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MILWAUKEE – Larry Sanders has sent basketballs into the fifth row. He has had sequences in which he thwarted one, two – boom! – even three shots in rapid succession, essentially hanging a “Closed For Business” sign on the rim for that possession anyway.

But the blocked shots the Milwaukee Bucks’ one-man SWAT team likes best, the ones that bring adrenaline and satisfaction in equal doses, are when the ball winds up in his hands. Or better still, batted or shuttled quickly to Brandon Jennings or Monta Ellis for two points before the snuffed shooter can even finish griping to a ref or picking himself up off the floor.

“I love it when it starts the break. That’s my favorite,” said the 6-foot-11 Saunders, in his third season out of Virginia Commonwealth. “When they go out of bounds, that’s all well and good. The fans get excited by those. But keeping them in play, those are my favorite ones.”

That, clearly, is straight out of the Bill Russell handbook, a defensive/rebounding/shot-blocking role model if only Sanders, 24, had been born 30 years earlier. As it was, he spent his Wonder years watching and eventually emulating not the Boston Celtics’ fabled No. 6 but the fellow who now wears that team’s No. 5, Kevin Garnett.

No one is equating Sanders, even in this breakout season of his, with the Hall of Fame specialness of either Russell or Garnett. But there have been nights these past two months when Sanders at least seemed to be auditioning for the tribute band.

There was his triple-double game at Minnesota Nov. 30 — off the bench — when he scored 10 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and blocked 10 Timberwolves shots (tying Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 39-year-old franchise record for blocks in a game).

There was his 16 boards and five swats the next night against Boston and a seven-block effort against New Orleans on Dec. 3 that even topped Kareem (20) for most blocked shots in a three-game span.

And if you squinted a little bit on Dec. 21, Sanders’ lanky frame and facial hair — against the backdrop of the parquet court at Boston’s TD Bankgarden — made him look eerily like Russell when he had 17 points, 20 rebounds and four blocks in the Bucks’ overtime win against the Celtics. He made YouTube that night by finishing an alley-oop dunk over Garnett late in the fourth quarter.

Before that game, Celtics coach Doc Rivers compared Sanders to Oklahoma City’s shot-attacking Serge Ibaka. “We should probably stop shooting when he’s right there,” Rivers said. “I honestly told my son, Austin, when they played the Bucks, I said, ‘Hey Austin, be careful with Sanders, you get a step deep and he’ll get you.’ I think his first two shots were blocked, so I was thinking, ‘Nothing changes. No one listens.’ “

Many, however, are noticing. Sanders has emerged as a candidate for the NBA’s Most Improved Player award only a few months after slipping down — some might say nearly off — the Bucks’ depth chart. Frankly, they’re as surprised by his work this season as half the unsuspecting wing players whose shot attempts he has rejected.

Drafted at No. 15 in 2010, Sanders was raw, a project player who came to the game late as a skinny sophomore at Port St. Lucie (Fla.) High. He was all elbows, cockeyed jump shots and potential (4.3 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 1.2 bpg in 14.5 mpg) as a Bucks rookie and, unprepared when the lockout ended, there was no step forward last season.

Even Sanders’ progress this season snuck up on Milwaukee. General manager John Hammond worked overtime to add size last spring, trading for veteran center Samuel Dalembert and picking UNC’s John Henson on draft night. Then he signed 7-foot-1 free agent Joel Przybilla, too, with the plan of bulking up around Ekpe Udoh and Drew Gooden, who shouldered most of the “big” burden once Andrew Bogut got hurt and then dealt. (more…)