John Hammond talks with Bucks guard Ramon Sessions near the tail end of the 2007-08 season. Only six Bucks remain from last year's squad, including Sessions. (Getty)

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September 29, 2008

MILWAUKEE -- General managers of professional sports franchises are often referred to as architects.

Their jobs entail a great deal of calculating and planning as they go about building their projects.

This doesn't mean, though, that all of them draw up a blueprint and follow it to a "T."

John Hammond is into his fifth month on the job as general manager of the Milwaukee Bucks, but you won't find a diagrammed master plan laid out on his desk or stashed away in a safe.

"Absolutely not," Hammond said. "There was never anything like a blueprint, or putting anything down on paper."

Hammond did, however, have a mission in mind when he left his position as Joe Dumars' highly touted vice president of basketball operations in Detroit to take over the Bucks' GM job.

He had no particular coach-in-waiting nor any immediate list of players he planned to pursue. But he did have his intentions, and he has followed through on them aggressively and successfully.

He began looking for qualities rather than certain individuals. And there was one specific quality he wanted to see on the resumes of each of his keepers.

"The idea was to try to get as many good people as possible," he said. "That's easy to say, and of course anybody can try to do that, but along with saying that we want quality people and good people, we also want a guy that has some kind of skill to help you win a game.

"You know the old saying, 'Good guys finish last?' There's probably some truth to that, especially in professional sports.

"Years ago, though, someone said to me, 'Only one team can win the championship, and everyone has that goal. At the end of the day, though, because of the fact that only one team wins, make sure that you're doing your job, on this day to day basis -- which is the way to have to do it -- with good people around you, because you work together so very much."

Hammond considers himself fortunate to have worked in a place where that dynamic was at work, and it produced championship-level results.

He hopes to establish the same dynamic in Milwaukee.

"I've learned this: In this business, as a player or coach in this league, for almost a seven-month period -- or maybe longer, if you're fortunate -- you're together more with each other than you are with your family," he said. "And you really become a family. So if you're going to start with one quality, you should find good people that you're going to enjoy living with."

With that in mind, when Hammond went looking for a head coach, he could have dialed up one of the many qualified individuals with whom he had worked closely during his 19 years in the National Basketball Association.

Instead, he demonstrated that his analytical eye could see outside the box. He found his man there and hired Scott Skiles before someone else did. And he did so with great conviction.

"Yeah, no question whatsoever," Hammond said. "It doesn't take a lot to recognize the really good ones. You could compare that with scouting -- you can walk in the gym and see a really great player and easily recognize that.

"I think, for those of us who've been around the game for a long time, the same thing can be true of a coach. You can look at him and recognize him as a good one. I believe Scott falls into that category.

"When you talk to people in this business, you ask where they would categorize Scott Skiles. Is he one of the top five coaches in this league? I think a lot of people would probably put him in that category."

As far as Hammond was concerned, Skiles' hiring provided the foundation of his Milwaukee construction project.

"I'm a firm believer in leadership and a firm believer in coaching, and a firm believer in the important role that coaching has in an organization," Hammond said. "For us to be able to hire a coach like Scott, I think, can be instrumental in us moving forward and having success.

"I've said it before, but what we're trying to do here, Scott has done twice (with Phoenix and Chicago). We all have big jobs ahead of us. We all have a lot of responsibilities and a lot of work to do. That would include myself, that would include the players, and that would include Scott."

One of the many qualities Hammond saw in Skiles that convinced him he was the right man for the job was his tenacity.

And once Hammond completed his front-office staff and found his coach, he began bringing aboard players -- Richard Jefferson, Joe Alexander, Luke Ridnour and others -- who possessed that quality, too.

"Scott's recognized as a competitive coach, and hopefully some of the players we've brought in, along with the returning players, are competitive people," Hammond said. "All we've said, from day one that we arrived, is, 'If we can just put a competitive team on the floor... '

"I love that word: tenacity. That's a great word. Hopefully our guys are going to have the kind of tenacity that will allow us to put that product on the floor that we're talking about."

Hammond has been one of the most active GMs in the league in his five-plus months on the job.

Of the 19 players on the Milwaukee's preseason camp roster, only six wore Bucks uniforms a year ago.

If you think Hammond and Skiles have spent their summer devising a set rotation of those players, well, think again.

Hammond has made it crystal-clear that he is not a micro-manager.

"We've had no discussions like that whatsoever," he said. "First of all, that's not my responsibility to do that. Second, I think Scott would say, 'Everything here this year has to be earned.'

"If you look at our team and see that the last two years we've won 26 games and 28 games, and then say that anyone deserves something coming off of two seasons like that, that 'It's your right to play X amount of minutes,' then the mind-set that we're trying to establish, the tenacity, and finding a way to be competitive every night, is not going to happen."

Before the Bucks learn Skiles' defensive scheme or the offense he plans to implement, they will receive a far more important education.

"We have to have people who understand that, 'I have to earn the right to be on this floor,'" Hammond said. "That's the mentality that Scott usually brings to a team, and that's the mentality that our players have to be willing to accept, that, 'I'm not going to be given anything. If I work for it, and I deserve it, I want what is rightfully mine, but I have to earn those minutes.'

"At the end of the day, the one thing guys want is to be on the floor. And they're going to have to earn those minutes."

Hammond has made a realization of his own, too, since making the transition from the VP of basketball ops chair to the GM's hot seat.

"At one of the NBA meetings," he said, "I had one of the league attorneys walk up to me and say, 'Congratulations.'

"I said, 'Thanks,' and he said, 'Same job, different title, right?' I said, 'Yeah,' and kind of smiled and walked away.

"But after I thought about that, I could only say that because Joe Dumars gave me so many responsibilities (as his right-hand man in Detroit) and allowed me to participate in everything that we did, no matter how big or how small it was,. He gave me the opportunity to do a lot of day-to-day work. And I'm so grateful for that.

"The difference is, now my name is attached to things. My name might be attached to a draft pick; my name might be attached to a trade; my name might be attached to the hiring of a coach. Before, it was always Joe's name that was attached."

Hammond remembers sitting in on Dumars' press conferences in Detroit:

"I always used to say to Joe after press conferences, 'You know, Joe, you did a great job. All I did was sit in the back of the room and nod my head to try to reaffirm to you that what you're doing and saying is good and right, but at the end of the day, all the bullets are flying right at you. No one's shooting at me, Joe.'

"Now, that kind of changes."