From the outside, it seemed like a shock: The Milwaukee Bucks fired their first-year head coach Adrian Griffin, who had led the team to a 30-13 record midway through the season.
Inside (and on close viewing), there were a lot of red flags, from Terry Stotts quitting as an assistant coach preseason to Giannis Antetokounmpo ignoring the coach and checking himself back into a game, to Bobby Portis calling out the coach and everyone after their In-Season Tournament loss, among many others. Although the Les Miserables-sized red flag being waved was the team’s 21st-ranked defense.
All that forced a harsh change but one, within basketball circles at least, is not seen as the wrong move because of the Bucks’ condensed timeline. Griffin is out and soon Doc Rivers will be in, although when Bucks general manager Jon Horst met with the media Wednesday, he said he could not discuss a coaching hire (because that is not yet official). However, he did discuss the decision to make a coaching change, albeit in vague terms. Here are a few highlights from what he said.
On why Griffin was fired: “It’s our job to constantly evaluate and to learn and listen and just continue to figure out how to improve this team. For us, we felt like this was the right time, the right decision to make, and that we had an opportunity to improve the group. And there isn’t a specific instance. There isn’t a specific timing to it. It’s just going through it and evaluating and looking, the dynamic’s different.”
Check out NBC Sports’ fantasy basketball breakdown of the Terry Rozier trade.
On if it was a mistake to hire a rookie coach for a win-now team in the first place: “Someone really wise once said looking back is ego, so I’m going to stay in the present and not look back. There’s no regrets. I believe in the hire that we made. I believe in the reasons we did it, the process we went through, and again, Adrian has contributed to this group. Part of why we are where we are today and who we are is because of him. This was an opportunity about going forward. No regrets from me. No looking back. I believe in what we did, why we did, when we did it, and believe in where we’re at today as well.”
On if these Bucks can go from good to great, maybe champion: “I think we have yet to maximize what we can become. Some of that is timing, integrating a new star, integrating new pieces, a new system, Khris coming back and playing a real role and real minutes compared to what he’d done in the last year or so, and so I think there’s upside in the roster as constructed. I know we’re going to do our job to figure out if we can improve the roster, and then as part of this and why we’re sitting here today, I think there’s a coaching element where we have a chance to do better as well.”
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January 25, 2024 at 09:48AM
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Bucks GM talks Griffin firing, 'We felt like this was the right time, the right decision to make' - NBC Sports
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