Bud Appreciation Thread

[Prez]

Jimmy since his breakout as a star level player and up until our first round series this year had played in 14 playoff series - of those 14 series he’s had just one where he averaged 30+ ppg, it was in the first round last year when he averaged 30.5 ppg on 64% TS against the Hawks and their 26th ranked defense. On average for his star level seasons he’s at 22 ppg on 58% TS in the playoffs.

The Bucks letting him go off for 38ppg on 67% TS is an absolute abomination and outlier for his career and we need to not pretend otherwise. It was a complete failure of both the coaching staff and the players.

run the last 3 years in miami and throw out the year the bucks(buds system).... completely snuffed him.... and ill take the numbers more seriously

If you look at just his Miami tenure and exclude our 2021 series, he’s at 24.5 ppg on 61% TS.

So basically even when you cherry pick literally the best seasons of his career, discard the very worst series in there to pad the numbers, it’s still by a massive margin lower than what he put up against us this postseason. We took a very good all star and made him look like the greatest player of all time. Again, it was an absolute failure by the coaching staff and players top to bottom.

[Prez]

Both things can be true that:

1) Bud was a fantastic regular season coach whose structure/stability and base schemes transformed this organization from a .500ish team wasting a superstar to a perennial 50+ win contender that better leveraged that superstar and at least gave him a fighting chance to win a title (and eventually did get one).

2) Bud’s inflexibility relative to other top coaches, slowness to adapt/make mid game adjustments, lack of preparation for specific teams/lineups/players going into a series, etc deservedly cost him his job, and the Bucks can do better in terms of playoff coaching.

Respect to Bud for everything he did here, but we need something different (and frankly better) in the playoffs right now, and there are really good options available.

[GHOSTofSIKMA]

Jimmy since his breakout as a star level player and up until our first round series this year had played in 14 playoff series - of those 14 series he’s had just one where he averaged 30+ ppg, it was in the first round last year when he averaged 30.5 ppg on 64% TS against the Hawks and their 26th ranked defense. On average for his star level seasons he’s at 22 ppg on 58% TS in the playoffs.

The Bucks letting him go off for 38ppg on 67% TS is an absolute abomination and outlier for his career and we need to not pretend otherwise. It was a complete failure of both the coaching staff and the players.

run the last 3 years in miami and throw out the year the bucks(buds system).... completely snuffed him.... and ill take the numbers more seriously

If you look at just his Miami tenure and exclude our 2021 series, he’s at 24.5 ppg on 61% TS.

So basically even when you cherry pick literally the best seasons of his career, discard the very worst series in there to pad the numbers, it’s still by a massive margin lower than what he put up against us this postseason. We took a very good all star and made him look like the greatest player of all time. Again, it was an absolute failure by the coaching staff and players top to bottom.

im cherry picking the most recent sample on the actual team that beat us.

and again.. our system is designed to to give guys like butler the oppurtunity to beat us instead of the total wipeouts that can occur in trapping schemes like we had with kidd. in the two games he lit us up for 56 and 42 we HAD BOTH GAMES IN HAND.

he didnt do anything in that series besides those last two games that was out of line with what hes been doing.

are you suggesting that at some point in the 4th qtrs of both those games wed had sizeable leads we abort our entire premise of what got us the lead by trapping jimmy?

it makes no sense what youre suggesting. in fact if wed done it it would have been staggering levels of buffoonery in the huddles even trying to discuss wtf scheme we were going to run behind these traps we were going to suddenly throw with 3 minutes left in the game.

so bottom line he went off sure guys do it....but more importantly we put a gun in our own mouths on the offensive end. i have no problem with how we defended jimmy. if you want to holler about buds mistakes that game i think it was more about not using timeouts to break rhythms or settle our guys properly. that i could get behind

[GHOSTofSIKMA]

this boards wanted buds ass for awhile. i'll retire from the discussion

[yannisk]

jimmy butler didnt beat us. we beat ourselves.

largely yes, so the players and the coach are responsible. Guess who is easier to replace. There are better coaches than him and there are definitely many worse, even if we bring a coach of similar ability it will be a fresh start, and this team needs a fresh start after the way they lost. We could do worse of course

if wed on the run aborted our entire defensive philosophy to double and triple him it would have been idiotic. hell the last two games we were supposed to do that well in the lead? or only the last 5 minutes when our own heroes turned into zeroes.

What about trying different players on him? that's is not against our philosophy. Jrue took it personal and was getting annihilated, Bud followed Jrue's wishes and let him on Butler. Many of the things you accuse the players of it is their fault but is also on the coach to reign them. If Giannis taking a quick 3 is a mistake (and it is) it is also responsibility of the coach to make him stop doing it.

