of milwaukee bucks made the (somewhat) shocking decision to First-year head coach Adrian Griffin was fired on Tuesday.even though the team was eliminated. monday victory They have an overall record of 30 wins and 13 losses.
However, the atmosphere was bad throughout the season, and they won two games in a row, the worst in the league, by a narrow margin. detroit pistons It wasn't enough to stop management from firing a embattled rookie coach in favor of a more established voice (management reportedly called for “Kendrick “If Perkins had been healthy, he would have actually won two titles,” said ESPN broadcaster Doc Rivers.
But even if many of the wins looked shaky, the Bucks' aforementioned 30-13 pace was still good for second place in the Eastern Conference. So how did they come to the decision to give Griffin the ax? Here's what we know.
Griffin failed to get buy-in from key players, including Giannis Antetokounmpo
Signs for Griffin ever since returning to training camp perhaps The coach's lack of the greatest talent began to sink in, most notably during training camp when he reportedly yelled at lead assistant coach Terry Stotts in front of the entire team (via The Athletic):
A source who witnessed Tuesday's events said Griffin convened his team for a huddle to end the day after the shootaround and had his players participate in post-shootaround target practice. During that huddle, Griffin told his coaches that he wanted to do another huddle when this was over.
Once the players and coaches broke the huddle, Stotts went in the opposite direction of the coaches' huddle and instead began walking toward the players, discussing the offense. When Stotts tried to start a conversation with Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo, Griffin called on Stotts to participate in the coaching huddle. When Stotts asked to spend some time with the players, Griffin yelled for Stotts to join the coaches. According to sources, the incident happened in front of the entire team.
In the wake of this incident, Mr. Stotts To quit a jobThe Bucks are left with one inexperienced voice coming up with a game plan and selling it to a group of players. That includes Damian Lillard, who Stotts has coached for years. portland trail blazers.
This wasn't the only time the problem surfaced publicly. leaked in december Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report After losing to the Indiana Pacers in the in-season tournament, veteran forward Bobby Portis revealed that he called out Griffin in front of the entire team.
As one of the team's leaders, Portis continued to voice his concerns. Officials said Griffin welcomed the criticism and acknowledged he could do a better job by being more aggressive with his play-calling. The nine-year veteran explained that this is a two-way street. Instructions are needed and it is up to the players to carry them out, the source said.
Things snowballed from there. Sports Illustrated's Chris Mannix tweeted on Tuesday. “For weeks, there have been rumors in NBA circles that several Bucks veterans, including Giannis, have lost faith in Griffin.”Longtime NBA Insider Marc Stein reported on Substack Two weeks earlier, he had received a text message from a source who said, “If Stotts were still there, he'd be coaching the Bucks today.''
And as Shams Charania, Sam Amick and Eric Name report. The AthleticGriffin's inability to generate buy-in ultimately became pivotal, as the Bucks began to have “internal skepticism” about “Griffin's leadership abilities” throughout the organization, from the locker room to the front office.
After the Bucks suffered a disappointing loss to the Pacers in Las Vegas, Milwaukee snapped a seven-game winning streak and appeared to steady the ship with a solid four-game series around Christmas. However, in the new year, the problem occurred again. Team officials said players began to question Griffin's plans on both sides of the floor and the strategy he had in store for them on a nightly basis.
With the team making major personnel changes at the beginning of the season, the players were patient and willing to accept what Griffin learned on the job, but as the team failed to show significant improvement in the middle of the season, the players' questions It got even more serious.
According to team officials, the problem that plagued Griffin's early tenure was how well he communicated his vision to the players, as the Bucks put together a strong plan on both ends of the floor to realize their championship potential. This includes a wide range of activities, including having students perform the same tasks on the floor. But ultimately, given the high stakes of this Bucks era, concerns about Griffin's ability became too much for executives to bear.
Giannis in particular has had not-so-subtle doubts about that very last part for quite some time. After Griffin was relieved of his duties, CBS Sports' Jack Maroney recalled when Giannis and several other veterans began openly questioning the coaching staff's strategy near the media scrum early in the season. Ta.
Additionally, all report Giannis apparently chose Griffin as his coach over the summer after the Bucks let Mike Budenholzer go, at least according to Stein, but Giannis is less of a Griffin fan and more of a fan of someone other than Nick Nurse. It seems like it was.
League sources say his desire to play for Griffin is better described as a determination to play for someone other than Nick Nurse.
Nurse was one of the candidates the Bucks had high on their list after a brutal five-game loss to No. 8 seed Miami in the first round of last season's playoffs, resulting in a five-year stint at the helm. This led to the dismissal of coach Budenholzer. It was Milwaukee's first win since 1971.
However, sources say Antetokounmpo chose to champion Griffin because he wanted the Bucks to go in a different direction.
Why did Giannis feel that way? It's not entirely clear. But considering he averaged 32.7 minutes per game during his carefully managed career, it's hard to imagine he wouldn't have been too enthused by Nurse's reputation for keeping players running until the wheels came off.
