Right after the Alcatraz tour guide announces that eating and drinking are prohibited, Ray Allen winks, shields his mouth from the tour guide’s view and pops in the last chunk of a candy bar. As the group walks from one exhibit to the next, Anthony Mason provides historical tidbits the guide doesn’t, including how Machine Gun Kelly, like many high-profile gangsters associated with the Rock, wasn’t so tough.

Allen stays up front, eager not to miss anything, until he sees Mason imitating the guide’s pronounced overbite, overactive saliva gland and Jerry Lewis voice. Suddenly he darts to the back of the pack. "I had to," he says. "I snotted myself laughing."

The Rock, a prison island equally famous for its colorful inmates and its picturesque location in San Francisco Bay, is an appropriate place to find the Milwaukee Bucks. They are the NBA’s most dangerous gang, as much to themselves as to the rest of the league. Their defensive effort is predicated on their shots falling, and their powerful array of scorers lacks a true low-post threat. The internal competition among their three stars is real, and they actually brought in, instead of weeded out, a player who thinks he should be the centerpiece.

None of this is the hallmark of a championship team, but they’re determined to change the title template, even as they often play to the competition’s level. This year they’ve lost to a Stevie Francis-less Rockets team that had dropped 15 in a row, then thumped the Spurs 24 hours later. They own the East’s second-best record but have lost to the Bulls and the Heat. They’re more confident that they can beat whoever emerges from the powerful West than about escaping the raggedy East. "It is the strangest team I’ve ever coached," says George Karl.

Come, then, on a trip with Team Strange, to find out how it all works.

The Bucks start the new year on Jan. 2 in Minnesota, with fumes still lingering from a New Year’s Eve loss to the Bulls and nagging injuries to Allen, Sam Cassell and Glenn Robinson, the triangle upon which the Bucks are built. Cassell (pinched nerve in right shoulder) and Big Dog (bruised left thigh) are in street clothes, but Allen (sore left knee) is sitting in the locker room in his practice gear, discussing everything from his commercial for The Magazine to shark and snake bites to which Buck’s alma mater has the most current NBA players.

Allen confounds Karl the most. He has what it takes to be the game’s best perimeter player -- Vince’s athleticism, Kobe’s skills and versatility, Eric Snow’s handle, if not AI’s. He’s a disciplined player who practices, prepares and competes. But he’s also an unusual person, who went to UConn on an academic scholarship and recently decided to devote more time on the team plane to books and less to cards and movies. His worldliness makes it difficult for him to approach winning a championship with the self-absorbed, nothing-else-matters focus of Kobe or MJ. He’s so aware that when he spies a writer -- one he’s seen twice in two years and maybe a half-dozen times otherwise -- he asks, "What are you doing here? The last two times we saw you was in Sacramento." His world may revolve around basketball, but it’s not paved in pebbled leather.

Karl threw Mason into the mix to ratchet up Allen’s -- and the team’s -- focus and intensity. That might have worked somewhere else, but it hasn’t worked here. "Anything normal," Allen says, "doesn’t apply to us."

Despite playing the T-Wolves without the Big Three, the Bucks take an early 23-16 lead. They’re down one at the half, then fade in the third quarter. Karl stands nearly the entire game and signals plays to backup point guard Rafer Alston. A scattering of yellow throat-lozenge wrappers surrounds Karl as he sucks one after the other. The Bucks lose 96-77, and Karl is asked when the Big Three will return. He smiles puckishly and rolls his eyes. "We’re unpredictable in a lot of ways," he says.

The morning shootaround before a Jan. 5 date with the Clippers is livelier than most NBA practices. The perimeter players -- Tim Thomas, Michael Redd, Allen, Alston -- take turns going one-on-three against consultant Tim Grgurich and Mike Thibault and strength and conditioning coach Tim Wilson. The old guys grab and bump and shout, making it look like the NBA meets the YMCA.

Karl is lying on the floor at midcourt getting treatment for his sore back. He’s the perfect curator for this group. He was a walking floor burn during his North Carolina and brief NBA career, but he’s adamant about developing finesse in bruisers like Darvin Ham. He’s regarded as a defensive coach, but his attacking style is really meant to generate offense. He plays the 6'10" Thomas on the perimeter and the 6'7" Ham inside and uses the 6'8" Mason to bring up the ball. He harps continually on his three stars, but if he gets Cassell his much-discussed contract extension by the All-Star break, he’ll have all three locked into long-term deals.

"Sam is a street kid, but three guys on my team have their degrees, and he’s one of them," Karl says. "Ray is an army brat with a sophistication I don’t think you find in most people, much less NBA players. Glenn’s personality has never come out. He has trouble with tough media questions, gets surly and then keeps going."

Karl most closely identifies with Cassell, who at this moment is shooting at a far basket, a bag of ice strapped to his right shoulder. When George uses Cassell’s Seussian nickname, Sam I Am, it has a double meaning. "I’m uncomfortable when Sam’s not out there," he says. That’s why, minutes after his back treatment ends, Karl meets privately with Sam to cajole him into playing that night.

He gets 34 of the unlikeliest minutes at the Staples Center that night. Cassell is scoreless with five minutes left in the second quarter, and the Bucks trail by 17. Cassell leaves and an injury report says pinched nerve, will not return. Instead, Sam plays almost the entire second half, pouring in 20 points that help give the Bucks a brief three-point fourth-quarter lead.

Allen is back in uniform too, and with a minute left, he drives the baseline for a reverse jam that would have given the Bucks the lead. But the refs miss Michael Olowokandi’s hand catching the net, which trampolines the ball out. Sam is waving and bellowing, but Ray’s protest is almost conversational, as if he’s asking the ref for spare change. The noncall stands. So does loss No. 3.

