Griffin fired!- Doc Hired - Joerger likely on his way

[Siefer]

Zooming out, you hope Giannis and the FO takes some big things away from this colossal screw-up. It sounds like Giannis was beyond frustrated by how last season ended, and for good reason - Bud is a good coach, and he had extraordinary circumstances, but he was awful against Miami, and it was of a kind with his playoff issues in years past.

The franchise ended up in a really bad spot trying to correct for all that, ending up with a coach who was a strategic and tactical mess, was blatantly insecure from the jump, and who tried to protect his job by pandering to the players. Dude lost the locker room 30 games in. Giannis stopped listening even earlier.

You can't go back in time, or else I'd feel worse about Doc coming in. He's a decent coach with a good reputation for managing a locker room. We have a bunch of guys with good reputations in the locker room. I think that's gonna be okay. This team is so talented it went 30-13 with an absolutely broken coaching situation. Doc isn't a top 5 guy, but we only need stability and some common sense to see big improvements.

The team has like the 8th best differential in the league with a super easy schedule and really good health. 30-13 doesn’t tell the whole story.

What in my post made it seem like I thought 30-13 was the whole story? Was it one of the parts where I talked about all the different factors leading to our current situation?

[ReddRum]

So when are the details of this contract gonna leak?

[drew881]

Three things I expect to see:

1. Lillard becoming by far the primary ball handler on non-transition possessions
2. Far higher percentage of halfcourt possessions beginning with GA screening for Dame
3. GA and Lopez camping in the post on defense to get back to an elite defensive rebounding and paint defensive team

Let’s turn our 2nd ranked offense into by far the best in the league and get our defense at least up to league average.

Add to that, getting Giannis to play off ball in crunch time, so teams can't hack him. Dame and Khris absolutely need to be the guys shooting crunch time free throws for us. Completely irresponsible to have Giannis deciding games at the line.

Putting Beasley on the bench. Super easy, "I didn't promise for you to start."

[LISTEN2JAZZ]

The Bucks lost 6 of the last 7 playoff games they played under Budenholzer. In several of those games the Bucks were leading throughout and had healthy leads going into the 4th quarter.

You could focus on that, or the fact that he's a 2x COTY and champion. I'm not here to say that he's the best coach in the entire league, but he's definitely top 10, and I would argue clearly better than Griffin or Rivers.

[MissKhriddleton]

or stop playing iso ball and running into walls...

*insert a third bad habit that Giannis hasn't really shown this year here*

Yeah, whether or not Griff has anything to do with it I have no idea, but Giannis is averaging his fewest 3PA per game since 2015-16 season.

Cool, should be zero attempts per game.

[BigO]

Budenholzer not responsible for Giannis and Middleton being hurt in those last 2 series, Jrue theoretically should have been our best defender on Jimmy but he get Bledsoe'd. His system needed some adjustments but I think acquiring Dame would have changed things a lot, bet Bud's offense looks a lot more dynamic & less random with Dame at the helm. Giannis & Dame work without any system on offense, I couldn't fathom a scenario where we'd be worse off with Bud than we are now. Doc was the guy you'd want Bud to match up with in a playoff series, now it looks like we got to get past Spoelstra or Nurse for sure.

I could go on and on about why Bud had to go (and I have), but been there done that. But two related points:


1) Giannis and the core players had tuned Bud out a long time ago. Horst never makes the move without Giannis on board and I think we all know that. Every game I was at, I was baffled by the lack of interaction between coach and players. Fifteen seconds during huddles was norm. He had nothing new to say to them, because he rarely changed things.

2) To sum up the differences: The keep Bud crowd always point to "we won a championship with him" and the fire Bud crowd says "we won one championship with him".

Let's move on. It's a debate that will never be resolved. Let's hope for Doc's success. I'm optimistic, at least for the next three days.

[ReasonablySober]

Read on Twitter

I don't get the idea that "this wasn't what Arian Griffin signed up for" and that the expectation wasn't Finals or bust from the start. They were the #1 seed last season. They've got a top three player in the world. Three all-stars and a DPOY candidate. Of course the expectations were the highest you could get.

[Dick Tate]

Oof.

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/why-hiring-doc-rivers-would-be-a-mistake-for-the-milwaukee-bucks/

1st post since joining in 2006? Um... welcome? LOL
How did you remember you had a handle?

[WeekapaugGroove]

Read on Twitter

I don't get the idea that "this wasn't what Arian Griffin signed up for" and that the expectation wasn't Finals or bust from the start. They were the #1 seed last season. They've got a top three player in the world. Three all-stars and a DPOY candidate. Of course the expectations were the highest you could get.

Yeah that's absurd. They didn't fire Bud to have less expectations with the new guy. Ridiculous

Sent from my SM-F731U using RealGM mobile app

[M-C-G]

I want Giannis on that PnR, but I also think we could use AJJ to set those picks and be a roll man really effectively. Will be interesting to see the changes and tweaks we get in coming weeks.

