PG Heat: Loss

[WeekapaugGroove]

So you think Bud did not maximize that teams talent? Team won 60 games, I guess they should've broke the record or something? Best player Joe Johnson should have beaten peak LBJ on a superteam?

The argument for Bud that speaks to me, is look at all the multi-time NBA champs.

They all had cores that had at least two or three HOF (or HOF caliber players) on the squad AND had good role players.

Lakers - Shaq and Kobe and then Kobe and Pau
GSW - Klay, Steph, Draymond
Spurs - Duncan, Kawhi, Parker, Manu (and Robinson on the first few)
Heat - LeBron, Wade, Bosh

All the other 'one-time' champs didn't have the multiple HOF'ers.

Bucks - Giannis
Raptors - Strong team, but then Kawhi left
Pistons - Strong team, only won one
Cav's - LeBron and maybe Kyrie, but Kyrie imploded and LeBron left
Mavs - Dirk

Hawks team--0 HOFers imo. Johnson did get to 20K points so maybe would get in eventually but probably shouldn't. Horfords NBA resume does not warrant it, but might get in due to the college championships. The other renowned All Stars with their 15 and 12 ppg avgs that year surprisingly have no chance.

You can do the same thing you did with 60+ win teams and basically get the same results

To me the Bud Hawks teams are the text book example of getting punished perception wise by overachieving in the regular season. They went about as far as they should have in the postseason after playing a little above their heads in the regular season.

Chris Paul's teams had a similar thing where he was such a little psycho about every game his teams over performed the regular season and didn't have that extra gear in the playoffs.

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[JayMKE]

If you go "it doesn't fit and we have to trade dame/blow it up". Well then what are you left with? Can't get ballhandlers, can't get bigs that can't shoot. You're left with mediocre 3D guys who will inevitably not be good enough when they're up against teams with legit stars on the wings. And your offense will be back to no motion standing/watching Giannis, which has sucked for 5 playoffs and all the fans going "the supporting cast isn't good enough, can't blame Giannis, get him some help".

You are catastrophizing, the issues are mostly exclusive Dame simply not being that guy for a number of reasons rather than Giannis not being able to play with people. Giannis isn't the one pouting, he's playing a well as he ever has. If Dame was 25 instead of 35 it would change the dynamic a lot, you could have patience & optimism trying to mold him to fit into our system but at 35 there is no time & there is a real problem of teaching an old dog new tricks. Do you guys think Dame is going to stay the same player until he's 38? How realistic is that? Are we a worse team this year with Murray rather than Dame? Based on his play so far, I don't think we would. Dame might still have value right now, he's 100% going to be anchor around this team's neck going forward. We can't be paying these old ass "core" players literally over twice the worth of their contribution out of "respect", the financial health and future of this team has to be taken into consideration. Blaming the Giannis for the playoff offense is dumb, Giannis is one of the few guys in the league that has an extra gear and its not his fault Jrue melted down or Khris got hurt or that Horsts dumb deadline trades didn't work. This team had a championship defense and really needed tweaks more than it needed a total revamping prioritizing offense over defense, this team got further with Jrue and Bledsoe as PGs than it will with Dame most likely. The overreaction was firing Bud because Giannis slipped on his ass game 1 against Miami, everything since has been cursed.

You are the one saying "it doesn't fit". That is what I'm talking about, you keep coming back to just bashing Dame while I try to stick to the team building aspects. Then its not about "fit". If its about fit and a ball handling player doesn't 'fit' then what are you left with to trade for?

No one is blaming Giannis for the playoff offense. He is amazing. But the team result sucks, its not his fault. Its because the other players aren't good enough, thus why we got a guy to address that exact problem. And we're saying to actually attempt to do it, you're saying nah just do the same thing that didn't work the last 5 years.

YEa Dame is old, if you could trade for a younger star I'd be for it too. I was the one saying that with Jrue on here and getting mocked for it. But your bashing misses that Dame was as good as he's been just last year, you're acting as if he just sucks all of a sudden. it is very unlikely he all of a sudden fell off a cliff a few months later, thus it is logical that different things can be done coaching-wise to get better results now that we don't have an absolute moron running things.