We are not a religious school or a ideological society. I want the coach to be able to employ different tactics when the situation demands it. While it is good to have an identity and a philosophy it should not be a dogma if it is not working, we are not playing alone. Furthermore the coach has to work the team to be able to try different things offensively and defensively. Bud has shown some rigidity with his tactics.

I don't like how the Bucks are playing offensively, do you? Defensively with the personnel we have we should be a menace. Bucks are one of the worst teams i have seen taking care of time. Players are largely allowed to do stupid things without much repercussions. We rarely hunt mismatches in the post. When I see us doing things outside our philosophy (playing zone for example) it is like we have not worked them at all before in practice. When we switch we switch even on fake screens. Many attribute these to our low iq players, I doubt it is the main reason

Bud in 2019 installed a successful system based on personnel, drop defense with Brook, all out offense with Giannis and shooters. I don't think he added enough variation after that, we are an open book, the league evolved and there are countermeasures

[GHOSTofSIKMA]

jimmy butler didnt beat us. we beat ourselves.

largely yes, so the players and the coach are responsible. Guess who is easier to replace. There are better coaches than him and there are definitely many worse, even if we bring a coach of similar ability it will be a fresh start, and this team needs a fresh start after the way they lost. We could do worse of course

if wed on the run aborted our entire defensive philosophy to double and triple him it would have been idiotic. hell the last two games we were supposed to do that well in the lead? or only the last 5 minutes when our own heroes turned into zeroes.

What about trying different players on him? that's is not against our philosophy. Jrue took it personal and was getting annihilated, Bud followed Jrue's wishes and let him on Butler. Many of the things you accuse the players of it is their fault but is also on the coach to reign them. If Giannis taking a quick 3 is a mistake (and it is) it is also responsibility of the coach to make him stop doing it.

We are not a religious school or a ideological society. I want the coach to be able to employ different tactics when the situation demands it. While it is good to have an identity and a philosophy it should not be a dogma if it is not working, we are not playing alone. Furthermore the coach has to work the team to be able to try different things offensively and defensively. Bud has shown some rigidity with his tactics.

I don't like how the Bucks are playing offensively, do you? Defensively with the personnel we have we should be a menace. Bucks are one of the worst teams i have seen taking care of time. Players are largely allowed to do stupid things without much repercussions. We rarely hunt mismatches in the post. When I see us doing things outside our philosophy (playing zone for example) it is like we have not worked them at all before in practice. When we switch we switch even on fake screens. Many attribute these to our low iq players, I doubt it is the main reason

Bud in 2019 installed a successful system based on personnel, drop defense with Brook, all out offense with Giannis and shooters. I don't think he added enough variation after that, we are an open book, the league evolved and there are countermeasures

in game 5 we had a 16 pt lead to start the 4th and an 8 point lead with 3.18 to play
in game 4 we had never trailed the entire game and had a 10 point lead with 5.20 to play

at what point was a different coach supposed to say woah woah woah wtf is going on, thrown the season long gameplan out the window.... and done what youre suggesting?

if this new coach does that hes a damn moron.

like i said im done with this debate.

i feel with a certainty that the roster bud inherited is worse than the roster we have now. that season before he got here giannis and khris and brogdon and bled were in their absolute prime... we won 44 games and got bounced in the first round. bud is responsible for everything good that has happened to this team since then over the last 5 years. bud was a treasure the way giannis is a treasure.

we **** up. im in a depressed state. i probably shouldnt post you all have at it.

[soboMP3]

Both things can be true that:

1) Bud was a fantastic regular season coach whose structure/stability and base schemes transformed this organization from a .500ish team wasting a superstar to a perennial 50+ win contender that better leveraged that superstar and at least gave him a fighting chance to win a title (and eventually did get one).

2) Bud’s inflexibility relative to other top coaches, slowness to adapt/make mid game adjustments, lack of preparation for specific teams/lineups/players going into a series, etc deservedly cost him his job, and the Bucks can do better in terms of playoff coaching.

Respect to Bud for everything he did here, but we need something different (and frankly better) in the playoffs right now, and there are really good options available.

I’m just flabbergasted that anyone is going against your well-reasoned line of thought in this thread. GoS is being absolutely delusional here. Bud was gone in 2021 without that toe call. There was a f’ing “FIRE BUD!” sign at the friggin’ championship celebration. Bud has been on thin ice forever. Him getting fired should not ever be a surprise after this disaster.

