Milwaukee Bucks: 5 takeaways from 2017-18 NBA season
5. The Bucks were strangled by their coaching
The Milwaukee Bucks have a roster with plenty of potential. The league values length and athleticism at every position, and the Bucks have plenty of both. Giannis Antetokounmpo is perhaps the epitome of a modern NBA forward in build, if not quite in skill-set. The roster around him is filled with more lanky athletes.
Yet head coach Jason Kidd was unwilling to leverage that athleticism in one-on-one defense throughout his tenure, instead instituting a hyper-aggressive defensive scheme that constantly had his players out of position. Over three and a half seasons as the coach, he refused to make a change, even once the league proved it could blow that scheme up.
Other issues began cropping up with regularity, from mind-boggling substitution patterns to a complete lack of understanding in how to manage late-game situations. His incompetence not only led to his midseason firing, but it led to Bleacher Report devoting an entire episode to him in their popular “Game of Zones” program.
Assistant coach Joe Prunty was instituted as interim head coach, and briefly it appeared he was capable of real changes. He softened the defense into a less aggressive, less frenetic deployment. The Bucks responded with a short winning streak and appeared to played more relaxed — a positive thing for this roster.
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But that appeared to be the only real change he was capable of, as he continued — if not intensified — Kidd’s mismanagement of substitutions. Lineups often did not make sense, players were heavily involved one game only to not play in the next, and the minutes of their superstar were entirely illogical and potentially harmful.
That came to a head in Game 7 of their playoff series against coaching wizard Brad Stevens. As rotation players came up short, Joe Prunty seemed to panic, pulling and inserting players rapidly without any care to matchups. The Bucks bowed out on the backs of a ferocious Boston attack, stripped of their ability to put together cohesive lineups.
The top goal for the Bucks this offseason will be to replace Kidd and Prunty with someone capable of managing and maximizing Antetokounmpo’s prime. While the team’s ability to change the roster is limited, the league’s unregulated resource is its coaches. Who Milwaukee hires can hardly be worse than what they experienced this season, but it’s perhaps the most important decision for this franchise since they selected the Greek Freak in 2013.