Bucks hire Doc Rivers as coach: Sources
The Milwaukee Bucks are hiring former NBA coach Doc Rivers, league sources said Wednesday, a day after the team fired first-year coach Adrian Griffin.
Rivers, 62, began serving as an informal adviser to Griffin in December, on behalf of the Bucks. The team quickly agreed to a deal with Rivers after moving on from Griffin after just 43 games. Joe Prunty will serve as interim coach throughout the process, the team announced.
With a 30-13 record and two superstar talents in Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, the Bucks are still in the midst of a season that the organization believes could end in a championship. With that in mind, Milwaukee general manager Jon Horst needed to find a replacement for Griffin who could keep the team moving toward its goal.
“This is clearly a difficult decision,” Horst told reporters on Wednesday evening. “Adrian is a great person who has meant a lot to the franchise. … But we also believe we had a chance now with a special group: the talent on this team. The dynamics of the team have changed. The team itself had changed since we hired him, and we felt like we had an opportunity to improve and get better. We wanted to take advantage of that opportunity.”
Ideally, the Bucks would find someone with significant coaching experience, championship history and enough gravitas to coach superstar talent to take over the first-time head coach in Griffin. With 24 seasons of coaching experience and an NBA championship in 2008 with the Boston Celtics, Rivers checked off all those boxes and Milwaukee was aggressive in pursuing him as a coach.
Rivers, who has previously coached the Orlando Magic, Celtics, Los Angeles Clippers and Philadelphia 76ers, hasn't had a losing year since 2007. His streak is the fourth-best in league history behind Basketball Hall of Famers Gregg Popovich, Phil Jackson and Pat Riley.
Rivers has a 1,097-763 record in his 24 seasons as coach, missing the playoffs just five times. He signed with ESPN as a lead commentator alongside Doris Burke and Mike Breen in July 2023 after a three-year stint with the 76ers from 2020 to 2023. He won NBA Coach of the Year with the Magic in 2000.
Rivers was selected in the second round of the 1983 NBA Draft by the Atlanta Hawks. He played the first eight seasons of his 13-year NBA career in Atlanta and is the team's all-time scoring leader with 3,866. Rivers racked up 4,889 regular-season assists during his career.
He also played one season with the Clippers, one with the New York Knicks and two with the San Antonio Spurs to round out his time in the NBA.
The Bucks job is a homecoming of sorts for Rivers, who graduated from Marquette University in Milwaukee. A native of Chicago, Rivers played three seasons at Marquette from 1980 to 1983 and had his number 31 retired by the university in 2004.
While Horst declined to talk specifically about why the team hired Rivers, he did say that the team needed a leader who could take the franchise “to the next level.”
“What we're looking for now is a path to move forward and maximize this group from a leadership perspective, from an experience perspective. “We want to try to bring in a coach that can really take us to the next level, where we think we can go with this group,” he said. “That's not just about coaching. The players have to be better, they have to improve, my group has to keep figuring out how to improve the squad, but we think coaching is an element for us to get better.
Why continue with Griffin?
Although the Bucks posted a 30-13 record through their first 43 games this season, they didn't show enough growth as the season reached its midway point. While they posted a 6-5 record under Griffin in January, Milwaukee had a brutal start to the new year defensively, giving up 122.1 points per 100 possessions. Instead of showing signs of growth while trying new ideas defensively, the Bucks regressed and had their worst defensive month of the season.
At the other end of the court, results have been much better, with Milwaukee currently second in offensive rankings, allowing 120.5 points per 100 possessions, but the offense doesn't look cohesive so far. Instead of putting together an offensive attack that multiplied the skills of Antetokounmpo and Lillard, the team's superstar duo ended up taking turns running the offense.
It has been successful because of the team's spectacular offensive talent, but the offense still has significant potential to achieve even more.
On Wednesday, Horst said he has no regrets hiring Griffin.
“I believe in the hiring we made,” he said. “I believe in the reasons why we did it, the process we went through, and again, Adrian has contributed to this group. Part of the reason we are where we are today and who we are is because of him. This was an opportunity to go further. Yes, no regrets from me. Don't look back. I believe in what we did, why we did it when we did it, and I also believe in where we are today.”
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