But again, who would that be and who would be good enough if you decide ballhandlers don't 'fit' though? My guess is if you panic trade Dame this offseason we'll be sitting here next playoffs complaining the supporting cast isn't good enough as we lose with Giannis averaging like 41 ppg on so-so efficiency in the playoffs. In addition, in the span of about 14 months we would have gone from a no headlines/drama/turmoil teams to one of the biggest ones in the league, not good.

Don't conflate Dame with all 'ballhandlers', the issue is more being a ball dominant rhythm scorer who doesn't create well for others who is shooting terribly & if he's not scoring he's not contributing while taking up like 50M of cap room. Whatever the reason for that he's not the guy we need right now and there are little signs that's going to change especially if he's actually unhappy about being in Milwaukee for whatever reason(not being able to see his kids, not being to hang out in Miami strip clubs post divorce) If doesn't work out this year, its not going to work out next year and that might be too late to get out from under Dame's contract. Breaking up this pairing isn't like we're breaking up a championship team, that's what we had with Bud, a 1st and 2nd round exit this year doesn't need to be repeated next for me to see the writing on the wall. We're going to need Giannis averaging 41 ppg in the playoffs THIS year to have a chance, we're further away from a championship with Dame than we were last year 100%.

[LUKE23]

The issue was not firing Bud. Bud is a damn solid coach, but the Bucks finished 1st in the East three times in his tenure and didn't win the title in any of those three seasons. In all three of those seasons, and last season, the offense and lack of ability to score in clutch moments was the primary reason behind the defeat.

2018-19: Blew 2-0 series lead to Toronto
2019-20: Embarrassing series loss to Miami (4-1)
2021-22: Worst offensive game of his tenure in game 7 against Boston
2022-23: Lose to an 8 seed 4-1

I respect everything Bud did for the Bucks, Regular season he did an amazing job. I don't think there is any way to argue he was a great playoff coach for us, even with the title. We have had the best player in basketball since he arrived, basically.

They needed to not botch the hire after Bud, and they did in epic fashion. That was a far bigger issue than getting rid of Bud in the first place.  

[FrieAaron]

Not sure why everyone is so quick to just brush aside that we were playing without one of our two max players in each of the last two playoff series losses. Even at full strength I don't think we had an obvious multiple championship team, just one that could be in the mix for one.

[WeekapaugGroove]

By the current standards of how NBA teams judge/change coaches the Bud firing was justifiable.

But I personally think teams are way too impatient with coaches and use them as an easy scapegoat.

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[FrieAaron]

By the current standards of how NBA teams judge/change coaches the Bud firing was justifiable.

But I personally think teams are way too impatient with coaches and use them as an easy scapegoat.

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Yeah, by the same standard Mike Malone would have been fired before last season.

[JayMKE]

The issue was not firing Bud. Bud is a damn solid coach, but the Bucks finished 1st in the East three times in his tenure and didn't win the title in any of those three seasons. In all three of those seasons, and last season, the offense and lack of ability to score in clutch moments was the primary reason behind the defeat.

2018-19: Blew 2-0 series lead to Toronto
2019-20: Embarrassing series loss to Miami (4-1)
2021-22: Worst offensive game of his tenure in game 7 against Boston
2022-23: Lose to an 8 seed 4-1

I respect everything Bud did for the Bucks, Regular season he did an amazing job. I don't think there is any way to argue he was a great playoff coach for us, even with the title. We have had the best player in basketball since he arrived, basically.

They needed to not botch the hire after Bud, and they did in epic fashion. That was a far bigger issue than getting rid of Bud in the first place.  

