The Milwaukee Bucks have lost a lot of casual fans. Their core is still there, but then again, the Admirals and Wave still have a core of fans, too. But somewhere along the line the Bucks have slowly become less cool. They were cool in 2001 when they came within one game of the NBA Finals. They were cool two years ago when the phrase "Fear the Deer" was on everyone's lips here in town.

But last season was a letdown. Injuries took their toll. Perhaps Scott Skiles disciplinary ways took their toll on some players as well. This season, even with new and different players, there is discord. Stephen Jackson has been in Skiles' doghouse for most of the season, despite his undeniable talent.

Brandon Jennings has reportedly been unhappy with the direction of the team and has made intimations about possibly leaving when his contract is up.

To hear sports talk radio here in Milwaukee there are several thoughts that permeate the airwaves.

One is that the Bucks are an awful, terrible, embarrassing NBA franchise. That they are not even worthy of mention, other than to deride the team in the mentions that are given.

Another is that if the Bucks would just move away that would clear the way for some mythical NHL team to magically arrive on the Bradley Center's doorstep and begin play the moment the Bucks pack up their moving vans and bolt town.

Hopefully the mentality of the NHL ready to take up shop in what would be the league's fifth oldest arena in Milwaukee will subside, as that has about as much a chance of happening as Aaron having Brett over to the house for a barbecue this week.

The reality of the Bucks right now is that they are a middle-of-the road NBA team. If the season were to end today they would miss the Eastern Conference playoffs by just ½ game. The deficit is not an insurmountable one, but the order of the teams that are in front of them may surprise you.

The one and two seeds are Chicago and Miami. No surprise there. But Philadelphia as the No. 3 seed? The 76ers have not finished a season above .500 in seven years.

It is the same story in Indiana with the 17-10 Pacers. Like Philadelphia, they have not finished a season with a winning record since the 2004-05 season. Currently they are your No. 5 seed.

Discord in the locker room and the Dwight Howard distraction have plummeted the Orlando Magic to the No. 6 seed. The Knicks, meanwhile, have ridden the Lin train to respectability. It may seem hard to believe, however, but the Knicks have been so bad in this millennium, the Bucks have emerged from the first round of the playoffs more recently.

The other anomaly is the shifting of power between the conferences. Whereas once the West was the home of all of the best teams, the East has picked up the slack considerably.

The power brokers in the West used to be the Spurs, Lakers, Mavericks, and Jazz. Even the Kings in the 1990s.

Today, your top two seeds in the West are the Thunder and the Clippers.

Let that sink in for a moment. The two best teams in the Western Conference are the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Los Angeles Clippers.

So what does all of this mean for the Bucks?

In simple terms, everything. The game has changed, but good decisions have to be made now. For the most part, general manager John Hammond's moves have paid some dividends, even if some of his draft choices have been suspect. But even when he is saddled with a bad contract, either one by his own actions or the previous regimes, he gets out of it.

John Salmons was signed to a big-money deal before the start of last season. He horribly underachieved last season; he was subsequently traded away.

Bobby Simmons had a massively bloated contract that Hammond inherited; he was shipped off too.

The list goes on; Dan Gadzuric, Joe Alexander, Corey Maggette, Charlie Bell, Mo Williams, and Yi Jianlan are just some of the players that have played under the level of their contracts that were dealt away.

So make no mistake about it, Hammond has the chops. Now he just needs a little luck.

The Thunder franchise lucked into Kevin Durant when Portland took oft-injured center Greg Oden with the first overall selection in the 2007 draft. The next year, Russell Westbrook fell to them at No. 4 in the draft, after league MVP Derrick Rose and relative busts Michael Beasley and O.J. Mayo.

Since moving to Oklahoma, the Thunder have ridden their young All-Stars to the best record in the game.

Meanwhile, Hammond inherited a mess and has been making the best of it. But while Durant and Westbrook have been healthy and starred, the Bucks have been hit with a terrible injury bug.

Andrew Bogut's broken arm. Brandon Jennings' broken foot. Bogut's broken ankle. Carlos Delfino's concussion. Bogut's left mid-foot sprain. Michael Redd's torn ACL. Bogut's bad back. Drew Gooden's plantar fasciitis.

Good grief. What else can go wrong? Wait, don't answer that.

The moral of the story is this: Don't write the Bucks off just yet. They have had an incredibly bad run of luck, but things can turn around. Yes, that will take some good luck of course. But if a gem in the can come their way on draft day, that certainly helps. If it happens twice in two years, that can turn things around completely.

In many ways, you want them to emulate the Thunder, with two All-Star building blocks that just fell in their lap.

But don't forget. When both Durant and Westbrook were drafted, it wasn't Oklahoma City actually making the draft selections of players that would shape their franchise.

The team that made those draft choices was the Seattle Sonics.

Just out of curiosity, I wonder how fans in the Emerald City now feel about the team that used to be theirs, before they neglected it?