[soboMP3]

jimmy butler didnt beat us. we beat ourselves.

largely yes, so the players and the coach are responsible. Guess who is easier to replace. There are better coaches than him and there are definitely many worse, even if we bring a coach of similar ability it will be a fresh start, and this team needs a fresh start after the way they lost. We could do worse of course

if wed on the run aborted our entire defensive philosophy to double and triple him it would have been idiotic. hell the last two games we were supposed to do that well in the lead? or only the last 5 minutes when our own heroes turned into zeroes.

What about trying different players on him? that's is not against our philosophy. Jrue took it personal and was getting annihilated, Bud followed Jrue's wishes and let him on Butler. Many of the things you accuse the players of it is their fault but is also on the coach to reign them. If Giannis taking a quick 3 is a mistake (and it is) it is also responsibility of the coach to make him stop doing it.

We are not a religious school or a ideological society. I want the coach to be able to employ different tactics when the situation demands it. While it is good to have an identity and a philosophy it should not be a dogma if it is not working, we are not playing alone. Furthermore the coach has to work the team to be able to try different things offensively and defensively. Bud has shown some rigidity with his tactics.

I don't like how the Bucks are playing offensively, do you? Defensively with the personnel we have we should be a menace. Bucks are one of the worst teams i have seen taking care of time. Players are largely allowed to do stupid things without much repercussions. We rarely hunt mismatches in the post. When I see us doing things outside our philosophy (playing zone for example) it is like we have not worked them at all before in practice. When we switch we switch even on fake screens. Many attribute these to our low iq players, I doubt it is the main reason

Bud in 2019 installed a successful system based on personnel, drop defense with Brook, all out offense with Giannis and shooters. I don't think he added enough variation after that, we are an open book, the league evolved and there are countermeasures

in game 5 we had a 16 pt lead to start the 4th and an 8 point lead with 3.18 to play
in game 4 we had never trailed the entire game and had a 10 point lead with 5.20 to play

at what point was a different coach supposed to say woah woah woah wtf is going on, thrown the season long gameplan out the window.... and done what youre suggesting?

if this new coach does that hes a damn moron.

like i said im done with this debate.

i feel with a certainty that the roster bud inherited is worse than the roster we have now. that season before he got here giannis and khris and brogdon and bled were in their absolute prime... we won 44 games and got bounced in the first round. bud is responsible for everything good that has happened to this team since then over the last 5 years. bud was a treasure the way giannis is a treasure.

we **** up. im in a depressed state. i probably shouldnt post you all have at it.

Umm, at any point? Call a timeout perhaps? Let’s not pretend that this wasn’t one of the biggest coaching disasters ever lol.

[WiscoKing13]

Has any player came out and said anything on Bud? Seems a bit strange.

Sent from my SM-G991U using RealGM mobile app

[Couch Potato]

I'm thankful for the Championship and all. But could say it to Tucker as well for him to bark like a dog at you to change your schemes for D to win it all as well. Tucker left and two more seasons wasted.

[Wooderson]

Come on man.

We had 4 of the 5 best players out there. Bam is much closer to Portis than Brook. We probably had 8 of the 10 best players.

He had no answers to anything and our team wilted at the end because of it.

we sucked before he got here because of how low iq/ limited our core is. he created a system that could bring the best out of them both individually and collectively. as pp broke down he rehabbed literally everybody in the rotation along with it.

Pre-Bud the Bucks sucked as much due to the roster as the system/coaching specific changes. 2018 Bucks had Tony Snell/John Henson/Thon/Sterling Brown/Jabari/Delly getting huge minutes. None of these dudes were NBA rotation players as soon as they left the Bucks and it wasn't due to age, they just sucked. A horrible center rotation/depth/bench that completely sunk the team in addition to the poor coaching.

Bud and Horst cleaned up a TON of low hanging fruit. Bud deservers credit for the system upping their level as well as input on personnel, but I don't expect the latter to revert back even if the coaching were to decline. The Bucks suddenly becoming a regular season juggernaut should not just be attributed to Bud's coaching tactics.

[paulpressey25]

None of these dudes were NBA rotation players as soon as they left the Bucks and it wasn't due to age, they just sucked.

Plausible a Nick Nurse comes in and leads us back to the Finals. That said, I’d take better than even odds that were saying the same thing above about Grayson, Wes, Jingles, Jevon, Bobby, Jae, etc a year from now.

We really only had 4.5 playoff caliber performers for a core 8-9 man rotation.

Giannis, Khris, Jrue, Pat and 1/2 for Brook, since he’s matchup dependent.