Is it really fair to blame Bud for those playoff loses? Bud's not responsible for guys bricking open 3s or getting injured, certainly not for COVID. Bud was a great coach and you can't be a great coach without being a great regular season coach, its always a weird criticism. Bud didn't adjust well on the fly, Doc has an even worse reputation in that regard. The only person with a rational argument to replace Bud other than simply we gotta change anything was Nick Nurse, if we knew it wasn't going to be Nurse and that ultimately the job would go to Doc Rivers then I would bet over 90% of the board would have been against firing Bud.

[LUKE23]

Is it really fair to blame Bud for those playoff loses? Bud's not responsible for guys bricking open 3s or getting injured, certainly not for COVID. Bud was a great coach and you can't be a great coach without being a great regular season coach, its always a weird criticism. Bud didn't adjust well on the fly, Doc has an even worse reputation in that regard. The only person with a rational argument to replace Bud other than simply we gotta change anything was Nick Nurse, if we knew it wasn't going to be Nurse and that ultimately the job would go to Doc Rivers then I would bet over 90% of the board would have been against firing Bud.

Yes, this is accurate. And pretty much everyone wanted Nurse.

[FrieAaron]

Yes, this is accurate. And pretty much everyone wanted Nurse.

Who, by the way, was one of the luckiest bounces in the history of the playoffs away from never making it out of the second round during his tenure with Toronto.

[LUKE23]

I mean, he won a title his only year with Kawhi and then his best player was Pascal Siakam. Bud had Giannis his entire tenure. Just a tad different. Also, prior to Embiid's injury he had Philly playing better ball than they had in multiple seasons with essentially the same core. He's a good coach. Some people just don't like him, including our superstar.

[DingleJerry]

You are catastrophizing, the issues are mostly exclusive Dame simply not being that guy for a number of reasons rather than Giannis not being able to play with people. Giannis isn't the one pouting, he's playing a well as he ever has. If Dame was 25 instead of 35 it would change the dynamic a lot, you could have patience & optimism trying to mold him to fit into our system but at 35 there is no time & there is a real problem of teaching an old dog new tricks. Do you guys think Dame is going to stay the same player until he's 38? How realistic is that? Are we a worse team this year with Murray rather than Dame? Based on his play so far, I don't think we would. Dame might still have value right now, he's 100% going to be anchor around this team's neck going forward. We can't be paying these old ass "core" players literally over twice the worth of their contribution out of "respect", the financial health and future of this team has to be taken into consideration. Blaming the Giannis for the playoff offense is dumb, Giannis is one of the few guys in the league that has an extra gear and its not his fault Jrue melted down or Khris got hurt or that Horsts dumb deadline trades didn't work. This team had a championship defense and really needed tweaks more than it needed a total revamping prioritizing offense over defense, this team got further with Jrue and Bledsoe as PGs than it will with Dame most likely. The overreaction was firing Bud because Giannis slipped on his ass game 1 against Miami, everything since has been cursed.

You are the one saying "it doesn't fit". That is what I'm talking about, you keep coming back to just bashing Dame while I try to stick to the team building aspects. Then its not about "fit". If its about fit and a ball handling player doesn't 'fit' then what are you left with to trade for?

No one is blaming Giannis for the playoff offense. He is amazing. But the team result sucks, its not his fault. Its because the other players aren't good enough, thus why we got a guy to address that exact problem. And we're saying to actually attempt to do it, you're saying nah just do the same thing that didn't work the last 5 years.

YEa Dame is old, if you could trade for a younger star I'd be for it too. I was the one saying that with Jrue on here and getting mocked for it. But your bashing misses that Dame was as good as he's been just last year, you're acting as if he just sucks all of a sudden. it is very unlikely he all of a sudden fell off a cliff a few months later, thus it is logical that different things can be done coaching-wise to get better results now that we don't have an absolute moron running things.

But again, who would that be and who would be good enough if you decide ballhandlers don't 'fit' though? My guess is if you panic trade Dame this offseason we'll be sitting here next playoffs complaining the supporting cast isn't good enough as we lose with Giannis averaging like 41 ppg on so-so efficiency in the playoffs. In addition, in the span of about 14 months we would have gone from a no headlines/drama/turmoil teams to one of the biggest ones in the league, not good.

