Richard Jefferson didn't want to leave New Jersey, but now he's eager to help turn around the listless Bucks. Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images

Fast Fact

Michael Redd and Richard Jefferson each scored 30 points 12 times in '07-08. Only one other team has a duo that did so more than 10 times each -- the Nuggets' Allen Iverson (25) and Carmelo Anthony (23).

Last Season

Record: 26-56 (13th in East) Points scored: 97.0 (20th in NBA) Points allowed: 103.9 (23rd)

The new coach wants to make defense the top priority. How soon will his players buy in?

For the first time in four head coaching stops, Scott Skiles had an entire off-season to prepare for his new job. "Not having to hit the ground running and do it all on the fly has been great," says Skiles, 44, who took the Bucks' position in April and in six weeks watched video of all of Milwaukee's games from last season -- "some multiple times," he says.

That was a far cry from Skiles's first gig, in Greece in 1997. "I played on Wednesday night and was the coach on Thursday morning," he says.

In his two previous NBA stints, with the Suns and the Bulls, Skiles assumed bench duties in the middle of the season, which meant he was coaching someone else's players largely using someone else's system. This time around he has had more input into shaping the team. Not surprisingly, that led to lots of changes for the 26-win Bucks, with only four members of the rotation coming back. In all, they have eight new faces, including Richard Jefferson, who was acquired from the Nets and who with Michael Redd forms one of the most prolific wing tandems in the league.

With plenty of scorers on his roster Skiles, a taskmaster who has a reputation for wearing on his players, can focus on the other end of the court. He plans to transform Milwaukee from what he calls a "very, very poor defensive team" -- it has ranked second to last in field goal defense in each of the past two seasons -- into a D-first outfit that can play at a torrid pace. "I'm going to coach the way I think I need to coach to get the job done," says Skiles, "and let the chips fall where they may." -- Elizabeth McGarr