[midranger]

None of these dudes were NBA rotation players as soon as they left the Bucks and it wasn't due to age, they just sucked.

Plausible a Nick Nurse comes in and leads us back to the Finals. That said, I’d take better than even odds that were saying the same thing above about Grayson, Wes, Jingles, Jevon, Bobby, Jae, etc a year from now.

We really only had 4.5 playoff caliber performers for a core 8-9 man rotation.

Giannis, Khris, Jrue, Pat and 1/2 for Brook, since he’s matchup dependent.

Sucks that with 4.5 playoff guys, we lost to a team with 1.5 playoff guys.

[paulpressey25]

None of these dudes were NBA rotation players as soon as they left the Bucks and it wasn't due to age, they just sucked.

Plausible a Nick Nurse comes in and leads us back to the Finals. That said, I’d take better than even odds that were saying the same thing above about Grayson, Wes, Jingles, Jevon, Bobby, Jae, etc a year from now.

We really only had 4.5 playoff caliber performers for a core 8-9 man rotation.

Giannis, Khris, Jrue, Pat and 1/2 for Brook, since he’s matchup dependent.

Sucks that with 4.5 playoff guys, we lost to a team with 1.5 playoff guys.

Not all playoff guys are created equal. Their #1 played five games to our #1 playing two.

[midranger]

Plausible a Nick Nurse comes in and leads us back to the Finals. That said, I’d take better than even odds that were saying the same thing above about Grayson, Wes, Jingles, Jevon, Bobby, Jae, etc a year from now.

We really only had 4.5 playoff caliber performers for a core 8-9 man rotation.

Giannis, Khris, Jrue, Pat and 1/2 for Brook, since he’s matchup dependent.

Sucks that with 4.5 playoff guys, we lost to a team with 1.5 playoff guys.

Not all playoff guys are created equal. Their #1 played five games to our #1 playing two.

Sounds good man. We clearly had a worse roster. All year, people we were saying we weren’t deep, etc…

Every team has Grayson Allen level dudes getting minutes. It’s the coach’s job to find weak links and expoit them. We allowed Duncan Robinson and Zombie Kyle Lowry to stay on the floor for large stretches. We allowed zombie Kevin Love and Bam to effectively guard all of Brook, Giannis, and Portis all game, all series. They had no other bigs. Gray hair, one leg Love and Bam. We have 3 good to great bigs. Did we take advantage for more than a quarter at a time? No?

That’s on coaching. That’s why he’s gone.

[GHOSTofSIKMA]

Come on man.

We had 4 of the 5 best players out there. Bam is much closer to Portis than Brook. We probably had 8 of the 10 best players.

He had no answers to anything and our team wilted at the end because of it.

we sucked before he got here because of how low iq/ limited our core is. he created a system that could bring the best out of them both individually and collectively. as pp broke down he rehabbed literally everybody in the rotation along with it.

Pre-Bud the Bucks sucked as much due to the roster as the system/coaching specific changes. 2018 Bucks had Tony Snell/John Henson/Thon/Sterling Brown/Jabari/Delly getting huge minutes. None of these dudes were NBA rotation players as soon as they left the Bucks and it wasn't due to age, they just sucked. A horrible center rotation/depth/bench that completely sunk the team in addition to the poor coaching.

Bud and Horst cleaned up a TON of low hanging fruit. Bud deservers credit for the system upping their level as well as input on personnel, but I don't expect the latter to revert back even if the coaching were to decline. The Bucks suddenly becoming a regular season juggernaut should not just be attributed to Bud's coaching tactics.

id agree with this except our core was in their dead ass prime and whatever improvement weve made around the periphery was not worth 16 games and an SRS jump of -.45 to +8.06. If role players were worth that much we should have an entire roster of them and abandon the superstar model.

giannis 23
middleton 26
beldsoe 28
brogdon 25

without bud giannis would not have 2 mvps or a title. thats my opinion. i feel strongly that our window just slammed shut. i would have prefferred Bud coached another 15 years giannis or not.

kidd got fired for this core underacheiving. he was not a great coach but this core is "different"

[Wooderson]

id agree with this except our core was in their dead ass prime and whatever improvement weve made around the periphery was not worth 16 games and an SRS jump of -.45 to +8.06. If role players were worth that much we should have an entire roster of them and abandon the superstar model.

giannis 23
middleton 26
beldsoe 28
brogdon 25

without bud giannis would not have 2 mvps or a title. thats my opinion. i feel strongly that our window just slammed shut. i would have prefferred Bud coached another 15 years giannis or not.

kidd got fired for this core underacheiving. he was not a great coach but this core is "different"

Giannis was definitely not in his prime at 23. He had been gaining steam every season with a unique trajectory and was in a crap coaching situation. Brogdon was a second year player in 2018, he clearly had room to grow.

