Milwaukee Bucks: Firing Jason Kidd was necessary and inevitable

On Monday afternoon, the Milwaukee Bucks parted with head coach Jason Kidd in a decision that could prove pivotal in the history of the franchise.

Milwaukee, your long municipal nightmare is over. After three and a half years of modest ups and considerable downs, Jason Kidd is out as head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks.

Though the timing is moderately surprising, Kidd’s dismissal has long seemed inevitable. I, for one, wrote about Milwaukee’s need to remove Kidd two months ago. Firing a coach is never easy, and a man losing his job should never be celebrated, but the Bucks have done the difficult and the necessary, and that should be applauded.

Without further ado, I present to you the long train of abuses and usurpations that made Kidd’s dismissal a painful inevitability.

Schematic issues

When Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr was forced to miss the first 43 games of the 2015-16 NBA season, they didn’t miss a beat. It was certainly a credit to the team’s three All-Stars, but the Warriors’ 39-4 record during that span was more of a testament to the impeccable systems instituted by Kerr on both ends of the floor.

Systems can elevate — look at the production of any player who’s played under Brad Stevens and compare it to the rest of his career — and they can inhibit. Kidd was a legendary inhibitor.

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Kidd’s Milwaukee tenure was extended by the emergence of one of the league’s most unstoppable forces, Giannis Antetokounmpo. Giannis is averaging 28.2 points and 4.6 assists per game. His true shooting percentage is 61.4 percent. The Greek Freak has powered the Bucks offense to fairly impressive heights — tied for the league’s eight-best offensive rating.

Good as that it is, it still seems underwhelming. Eric Bledsoe and Khris Middleton are borderline All-Star talents, capable of generating efficient looks for themselves and others. Surrounding Milwaukee’s Big Three are a host of capable shooters (exactly what you need around those three). Sterling Brown, Mirza Teletovic, Tony Snell, Malcolm Brogdon, Matthew Dellavedova and Rashad Vaughn are all shooting above league-average from 3. Milwaukee’s offense should be a lot better than good.

At the root of Milwaukee’s offensive woes was Kidd. His plays were simplistic and uninvolved. He rarely made use of the whole court, of all five players. He magnified these issues through his inability to manage a rotation. Kidd’s decisions were routinely inexplicable:

• Tony Snell excels as a play finisher but needs others to create for him. Malcolm Brogdon is accomplished as a playmaker, a skill-set desperately needed on Milwaukee’s second unit. Kidd benched Snell in favor of Brogdon.
• The vast majority of Bledsoe’s minutes have coincided with Antetokounmpo’s, despite Bledsoe’s inability to spread the floor and need to have the ball in his hands.
• General inconsistency and misappropriation of minutes fostered a culture of uncertainty and a lack of necessary continuity. For example, between two games on Jan. 15 and Jan. 17, Sterling Brown played 22 total minutes; he played 39 in the following game.

While Kidd’s offensive scheme was disappointing, his defensive approach was downright embarrassing. The Bucks have immense defensive talent up and down the roster, from one of the league’s foremost pests in Bledsoe, to a fringe Defensive Player of the Year candidate in Antetokounmpo, to an under-the-radar defensive anchor in John Henson. The Bucks, however, have the league’s 25th-ranked defense. Last year they were 20th, the year before 23rd. Defensive struggles under Kidd were a hallmark.

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He employed an extremely aggressive defensive system. His preferred method of dealing with the pick-and-roll was blitzing the ball-handler with the goal of forcing turnovers. In some senses, that system worked; the Bucks were always near the top of the league in forcing turnovers during the Kidd era.

The NBA has evolved, though. Some call it the small-ball era, but this is really the skilled-ball era. Virtually every man who sets foot on an NBA court is supremely skilled. It is now imperative for big men to pass out of short rolls, for wings to handle and distribute.

In an NBA in which all five players can dribble and distribute, aggressive trapping is not an option. As we saw during Kidd’s tenure, the result was a Bucks team that allowed an ungodly quantity of corner 3s and attempts at the rim (top-four in frequency of attempts allowed in both locations each of Kidd’s first three years).

Fundamentally flawed, irreparably broken — terms you’d never want associated with the foundation of your team. Kidd’s defensive and offensive systems embodied them.

In-game strategy

By net rating, the NBA’s three best second-half teams are the Golden State Warriors, Boston Celtics, and San Antonio Spurs. The NBA’s three best coaches may well be Steve Kerr, Brad Stevens and Gregg Popovich. The in-game adjustments those three make at the half clearly pay dividends.

Jason Kidd was far more renowned for his in-game foibles than masterful in-game strategy.

Fouling while up four, instructing Middleton to miss a free throw that would’ve put the Bucks up four for fear of allowing a full-court four-point play, the list goes on and on and on. It often seemed as if Kidd felt compelled to demonstrate his brilliance, to prove how ingenious he was. Tragically, he invariably did the opposite.

Negative consequences

It would be negligent and horribly disingenuous for me to pretend Kidd’s firing is all roses for Milwaukee. In fact, there are potentially ruinous, franchise-crushing consequences:

The Bucks just did the one thing they cannot, under any circumstances, afford to do: piss off Giannis Antetokounmpo. The fate of the franchise rests solely on his shoulders. In our lifetimes, the Bucks will likely never have another talent who rivals Antetkounmpo. Upsetting him, “devastating” him cannot be taken lightly.

Fallout

Ultimately, though, the Bucks made the necessary sacrifice in the short-term to enrich the future. Antetokounmpo may be deeply dissatisfied right now, but you know what heals all wounds? Winning. On Monday, the Bucks took the franchise’s biggest step toward winning since making Antetokounmpo the 15th pick in the 2014 NBA Draft.

Milwaukee’s coaching vacancy is a golden opportunity. Much like the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2016, the Bucks will have their pick of the most qualified candidates, because the Bucks are on the verge of something special.

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In an Eastern Conference that could soon be out from under LeBron James’ thumb for the first time in a decade, the Bucks are poised to make noise. Kidd was Milwaukee’s Mark Jackson. If they can find their Steve Kerr, the East will be Giannis’ domain, and all roads will run through Milwaukee.