Joe Prunty Takes On New Role

With head coach Jason Kidd out for the next two months after hip surgery, the Milwaukee Bucks will see what they have in lead assistant Joe Prunty.

Milwaukee Bucks head coach Jason Kidd will be away from the team until February, at the earliest, after being unable to delay having surgery on a troublesome hip that has bothered him since his playing days with the Dallas Mavericks late in his career, per the Associated Press.

On Wednesday night when the Philadelphia 76ers make their second trip to the BMO Harris Bradley Center, lead assistant Joe Prunty takes the reins as interim coach.

He becomes the second long-term interim coach on an NBA bench this season, joining Luke Walton, who has the Golden State Warriors off to a historic 26-1 start in place of Steve Kerr, who is recovering from back surgery.

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Milwaukee comes into their final game before the Christmas break with a disappointing 11-18 record, experiencing the wrong kind of turnaround at the defensive end this season.

After posting the second-best defensive rating in the NBA last season, the Bucks have regressed badly in 2015-16.

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They are currently ranked 27th in the league with a 105.5 D-rating, considerably higher than last year’s 99.3 mark and much more similar to their 108.9 rating posted during the dismal 15-67 campaign in 2013-14.

But the question for the Bucks is simply: Who is Joe Prunty?

He’s a veteran of the NBA wars as he is in his 20th season as a coaching aide, beginning in 1996 when he became the assistant video coordinator for the San Antonio Spurs.

He returned to San Antonio after a season as an assistant coach at the University of San Diego and was promoted t assistant coach/video coordinator in 2000.

He also spent three seasons as an advance scout for the Spurs before going to the Dallas Mavericks in 2005.

He also spent two seasons as an assistant with the Portland Trail Blazers and three years with the Cleveland Cavaliers before joining Kidd’s staff with the Brooklyn Nets in 2013, according to his bio at NBA.com.

Prior to his time in San Antonio, Prunty coached at the high school level in the San Diego area. One of his players during his tenure at University of San Diego High School was, coincidentally, Walton, who went on to star at the University of Arizona before embarking on a 10-year NBA career with the Los Angeles Lakers and the Cavaliers.

Prunty was one of three coaches to jump from Brooklyn to Milwaukee with Kidd in the summer of 2014, along with Eric Hughes and Sean Sweeney.

He also has at least limited experience pinch-hitting for Kidd. Prunty opened the 2013-14 season in the lead chair as Kidd sat out a two-game suspension following DUI charges and went 1-1.

More recently, Prunty filled in for Kidd on Nov. 27 in a 114-90 loss to the Orlando Magic, when Kidd served a one-game suspension for slapping the basketball away from an official in Milwaukee’s previous game, a home-court loss to the Sacramento Kings.

Prunty has also served as the head coach for Great Britain’s national team since 2013, going 14-12 in that capacity, including a 1-2 mark this summer as the Brits played a friendly at New Zealand in July before competing in the KIA Autohaag Classic in the Netherlands in August.

If you’re looking for a lot of changes while Kidd is away, you’re in for a disappointment.

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“Our system is our system,” Prunty told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Monday. “We’ve put in a lot of things with this staff and this team beginning last year.

“We will try to stay in the roles we have. Obviously my situation changes and I understand that.”

And it’s not as if Kidd will be on a desert island during his absence. Prunty said Monday that he will be in contact with Kidd during his recovery and the head coach said Sunday he should be able to be back in the office in about two weeks.

The Bucks return home from a 1-3 West Coast trip that included a win in the finale, a 101-95 victory at Phoenix on Sunday that snapped a 12-game road losing streak.

“We’re not going to deviate from what our goals are and what we’re trying to accomplish,” Prunty said. “I would say I like what we did on the road trip, even though we went 1-3. We grew every day on this trip.”

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Milwaukee enters its stretch without Kidd in 13th place in the Eastern Conference, 5½ games in back of the eighth-place Magic.