Don't conflate Dame with all 'ballhandlers', the issue is more being a ball dominant rhythm scorer who doesn't create well for others who is shooting terribly & if he's not scoring he's not contributing while taking up like 50M of cap room. Whatever the reason for that he's not the guy we need right now and there are little signs that's going to change especially if he's actually unhappy about being in Milwaukee for whatever reason(not being able to see his kids, not being to hang out in Miami strip clubs post divorce) If doesn't work out this year, its not going to work out next year and that might be too late to get out from under Dame's contract. Breaking up this pairing isn't like we're breaking up a championship team, that's what we had with Bud, a 1st and 2nd round exit this year doesn't need to be repeated next for me to see the writing on the wall. We're going to need Giannis averaging 41 ppg in the playoffs THIS year to have a chance, we're further away from a championship with Dame than we were last year 100%.

And bash Dame some more. Again, then its not fit, its just you saying Dame sucks. Which, is very unlikely considering how good he was last year. But he does have to get his head out of his A soon, the moron coach is gone now. Get it going

[LISTEN2JAZZ]

Bud is a top 10 NBA coach. 2x coach of the year and a champion. In my opinion your top 3 players matter a lot more than the coach, so if you have a top 5-10 coach, you should err on keeping them.

To me Nurse wasn’t/isn’t a clear upgrade from Bud. Similar resumes and you could debate all day about it. I was only in favor of moving on from Bud if we had a lead on Kerr or Spoelstra.

[Ron Swanson]

You can't convince me that the organization would have fired Bud had they known what came immediately afterwards.

1) The shell-shock headline of "losing to an 8th seed" all of a sudden didn't look so terrible when Miami ended up in the NBA Finals less than a month later.

2)The Dame trade happens and instantly fixes our biggest playoff weakness that people loved to foist on him (half court offense in clutch situations, perimeter shot-creation).

Sure, firing a coach is the easiest PR move to show the fans that you're "doing something" to fix things, but I'm one of those people who thinks that if you find a legitimate Top-5 guy, you don't move on from them unless things get to an unsustainably toxic level in the locker room. Like someone else said, Mike Malone has been in Denver for nearly a decade. I don't think he's as good of a coach as Bud is, but if he was held to the same exact standard as we did Bud, then the Nuggets would have moved on from him after 2021 and that would have been a mistake.

[JayMKE]

The team was so close year 1 with Bud, finish that 4th quarter in game 3 and the Bucks probably have extra championship since Toronto wouldn't have came back down 3-0. The 7 game Boston series could have went the other way too, if Khris was there that could have been a championship year too. Bud was a great coach who put this team in position to win, its undoubted that we'd be better off if he was still here.

[yannisk]

The critique of some generals (Hannibal being a notable example) was that they excelled at battlefield tactics, but their overall strategic vision, was less successful.

I think Bud was the opposite, he was great at identifying player strengths and weaknesses, and translate them into a cohesive roster strategy. However, adapting tactics in real-time during games or even a series was not his strong point.

Furthermore, Bud is known for his high character and dedication to maintaining positive relationships with his players. While this is undeniably valuable, effective leadership may occasionally require making tough decisions, even if they risk temporary discomfort, to optimize team performance. Bud would leave Giannis shooting 3s and Jrue getting torched because he was not ready to hurt their feelings.

[BigO]

The issue was not firing Bud. Bud is a damn solid coach, but the Bucks finished 1st in the East three times in his tenure and didn't win the title in any of those three seasons. In all three of those seasons, and last season, the offense and lack of ability to score in clutch moments was the primary reason behind the defeat.

2018-19: Blew 2-0 series lead to Toronto
2019-20: Embarrassing series loss to Miami (4-1)
2021-22: Worst offensive game of his tenure in game 7 against Boston
2022-23: Lose to an 8 seed 4-1

I respect everything Bud did for the Bucks, Regular season he did an amazing job. I don't think there is any way to argue he was a great playoff coach for us, even with the title. We have had the best player in basketball since he arrived, basically.

