Milwaukee certainly made a choice
Hired, fired a coach. May hire another.
Don’t hire rookie head coaches. I don’t care how good Steve Nash is at passes, how tough Adrian Griffin was to dribble around. Don’t hire rookie head coaches to coach really good NBA teams.
But how do rookie head coaches become veteran head coaches? When does “zero” turn into “one?” New faces must enter the merry-go-round at some point, righto?
Sure, but only for tankers, or whichever ex-tanker is ready to spring into the NBA’s Feel Good, 42-Win Story. I hear your Nick Nurse tales, but the man was a head coach at other outlets for years, and he had (at minimum) the second-best player in the NBA on his team 60 times when the 2019 Raptors won 58 games and the championship.
Teams with 58-win potential, like this season’s Milwaukee Bucks (featuring 2019 NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo), should not hire first-time head coaches. If a coaching prospect’s pedigree is so assured, let the coach slum it on a rebuilding club or in the minor leagues for a first head coaching run. Not with a team trying to spin the offseason’s biggest acquisition and the offseason’s biggest contract extension into a city’s second championship in three years.
The problem with the Bucks’ proactive firing of Adrian Griffin is the follow-up, the team lost any galaxy-brained goodwill gleaned from the Griffin cut when replacement rumors arose. Milwaukee wants Doc Rivers, the coach to reach for after tiring of thinking.
