There was the black Ford Edge you would see in traffic around downtown Milwaukee. Typically nondescript, the YNGBCK3 plate would give away whose ride it was, but it always seemed out and about the city.

"It's something to get me by, and also it snows a lot, and I don't need anything nice," Brandon Jennings said once. "I need something to get me from A to B right?"

Then there was the double-nickel in Golden State seven games into his career, breaking the record of a legend that had led Milwaukee to its only professional sports championship.

He helped start a movement, and A(ndrew) to B(randon) seemed like solid young building blocks on the road to C(hampionships).

Two years later the letters were jumbled, and Jennings was doing homework on bigger markets.

In November 2012, he was the only point guard in his draft class to not get a long-term extension from his team, leading him to feel like he needed to withdraw.

In some ways, he did. By the end of this past season, one in which the Milwaukee Bucks made the playoffs for the first time since that Ford Edge was parking in the Bradley Center players' lot, the "Young Buck" had been benched at times.

I wrote in February that Jennings could’ve owned the Brew City. Ultimately he chose to drop that option, so late Tuesday the Bucks dealt Jennings to the Detroit Pistons for Brandon Knight, Khris Middleton and Slava Kravtsov.

In Detroit, Jennings will play in front of Pistons legend Chauncey Billups, for fellow legend in general manager Joe Dumars, and be coached by … Rasheed Wallace. He has two promising big men who need the ball and a forward who hasn’t met a long-range shot he didn’t like.

It could be a good fit. It might not be.

What became clear was that Milwaukee was no longer a fit for Jennings, which may have had more to do with the change in the grading of players in the NBA than anything else.

In a different era, the Bucks may have given him the long term years and maximum dollars he wanted. He had increased his point per game total each of his first three years, from 15.5 to 19.1 points. His shooting percentage rose from 37.1 to 41.8 percent. His assist average those three seasons wasn’t great (5.4) but you could see some potential.

But as time progressed, so did evaluations. Metrics and more detailed statistical breakdowns became more important to recognize. That, along with a disappointing 2012-13, did Jennings no favors.

This past season his shooting fell off, down to 39.9 percent. His scoring dropped to 17.5 points per game, though he did average a career-high 6.5 assists.

Several numbers became more important than the point and assist averages, and even his potential as a soon-to-be 24 year old. He doesn’t go to the rim, averaging 3.6 free throws per game for his career. And, he makes just 81.3 percent of them. It was more widely reported that he couldn’t convert shots in the paint, either, when he did get in there.

He played at a just above league average with a 16.1 Player Efficiency Rating, making him the 117th best player in the NBA, or just inside the top 25 percent of all the players who recorded any playing time.

More importantly, the Bucks were just a flat out better team when he didn’t play.

Heading into the 2013-14 season the Bucks have been completely remade by general manager John Hammond with the oft-stated goal is make the playoffs in consecutive seasons for the first time since 2003 and 2004.

Four years ago no would have imagined such re-tooling would have been done by, in part, dealing Jennings. Two playoff appearances and some fond singular memories from days long since passed keep his four-year tenure from receiving a failing grade, but Jennings’ time in Milwaukee certainly leaves one feeling incomplete.