Will the Schlenk/Budenholzer partnership work?

[macd-gm]

Picture on Hawks.com of the 2015 Coach of the Year:

[Jamaaliver]

Ressler no longer taking the blame for the decision-making during the Bud/Cox era.

At what point were they going to fire Bud?

I'm glad you asked.

Ressler...acknowledges his early missteps put the franchise in a dreadful hole.

“Let’s cut the **** — I didn’t know what I was doing,” Ressler said. “I can blame someone else, I can blame you, I can blame my wife. But there was only one schmuck in the room, and that was me.”

Ressler purchased the Hawks in April of 2015, as a 60-win Atlanta team was beginning the playoffs. Ressler did the easy and seemingly most logical thing after the playoffs: He cut ties with the polarizing Ferry, promoted Budenholzer to team president and elevated Wilcox.

“It was a recipe for disaster,” he said. “Total dysfunction.”

Ressler hasn’t done many interviews. He never had to in private business. But he has come to understand the sports world is different, and he believes at some level one can’t move forward without acknowledging lessons learned from the past.

I don’t want to blame somebody else because I was the schmuck, and I didn’t have to do it. I realized the mistake the minute after I did it.”

Budenholzer and Wilcox constantly disagreed on direction and personnel decisions. They signed Dwight Howard. They let Al Horford walk. Budenholzer was determined to try to win today but was totally lost as a big picture guy. Wilcox had player personnel skills but lacked the temperament to lead people.

Ressler correctly decided to remove Budenholzer as team president in 2017 and hired general manager Travis Schlenk. Budenholzer convinced Ressler, and maybe himself, that he would be satisfied to be just a coach again. He lied to both Ressler and himself.

Budenholzer asked out after the season, then said no to a job in Phoenix that he was offered.

Ressler and Schlenk fumed as the saga played out publicly while the Hawks were trying to acquire trade compensation for their lame duck coach. Budenholzer eventually went to Milwaukee for nothing. Ressler said he wasn’t surprised by Budeholzer’s decision at the end, nor will he speculate as to his state of mind during the season.

“Bud was not the right coach for us,” he said. “He was desperate to coach a superstar. I don’t know where Bud’s head was; you’ll have to ask him. But I do think when some people have a very short life as the decision-maker, and they no longer have it, sometimes they miss it."

The Athletic


We've come a long way in 18 months, haven't we?

[Jamaaliver]

It's going to be real interesting when Budenholzer comes back to town...

[jayu70]

Mmmmm....something is still amiss - during the Millsap debacle, didn't Ressler say in a previous interview that the 'to trade/or not to trade Millsap' never got to his desk but if it had he would not have signed off? Or am I misremembering?

[Jamaaliver]

Mmmmm....something is still amiss - during the Millsap debacle, didn't Ressler say in a previous interview that the 'to trade/or not to trade Millsap never got to his desk but if it had he would not have signed off? Or am I mis-remembering?

I'll let you search through here to see if you find that quote I know you're thinking of...

Here

[macd-gm]

Mmmmm....something is still amiss - during the Millsap debacle, didn't Ressler say in a previous interview that the 'to trade/or not to trade Millsap' never got to his desk but if it had he would not have signed off? Or am I misremembering?

That's exactly right. And he also said that if you think Bud has final say on basketball operations then you don't know how the Hawks work.

This all seems like revisionist history. If Bud was doing such a horrible job at development and was "desperate" to coach a superstar then you fire him. Not sure why the fact that he turned down the Suns job was such a big deal. Is he supposed to take the first job offered just to make it easier on the Hawks? Again. If they had fired him for "not being the right coach for the Hawks" then they would have saved themselves all these supposed headaches Bud was causing them. But they didn't either because they were inept or too cheap.

It's not reassuring to me that Resseller suffered through a year of having such an insubordinate key employee and apparently did nothing about it.

[Jamaaliver]

Ressler is certainly not clean And blame free in this scenario.

But it is alarming that Budenholzer still seems to be getting a complete pass.

Also...why interview for a job he didn't want? Especially when he already had a job he didn't want.

Sent from my RC555L using RealGM mobile app

[Jamaaliver]

Epilogue. I was waiting for Bud's first game back in Atlanta to see what nuggets were revealed from last season.

Surprisingly few fireworks on this visit...

NOTE: This is an extremely biased write-up by Schultz. Par for the course for Jeff.

Three​ months after​ Mike​ Budenholzer’s​ front-office tenure​ was labeled​ “a recipe for​ disaster” by​ his​ team’s​ owner, the former Hawks’ head coach returned to Atlanta on Sunday.

Budenholzer made a U-turn on his commitment to a rebuilding project last season. He quit. He found a way to stick it to a Hawks organization that was paying him $7 million by deciding he no longer wanted to coach a rebuilding team, effectively wasting a season of the general manager’s and owner’s time.

They’re in a better place now.

Budenholzer and former GM Wes Wilcox were a front-office disaster. One was stripped of his power. The other lost his job. Budenholzer maintained that he wouldn’t have a problem working for a new general manager, Travis Schlenk.

The situation was doomed from day one. Budenholzer was wired to win, especially after orchestrating a 60-win season. He wanted control, and he wanted success — yesterday.

He couldn’t take the losing. He couldn’t take every time Schlenk traded a veteran. He couldn’t take it that owner Tony Ressler demoted him and afforded him no input on who the new GM would be. Ressler declared in an interview with The Athletic that “I was the schmuck in the room” for believing it could work.

Budenholzer bailed. He was laying the groundwork for a job elsewhere (at the time, Phoenix) before the season ended. He quit on the rebuild and dragged out his new job search publicly, and the Hawks basically then fired him, getting nothing in return as compensation.

Schlenk wasn’t happy about the lack of trade compensation. But it’s true the primary war was between Budenholzer and Ressler.

“Bud was not the right coach for us,” Ressler said back in October. “I don’t know where Bud’s head was — you’ll have to ask him. But I do think when some people have a very short life as the decision-maker, and they no longer have it, sometimes they miss it.”

Ressler’s comments were relayed to Budenholzer on Sunday. The Bucks’ head coach ventured to say as little as possible.

“Um … you know, that’s … he’s done a lot to make this organization great,” he said. “It’s a tough job to be the owner in a rebuild, to be the GM, to be the coach. I don’t know who the right coach is.”

“I’m happy for him,” Schlenk said. “There’s no bad blood between us.”

The Athletic

[jayu70]

So yep, Ressler was the owner that yelled at the coach for winning games last season.

I have a question though, How can Ressler be mad at no draft compensation but let Bud leave with ALL his money and coach right away????

[Jamaaliver]

^1. I've seen nothing to corroborate that. My money is still on Crazy Vivek in Sacramento. He was attacking his coach weeks ago in the midst of playoff contention.

Or maybe Sarver in PHX. Especially since he's since fired the coach and GM from last season.

2. Ressler was upset with the way the departure played out and made the franchise look bad.

Schlenk was the one upset with no draft pick compensation.