[humanrefutation]

Read on Twitter

I don't get the idea that "this wasn't what Arian Griffin signed up for" and that the expectation wasn't Finals or bust from the start. They were the #1 seed last season. They've got a top three player in the world. Three all-stars and a DPOY candidate. Of course the expectations were the highest you could get.

If that's Griff's excuse, it's a piss poor one.

[Siefer]

Luxury tax bill alone this year is approaching $60 million. Edens/Haslam will not hesitate to eat another coaching contract this summer if it's necessary.

You keep saying this and I will keep saying the opposite. If it year 3 of us crapping the bed in the playoffs with only 2 rounds of gate revenue, do you pay the repeater tax again for a bunch of old stars who couldn't win with 2 champion coaches or do you trade Giannis for 100 picks, get nickels on the dollar for Dame, shed brook and start over while saving NINE figures? Honestly I probably do the later

You're both wrong.

You run the situation in MIlwaukee with Giannis to its conclusion. Spend all you can. Grab a title or two. And when it's over, you exercise your option to buy out Edens and move the team to Nashville in 2030.

Wait, does Edens have a documented buy out clause, or are you just assuming Haslam always has the option to make Edens a ridiculous offer?

[M-C-G]

Massive contract certainly doesn't sound short term. Good or bad, I think we have Doc the next 1.5 years barring an implosion. But I still think the results will be better than Griff

[MrHoneycutt]

It begins. Apologies if this has been posted:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/39378180/inside-tension-struggles-adrian-griffin-fired-milwaukee-bucks-coach

The lede to this story is hilarious. Horsty took Old Griff out back like Old Yeller.

PS:

"Peers around the league saw the bubbling chaos and started calling Griffin to offer advice and support. Among them were former Memphis Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins and ESPN analyst and former Philadelphia 76ers coach, Doc Rivers, both of whom had a long personal history with Griffin and share the same coaching agent...Rivers had several conversations with Griffin over the past few months and became something of an informal mentor to him."

Like a fox, Doc. Rivers is truly devious.

[-Jragon-]

Hey Doc,

Start AJJ and bring Beas or KM off the bench for damage as the new 6th man..

Or start Green and AJJ and let Beas, KM and Portis be their own big 3 2nd unit lol

[Shaffty]

Read on Twitter

I don't get the idea that "this wasn't what Arian Griffin signed up for" and that the expectation wasn't Finals or bust from the start. They were the #1 seed last season. They've got a top three player in the world. Three all-stars and a DPOY candidate. Of course the expectations were the highest you could get.

Griff even more (Please Use More Appropriate Word) then I thought if he didnt think it was finals or bust with jrue lol

[MoreTrife]

Oh man, that second game of the season Giannis white board anecdote is brutal. Should've cut bait then. Jesus.

[MiltownHawkeye]

Luxury tax bill alone this year is approaching $60 million. Edens/Haslam will not hesitate to eat another coaching contract this summer if it's necessary.

You keep saying this and I will keep saying the opposite. If it year 3 of us crapping the bed in the playoffs with only 2 rounds of gate revenue, do you pay the repeater tax again for a bunch of old stars who couldn't win with 2 champion coaches or do you trade Giannis for 100 picks, get nickels on the dollar for Dame, shed brook and start over while saving NINE figures? Honestly I probably do the later

You're both wrong.

You run the situation in MIlwaukee with Giannis to its conclusion. Spend all you can. Grab a title or two. And when it's over, you exercise your option to buy out Edens and move the team to Nashville in 2030.

Two Tennessee teams?

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

It begins.

(Apologies if this has been posted)

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/39378180/inside-tension-struggles-adrian-griffin-fired-milwaukee-bucks-coach

The lede to this story is hilarious. Horsty took Old Griff out back like Old Yeller.

PS: "Peers around the league saw the bubbling chaos and started calling Griffin to offer advice and support. Among them were former Memphis Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins and ESPN analyst and former Philadelphia 76ers coach, Doc Rivers, both of whom had a long personal history with Griffin and share the same coaching agent...Rivers had several conversations with Griffin over the past few months and became something of an informal mentor to him."

Like a fox. Rivers is truly devious.

According to multiple sources, Antetokounmpo grabbed a marker and began diagramming plays to Bucks assistant coach Josh Oppenheimer, growing more animated and intense as he mapped out the team's spacing and actions, revealing in real time what he felt went wrong and where they needed to be on the floor. He eventually grabbed his brother Thanasis and forward Bobby Portis to join him.

I just imagine a 3-headed version of beautiful mind there.

[LUKE23]

Oh man, that second game of the season Giannis white board anecdote is brutal. Should've cut bait then. Jesus.

What happened?