They needed to not botch the hire after Bud, and they did in epic fashion. That was a far bigger issue than getting rid of Bud in the first place.  

I pretty much agree with this.

I think Bud was thoroughly out coached in the playoffs, where game by game adjustments are important and everyone knew what Bud was going to run no matter what the situation. It's why he had some pushback during the championship year from key players.

But my opinion is much less important than what to me was obvious from watching the players. They had totally tuned him out.

During time outs he said very little to his players, because he had very little to say or change. There is no coach I have ever seen that said less to his players during timeouts (20 seconds at most).

Players had little input under Bud (some may think that's a good thing after Giannis endorsed Griffin) and he had exhausted his bag of one trick. Nothing told me that more than when Lopez was out for the regular season and he still ran the drop and the defense plunged to 15th. Ironically, the offense played much better.

[Fotis St]

Bud was a mediocre coach that figured out that Giannis operates well under a 5 out system. It was super easy to figure it out, even an elementary school coach would notice it, even just casual fans to be honest.

The downside of Bud is that he didn't implement other ways to attack, a plan B and C for the playoffs. We ran the SAME sets for 5 years. We still run some of them. So the lack of creativity, and adaptability held us back losing some prime Giannis years.

Bud held Giannis back losing some personal trophies too. Giannis could easily break the all time points per game record , but Bud refused to play Giannis over 31 minutes. He kept Giannis "fresh" for playoffs only to let him hit a 5 man wall on every game without outlets. We got a ring cause we were the only healthy contender right on time. Semi Finals Teams did not win a ring for like over 30 years, is obviously a rare occasion, that we took advantage cause we have the best player in basketball. I believe Bud had a say over Horst in roster construction too, so he is responsible for not getting pure shooters in the team.

If you believe that Giannis is similar to Dirk and Barkley ... than you are happy winning one ... in my case I think Giannis is near MJ level that got stuck by an incompetent org. Same incompetent org is the reason Giannis got playing time and developed though... so I thank the Bucks for that. It is just irritating to me not addressing some obvious flaws we had. Anyways much love to Bud, I hope he does well in retirement, drinks beers and enjoys his life.

[milweskee]

It's becoming painfully obvious that Budenholzer was an amazing coach and we may be entering a dark age in this franchise as a direct result of letting him go.

I say this as a fan that wanted him fired.

Hindsight shows we may have overacheived, and only acheived what we did because Bud was pulling the right strings and keeping Giannis in check enough to have the successes we did.

Without Bud Giannis has become a problem. Giannis is a low BBIQ player that needs to be coaxed into playing the right way.

I've been on this forum a long time. And for all the time I've been here this team has become uniquely unwatchable.

[Revived]

Is it really fair to blame Bud for those playoff loses? Bud's not responsible for guys bricking open 3s or getting injured, certainly not for COVID. Bud was a great coach and you can't be a great coach without being a great regular season coach, its always a weird criticism. Bud didn't adjust well on the fly, Doc has an even worse reputation in that regard. The only person with a rational argument to replace Bud other than simply we gotta change anything was Nick Nurse, if we knew it wasn't going to be Nurse and that ultimately the job would go to Doc Rivers then I would bet over 90% of the board would have been against firing Bud.

Yes, this is accurate. And pretty much everyone wanted Nurse.

Nobody wanted Vogel?

[Ayt]

It's becoming painfully obvious that Budenholzer was an amazing coach and we may be entering a dark age in this franchise as a direct result of letting him go.

I say this as a fan that wanted him fired.

Hindsight shows we may have overacheived, and only acheived what we did because Bud was pulling the right strings and keeping Giannis in check enough to have the successes we did.

Without Bud Giannis has become a problem. Giannis is a low BBIQ player that needs to be coaxed into playing the right way.

I've been on this forum a long time. And for all the time I've been here this team has become uniquely unwatchable.

Giannis has been incredible this year.