For example, Nurse's former No. 1 option, Pascal Siakam (a player similar to Giannis in some ways), led the league in minutes played and per game over the past two years under Nurse. He played over 37 games. It's just, 9 games left than Giannis Over the past two seasons, 1,002 minutes have been added.
But while we'll never know for sure why Giannis was more anti-Nurse than pro-Griffin, what's clear is that the season under the latter didn't improve Giannis' opinion of him.
I'm obsessed with Giannis' fun viral quotes Since early January, he has blamed the Bucks for their failures, saying, “Everyone has to get better.'' everyone. It starts with the equipment manager. He has to wash our clothes better,” Giannis said, including the group's coaches (from Name's story) The Athletic My emphasis at the time):
“At the end of the day, this is not the end of the world,” Antetokounmpo said. “Certainly, this is not the end of the world. It's a start to go in the direction we want to go. This is not us. This is not who we are. And if we continue at this pace, we will get there. I don't think we'll ever get where we need to be.
“We have to get better. We have to play better. we must protect ourselves better. We have to trust each other more. we must be better guided. Everyone has to be better at everything they do. everyone. It starts with the equipment manager. He has to wash our clothes better. The bench has to be better. Team leaders need to have more of a voice. He has to take more shots. We have to defend better. We have to have a better strategy. we have to be better…
“We've got four months to get better, so let's see.”
The Bucks will be hoping that if Rivers agrees to a contract, he can provide better coaching and help improve their struggling defense. This would lead to another big reason why the Bucks waived Griffin midway through the season.
Griffin couldn't find a plan that worked on defense.
In November, Brew Hoop colleagues claimed they knew full well hiring Griffin was a mistake. His decision to change the Bucks' basic defensive scheme from a drop-heavy wall that puts Brook Lopez at the rim and supports Giannis is a move that Damian Lillard has never had before, as the team It has been replaced with a heavy-switching Helter Skelter attack that doesn't suit the personnel of .Malik Beasley mistaken for interested defender Career Defense Box Plus-Minus -1.2was do not have Types of stoppers available “Take on the most difficult mission” Griffin tried to sell him every night as follows.
From an editorial in Brew Hoop at the time, “It's time for the Bucks to admit defeat to Adrian Griffin.”:
That brings us to the defenses we've seen so far. The Bucks rank a dismal 25th in Cleaning the Glass' defensive rating, allowing over 117 points per 100 possessions. Despite coach Adrian Griffin's emphasis on ball pressure and forcing turnovers, the Bucks just don't have the talent to do that. The Bucks are one of the oldest teams in the league. They are big. They play as a traditional drop defense center. They don't have any notable attack point destroyers. Despite this emphasis, our attrition rate is below average 19th place.
Griffin relented only after players fought to return to the old plan (via CBS Sports).
“As coaches, sometimes we are too smart for ourselves,” Griffin explained. “[A] Some players came to me, I won't reveal it, but they wanted to drop Brook deeper, and I was smart enough to listen to them. is. It was worth it tonight.
“as [former] It helps build relationships with the players because they are in the trenches. We see it on film, but they live it. Players may not always be right in their evaluations, but I think it's wise to at least listen to their opinions. ”
But as Brew Hoop's snapshot from last Friday showed, those concessions weren't enough. “Adrienne Griffin's Bucks played in 41 games.'' Even before Milwaukee finally chose to do something with him, he made it clear:
The Bucks rank 21st in defensive rating, but there's even some luck there. Teams have far more control over their 3-point shooting percentage than the opposing team. On wide open threes (no defender within 6 feet of the shooter), the Bucks allow 19.4 per game, but no one allows a lower percentage than the Bucks (only 35.5%). This year's league average is just shy of 40%. On threes classified as open (defenders are 4 to 6 feet away from the shooter), the Bucks have the ninth-lowest allowed rate at 33.5%, compared to the league average of 35%.
The Bucks' defensive rating, benefiting from 3-point shooting from wayward opponents, is voluminous, at about 2.5 points per 100 possessions, third in the league behind Houston and New Orleans. After opponents' wide-open 3-point shooting became the norm across the league, the Bucks' defensive rating plummeted from 21st to 28th, slightly worse than the Detroit Pistons, who had a record losing streak in the NBA. . For a team competing for the title, a defensive level of 21st place is not an acceptable level. The fact that they are actually lucky in a way to be in 21st place should make DEFCON 1 flash.this defense odor.
Perhaps the only headline you need is “So lucky to be #21.”
Now, it remains to be seen whether Rivers (or anyone else) can replace this old and creaky Milwaukee team. Winner of All-Defense Award five times Lillard, who Jrue Holiday made an All-Star with zero contestations on screens, aimed to approach the level of defense he played in the regular season under Coach Budenholzer, but after 43 games, the front office It was decided that Griffin did not intend to participate. You can generate any of the tactics you need to buy in or try.
After all, that's why he's no longer their coach.
