Giannis Antetokounmpo has been vocal about the changes he wants to see within the Milwaukee Bucks as they navigate through the trials and tribulations of the campaign. At one point, the Bucks talisman even went out to say that he believes the team has to be “coached better,” which in truth, was part of a lengthy tirade that took aim at pretty much every single member of the organization.
However, now that Adrian Griffin has been axed as the team’s head coach, Antetokounmpo’s earlier comments have unsurprisingly taken a new light.
Did Giannis Antetokounmpo Influence Milwaukee Bucks’ Decision to Fire Adrian Griffin?
This is exactly what reporters brought up on Wednesday as general manager Jon Horst addressed the media following Griffin’s sudden exit. Horst was quick to defend the Bucks superstar, though, when asked if Antetokounmpo’s comments had anything to do with the decision to fire Coach Griff:
“In fairness, he didn’t just say we need to be coached better. He talked about himself being better, his teammates, I think the equipment manager, the trainer, me, and kind of went through the whole list,” Horst responded, via Jim Owczarski of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “This is not about players comments. This is not about things said or unsaid. Again, this is my job, this is the organization’s job at the top to evaluate every single day all areas of the organization and feel like whether we’re getting or not getting the most we can out of that group. If we feel like we could maximize the talent of this group better, we made a change. That’s why we made it.”
Horst was then asked what type of role the players took as the team came to the decision to part ways with Griffin. According to the high-ranking Bucks exec, it’s just a matter of trying to involve everyone as much as he possibly can:
“It’s fast. The pace of these things is fast. So you do the best you can to communicate to folks in real time so they can hear from you, whether its text message, phone calls, maybe you see them in person,” Horst said. “So that’s a little bit scattered. I had an opportunity today, which was intentional, to get with the guys as a group before shootaround. And its just point blank, you share the facts, share the status of where we’re at. Why we did what we did. How we support them. What our process looks like going forward. Those are great conversations. It was a great opportunity to do it, I hope they appreciated it. It’s the right thing to do.
No matter how the Bucks try to spin this, it’s almost impossible to imagine that Giannis Antetokounmpo had no say whatsoever in the decision to kick Griffin out.
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