When my colleague Erik Schmidt wrote a gem back in November about the uselessness of the Milwaukee Bucks (just days after Brandon Jennings’ 55-point game, mind you), I figured it would be a couple years before there was enough ammunition for a rebuttal. Looks like Newspaper Columnists’ Day (April 18th, which coincidentally is also my birthday. Get me something nice, not too expensive, though.) came a little early this year.

Betting against the Bucks would have been a rather safe strategy at the beginning of the season. They were predicted to finish last or next-to-last in the East by a plethora of pundits, sold off two of their best players (Richard Jefferson and Charlie Villanueva) and added a bunch of no-name role players, headlined by their first-round draft pick — who spent last season rotting on a bench in Italy.

“Congratulations, Bucks. You, without a doubt, lead the league in being worthless,” Schmidt wrote, hinting not-so-subtly at his Chicago superiority complex. He is of course referencing Forbes’ annual sports franchise value list, in which the Bucks place last in the NBA, at a “paltry” quarter-of-a-billion dollars. He also talks about the attendance troubles of the team, finishing in the bottom third for the last several years, but in reality, the column is just about slamming the team.

OK, sports is all about economics, and especially with today’s free agent system, teams are always rising or falling. Let’s look at the Bucks.

This is a team that hasn’t made the playoffs since 2006, and it has been even longer than that (2003) since it finished a season with a winning record. Widely considered the beginning of the Bucks’ odyssey of mediocrity, 2003 was the year George Karl idiotically traded Ray Allen for a deteriorating Gary Payton, who didn’t want to play in Milwaukee to begin with. Not to mention they play in the Bradley Center, an ancient complex, the NBA’s fourth oldest arena, and is lacking the profit-inducing renovations it desperately needs.

So, hang on. You’re telling me that a team in a small Midwestern city playing in a decaying building that hasn’t finished over .500 since 2003 and hasn’t been “good” (there’s a big difference between the two) since 2001 is having attendance issues and is low on Forbes’ “theoretical evaluations that largely do not matter in any way whatsoever” list?  Get out.

But that is all in the past. On the Chinese calendar, twenty-ten (the preferred pronunciation of the current year) marks the year of the Bucks, who have literally come out of nowhere to claim the sixth spot in the East, featuring a core of rising stars. And all the credit has to go to GM John Hammond, who left Detroit (a team in free-fall ever since) to mesh together the league’s most improbable success story. It’s worked. These no-names have gelled together and turned themselves into somebodies. They’re confident and focused.

“We have to continue to do what we do and we’ll be all right,” said soft-spoken guard John Salmons after Saturday’s game. Salmons has let his game do the talking (20 points per game) since his mid-season arrival from Chicago. Along with contributors like Ersan Ilyasova and veteran Jerry Stackhouse, Salmons is the prime example of how the Bucks have adapted individually to their team needs.

Of course, with the loss of center and team leader Andrew Bogut to injury, the bandwagon has gotten a little bumpier, but the progress has already been made. Besides, I don’t think defensive-minded coach Scott Skiles is about to look past the most successful Bucks team in years to 2011 already. The season ends soon, and by Saturday, the second season begins.

“I can’t wait (for the playoffs),” said Jennings, a Rookie of the Year candidate, in the locker room after Saturday’s loss to Boston. “It’s going to be a fist-fight.”

And so will be gaining the respect of your critics. Look out, Schmidt. The Milwaukee Bucks are on the rise.