Second on the coaching front, there was a lot a low hanging fruit to clean up there too. You're considering the counterfactual of no Bud as if the Bucks continue to have bottom of the bottom tier coaching with late stage Kidd/Prunty etc. Even if the Bucks hired an average coach instead of Bud, they'd have gotten a big boost.

Comparing pre-Bud Bucks to the Bucks with Bud in a vacuum is losing the plot a bit if you're using that situation to assume they'll sink into the gutter again and be a barely above .500 team or something like that. That situation was dire outside of the top few core players, for personnel and coaching.

[Prez]

id agree with this except our core was in their dead ass prime and whatever improvement weve made around the periphery was not worth 16 games and an SRS jump of -.45 to +8.06. If role players were worth that much we should have an entire roster of them and abandon the superstar model.

giannis 23
middleton 26
beldsoe 28
brogdon 25

without bud giannis would not have 2 mvps or a title. thats my opinion. i feel strongly that our window just slammed shut. i would have prefferred Bud coached another 15 years giannis or not.

kidd got fired for this core underacheiving. he was not a great coach but this core is "different"

Giannis was definitely not in his prime at 23. He had been gaining steam every season with a unique trajectory and was in a crap coaching situation. Brogdon was a second year player in 2018, he clearly had room to grow.

Second on the coaching front, there was a lot a low hanging fruit to clean up there too. You're considering the counterfactual of no Bud as if the Bucks continue to have bottom of the bottom tier coaching with late stage Kidd/Prunty etc. Even if the Bucks hired an average coach instead of Bud, they'd have gotten a big boost.

Comparing pre-Bud Bucks to the Bucks with Bud in a vacuum is losing the plot a bit if you're using that situation to assume they'll sink into the gutter again and be a barely above .500 team or something like that. That situation was dire outside of the top few core players, for personnel and coaching.

Yeah, Kidd on the Bucks was literally the worst coach in the league, both X’s and O’s wise and for the clown show he was leading from a locker room/team culture standpoint. Bud deserves credit for actually being the one to do it, lifting the organization up from the gutter that Kidd had them in, but there are at least a dozen coaches today that would’ve to a similar degree lifted this team up from the Kidd era (especially with key roster tweaks that came around the same time). It truly was a combination of Bud being a very good regular season coach AND Kidd being the worst coach in the league.

[midranger]

Coaches Bud has beaten more than lost to in the playoffs
Lionel Hollins
Randy Wittman
Brad Stevens (x 2)
Dwane Casey
Steve Clifford
Steve Nash
Nate McMillan
Monty Williams
Billy Donovan
Cumulative regular season record: 3288-3277 0.501
Cumulative playoff record: 180-237 0.432
Only 2 coaches had winning playoff records (Wittman, Williams)
1 total finals appearance (Monty Williams)
0 total championships

Coaches Bud lost to in the playoffs more than he won
Frank Vogel
David Blatt
Ty Lue
Nick Nurse
Erik Spoelstra (1-2)
Ime Udoka
Cumulative regular season record: 2278-1714 0.571
Cumulative playoff record: 305-219 0.582
All coaches have winning records in playoffs
All coaches have at least 1 finals appearance
4 coaches won championships
13 total finals appearances
5 total championships

[rilamann]

Sucks that with 4.5 playoff guys, we lost to a team with 1.5 playoff guys.

Not all playoff guys are created equal. Their #1 played five games to our #1 playing two.

Sounds good man. We clearly had a worse roster. All year, people we were saying we weren’t deep, etc…

Every team has Grayson Allen level dudes getting minutes. It’s the coach’s job to find weak links and expoit them. We allowed Duncan Robinson and Zombie Kyle Lowry to stay on the floor for large stretches. We allowed zombie Kevin Love and Bam to effectively guard all of Brook, Giannis, and Portis all game, all series. They had no other bigs. Gray hair, one leg Love and Bam. We have 3 good to great bigs. Did we take advantage for more than a quarter at a time? No?

That’s on coaching. That’s why he’s gone.

This is by far the best team we've had in the Giannis era & This Bucks team is the deepest team in the league. I totally didn't read posts like that 2-3 times a day on this board over the past 6 months.

Oh, and the Heat are actually a top 2 team in the east, they were just masquerading as a play-in team for the first 84 games of the season because it was part of a big elaborate plan.