Doc Rivers may not be one of the best coaches of all time, but he’s certainly one of the most successful. His 1,114 regular wins are the eighth most in NBA history and his 113 postseason wins are the fourth most. He’s coached 42 All-Stars. Across 24 seasons, he’s had a losing record just four times. The problem? Last season was one of those four.
After engineering a midseason putsch, Rivers took over the Milwaukee Bucks–a team that had run up a 30-13 record, despite months of open rebellion against their beleaguered coach, Adrian Griffin. Dating back to Boston, Rivers has built a reputation as a celebrity wrangler, allaying the egos and concerns of his various stars. Accordingly, he seemed like the natural choice for the Bucks: at the very least, he could tamp down the collective truculence so the roster’s greatness could shine through.
While Rivers did scale back the tetchiness, he also oversaw some of the worst Bucks basketball in this decade. Under Rivers, the Bucks went 17-19 in his 36 games and then lost in the first round of the playoffs, while Giannis Antetokounmpo nursed a strained calf. For years, the Bucks have been deemed too dogmatic, too stubborn, too unyielding to fully capitalize on their wealth of talent. After last season, they seemed too old—and perhaps just too bad.
Still, the Bucks have one of the best rosters in the league, primarily because they have one of the league’s best players. Last year, Antetokounmpo had his finest offensive season, becoming the first player in NBA history to average more than 30 points, 10 rebounds and five assists per game while making more than 60 percent of his shots. In the process, he excised the last bits of fluff and nonsense from his game, relentlessly launching himself at the rim and eschewing the wayward jumpers that defenses have long tried to goad him into taking. Notably, Antetokounmpo may be the only high-volume player in the league whose three-point rate is inversely proportional to his efficiency.
Unsurprisingly, Antetokounmpo found immediate synergy with Damian Lillard in their first season together. While their pick-and-roll chemistry was somewhat halting, they were still a dominant duo. With Antetokounmpo and Lillard on court together, the Bucks posted a 123.95 offensive rating and walloped teams by nearly 10 points per 100 possessions; when one star played without the other, the Bucks struggled to break even.
Moreover, when Khris Middleton rejoined the Bucks, they became even better. In the Bucks’ 42 games with Antetokounmpo, Lillard and Middleton, Milwaukee went 28-14. To a certain degree, the Bucks’ failures last season can be chalked up to bad luck—broadly, they were good enough, but not healthy enough.
And that’s true, but it’s also missing the point. If your master plan requires three aging, increasingly injury-prone players to stay healthy from October through June, it’s probably not a good plan; hoping that everything goes right is not so much a strategy as the absence of one.
At this point in his career, Antetokounmpo—or more specifically, Antetkounmpo’s legs—can’t quite withstand a full season of his unique, high-lift brilliance. His entire game is built around winning individual physical battles. When he jumps, he soars over defenders; when he sprints, they lag behind. When he pushes, they yield. On a game by game basis, this makes him arguably the league’s best two-way player. Across a full season, though, he’s suffered derailing postseason injuries in each of the last two years, playing under 100 total minutes across the Bucks’ last 11 playoff games.
In this sense, Rivers is best suited to coach a version of the Bucks that ultimately no longer exists. Although Rivers has never been known for his elastic, adaptable tactics, he’s grown more inflexible with age. During his time with the Clippers and Sixers, his teams were knocked out because he couldn’t effectively counterpunch over the course of a playoff series. Similarly, over his half-season in Milwaukee, Rivers salvaged the Bucks’ defense by simplifying the particulars of it, but could never gin up an effective offense to match. Like all Rivers-led teams, the Bucks played with effort, but not inspiration; they had grit, but no genius.
Whereas the Bucks once bludgeoned their way to a title behind Antetokounmpo and a mathematically-optimized scheme, this Bucks team is older and slower than the 2021 vintage and the rest of the East is better. The Celtics and Knicks have deeper rosters; the Sixers have more potent star power. All three have more creative coaches.
To seize on their current championship window, the Bucks need a coach who can find creative ways to preserve Antetokounmpo without limiting him, mitigate Lillard’s absentee defense and evolve with the team’s circumstances. For Milwaukee to reclaim their place amongst the NBA’s elite, Rivers’ still waters must run deep.
More from our The Realest Series
• Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics
• Jaylen Williams and the Oklahoma City Thunder
• Tyrese Maxey and the Philadelphia 76ers
• Julius Randle and the New York Knicks
• Michael Porter Jr. and the Denver Nuggets
• Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks
• Rob Dillingham and the Minnesota Timberwolves
