Life hasn’t exactly been peachy for Adrian Griffin in his first year as the head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks. There’s no denying that he’s done a relatively commendable job in coaching his team to a 25-11 record and the No. 2 spot in the East. However, at the same time, it’s also true that he has left a lot to be desired.
If you ask ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith, he believes that Griffin could actually be on his way out in the not-so-distant future.
Milwaukee Bucks to Fire Adrian Griffin?
Speaking on a recent episode of First Take on ESPN, Smith expressed his support for Griffin and the fact that he is one of 15 African American head coaches in the NBA today. However, not even this is enough to prevent Stephen A from predicting Griffin’s imminent exit:
“I’m not wishing for this,” Smith said (h/t Christopher Kuhagen of the Milwauee Journal Sentinel). “We all know where I stand with Black coaches getting an opportunity. I don’t think there’s anybody that’s spoken out about that more than I have. Having said that, fair is fair, Adrian Griffin is going to get himself fired.”
The Mike Budenholzer Curse
Smith pointed out that among other things, Milwaukee’s defense is the biggest problem on Griffin’s plate. Simply put, the first-year coach just hasn’t been able to foster a defensive culture within the squad that is worthy of the Milwaukee Bucks. This becomes even more underscored by the fact that Griffin’s predecessor was a defensive genius:
“You are the successor to Mike Budenholzer,” Smith said. “When have we complained about a Mike Budenholzer defense? When you look at it from that perspective and you know the ingredients to winning has already been displayed because you’re just a few years from capturing a championship. Nobody is going to go for this level of porous defense that we’ve been seeing from the Milwaukee Bucks.”
The good news for Coach Griff is that he has time on his side. The front office appears to still have full faith in him, which means that he will be given every opportunity to work on his team’s shortcomings. For now, at least.
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1 Comment
Normally, I can’t stand either Smith’s personality or his takes on most things, but he’s right about Dame’s D being horrible and could be right about AG.
I doubt if AG is listening, but there is a way to avoid this (and the record for a new staff and 2 new starters IS great, Stephen).
AG was a HORRIBLE player on offense that evoked the bad athletes of the 50s and 60s (check out the 1969 All Star game on youtube to see Elgin Baylor in his 30s, one of the few good ones), but he was a dog on D who could have averaged 2 steals a game for his career with starter’s minutes (if he could have just put up 15 a night, but he was a horrific shooter). And yet he won a title and was a starter briefly on a loaded team at the other end. He was a bad passer but got REBs like Pat does.
At any rate, tonight will show him something. I stated here many times that firing Bud was the wrong move, trading Jrue a horrible move, getting Dame a really bad move, and I wanted to be convinced about Beas and Cam (and Allen has massively outperformed Beas on O, while being a point better on D, though he does more hustle stuff and looks better on D too).
Marjon really has been growing the last few weeks (at last) and always looks the part on D now. We need the same sort of leap from AJJ on the offensive end and his mistakes in the last game are easy to point out. He’s far too unselfish. He passed to Giannis when he was open for a dunk, and he made a ridiculously difficult pass to Pat at one point that was low, causing the shot to miss badly. He could have made a move for a dunk there too. He needs to know when NOT to pass and take advantage of his crazy athleticism (and simply shoot 500 jumpers a day and try to become more smooth in motion; his overall mechanics on the line are fine).
He’s the future. Not Dame. And Cam, Beas, and Pat are probably not the future soon either.
They’d be better served by having someone like Lavine at SG, where mediocre D is offset in a big way by spectacular offense (vastly better than Beas). Because Dame is not going to start dropping 35 a night on 50/40/90 any time soon.
May as well stick with AG though. It won’t help to change the helm at this point.
NONE of that has worked out and Bobby has regressed slightly.