It’s rare that the Bucks, 20-0 when leading after three periods, falter down the stretch. Karl has had his staff calculate the team’s shooting percentages in the game’s final minutes. This year they’re shooting 48.7% in the final two minutes, even better than their overall 46.2%, second-best in the league. So you’d think a blown comeback in the final minutes would haunt the Bucks down the road. "That’s conventional thinking," says Allen. "We’re an unconventional team."

At least one Buck is beginning to worry after Milwaukee, with Cassell again in street clothes, squanders an early 11-point lead in Sacramento and loses its fourth straight, 115-101, the next night. Brought in to be the foil for Karl while providing toughness, passing and low-post offense for the playoffs -- the latter a nod toward (horror!) conventional thinking -- Mason fears the team hasn’t figured out how to use him. "After 30 games, we should know," he says. Mason is reluctant to shoot because he thinks the team has enough shooters. But the pick-and-roll is essential to the Bucks halfcourt offense, and Mason has to take the open 15-footer when Cassell draws both defenders. "I need to talk to him about that," Allen says.

The next morning, the Bucks are practicing in the gym at the University of San Francisco before the jaunt to Alcatraz. Robinson, who hasn’t played (and won’t) the entire trip, sits in the baseline bleachers, talking without taking his eyes off Allen shooting 40-foot jumpers. Privately, anyone on the team will tell you the Big Three jockey for stats, accolades and All-Star votes. Ham says he sees a "second-place smile" when the Bucks win but one of the stars’ numbers suffer. One team source says that’s why the Bucks won’t hit their stride until after the All-Star Game.

Robinson, an All-Star the past two seasons, wants desperately to be recognized as a great player. It’s the reason he comes off as surly when, in a relaxed setting, he’s actually warm and open. But of the Big Three, Robinson is the one most often criticized, so he has his guard up. The No. 1 pick in ’94, he points out that co-rookies of the year Grant Hill and Jason Kidd have never been to a conference finals, but he has. And that he’s with his original team while every other ’94 lottery pick has been dealt. Doesn’t play D? Why was he among the top 10 in steals before getting hurt? "It’s okay, I can take the heat," he says. "But I’m not sure everyone on this team can."

As soon as Allen walks off, Robinson hobbles to midcourt, his deep thigh bruise wrapped in ice, and fires one midcourt shot. Nothing but net. "You saw that, right?" he asks.

Robinson, Cassell and Karl are no-shows for the trip to the Rock. Still, the bonding is evident when Mason, Allen, Ham, Redd and a half-dozen other staff members huddle for a photo before boarding the return ferry, joke on the bow about escaping through the frigid water and jostle for photo keepsakes. "You can push each other’s buttons on the court if you’re friends," Allen says. "You’re a lot less stubborn with those you know. And we have a lot of stubborn guys on this team."

One of those guys points to the two rings he won with the Rockets. "You don’t have to hang with each other, you just have to respect each other," says Cassell. "I was in Houston three years, and I never once saw Dream off the court. Not once. And Clyde said if I could find him after a game, he’d give me a thousand dollars. Never found him. I looked, too."

The next night, Cassell is back in uniform against the Warriors, scoring 23 points with 10 assists in a 113-97 slump-busting win. One play stands out as basic Bucks. Late in the game, Allen stumbles driving and blindly slaps the ball back toward midcourt. Cassell recovers it and loops left, jumps into the air underneath the rim and fires the ball back to Allen, who swings it to Thomas for a three. "We’re not trying to rein Sam in," reserve forward Mark Pope says. "We’re trying to get him to be crazier. When he’s going full speed and circles twice, then throws the ball crosscourt, we’re at our best."

Three days later, it’s back to the Bradley Center for Michael’s only visit. MJ adoration quickly disappears as Thomas dominates their one-on-one matchup, outscoring Mike 16-2 in the first quarter of a 105-86 win. Thomas, who downplays his performance while idly fingering a split lower lip caused by a frustrated Jordan’s sneaky elbow, is an astonishing talent without the in-your-face bravado or need to dominate the ball. He’s content as a sixth man. While Karl calls him his most coachable player, he wishes he were more assertive.

The postgame locker room scene speaks volumes on why the Bucks are one of a kind. Ervin Johnson is cutting the tape adorned with biblical phrases off his wrist -- a wrist that healed years ago. Karl is talking about convincing fellow Pittsburgher Mark Cuban to buy the Pirates so he can fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a baseball manager. Center Joel Przybilla, at first glance the world’s tallest altar boy, pulls off his jersey to reveal four technicolor tattoos. Redd accidentally put his healthy foot, shoe and all, into an ice bucket he filled for a sore ankle. Mason is holding an imaginary conversation between a Jamaican wise guy and Al Pacino’s Scarface. With his head cocked sideways because of his ice-bagged shoulder, Cassell gawks at Allen’s straight-from-GQ brown slacks, silk sweater and crème leather shirt jacket. "I wore shorts, a T-shirt and white Jordans to the Finals one year," brags Sam.

Mason, who finished three assists short of a triple-double, leans back and smiles. He has yet to do battle with anyone, disappointing both his critics and his coach. His new team sits atop the Central Division at 25-13, the dreaded West Coast trips are behind them and 22 of their last 38 games are at home. His fears, for now, are gone.

"Imagine," Mason muses, "if everyone on this team played sound basketball. We have the total package. The Lakers have two guys who can get their own shot. We have four or five. We’d be scary."

Allen stops at the door and says, "See you in Sacramento."

Maybe. Or maybe it’ll be L.A.

This article appears in the February 4 issue of ESPN The Magazine.