Milwaukee Bucks: The harsh reality of the Jason Kidd situation

For yet another season, the Milwaukee Bucks are plagued with the same problems they have dealt with far too many times before, leaving fans little patience for head coach Jason Kidd and his failure to adapt.

It’s safe to say not many things are sitting well with Milwaukee Bucks fans these days.

Currently standing at 9-9, the Bucks are once again straddling the fine line of being perfectly average, despite having a consensus elite talent in Giannis Antetokounmpo and making the big acquisition for Eric Bledsoe almost three weeks ago.

While they’re currently dealing with injury issues and their bench scoring output ranks as the worst in the league at 23.7 points per game, fingers of Bucks fans all throughout Milwaukee as well as throughout the world are pointing at one familiar target: head coach Jason Kidd.

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We’re now in the fourth season of Kidd’s tenure in Milwaukee and at this point, the familiar beats that he has regularly employed over the last few years keep coming up again and again like clockwork.

Hit a rough patch? Expect to see the starting lineup tinkered with in the next game. See the same defensive issues that come with deploying a decoded defensive scheme? Call on the players to give more “energy and effort” in postgame press conferences.

But as fans have voiced repeatedly the longer this has gone on, the message that keeps coming from Kidd is doing very little, if anything at all, to soothe the long list of concerns that he’s shown during his time with the Bucks.

The mere mention of Kidd’s name brings on incredible passion from Bucks fans, especially from the more fervent parts of the fanbase that have been calling for his job for some time now.

Whether you carry that torch, have been neutral or have remained pro-Kidd through thick and thin, it’s hard to deny that we’re reaching a critical mass with keeping the status quo as is, given the talent that is available at his disposal.

What worked throughout much of Kidd’s first season at the helm during the 2014-15 campaign clearly doesn’t produce the same results, even as the team’s supporting cast has changed greatly and the team’s cornerstones in Khris Middleton and Antetokounmpo have risen to new heights, respectively.

The lack of adjustment that has persisted throughout Kidd’s stint leaves the Bucks at a disadvantage when facing off with the more disciplined teams throughout the league, no matter the talent discrepancy between both teams.

It obviously came back to haunt them in Saturday night’s defeat to the Utah Jazz, who put on a lethal clinic in how to dissect the team’s defense, and the prior weekend against the Dallas Mavericks when the Bucks put in one of their more dreadful performances in recent history.

For a team facing higher expectations after returning to the playoffs last season and currently integrating a prized addition, it’s hard to just accept that for what it is at this point.

Couple that with the fact that Kidd stands as the ownership’s first major move when they bought the team over three-and-a-half years ago, Kidd’s stubborn, headstrong mannerisms run counter to the brain trust’s grand, championship ambitions.

But as he’s been empowered throughout his time in Milwaukee, both as the coach or with his rumored influence over personnel moves at one time, the question is how long of a leash does he have if things continue the way they have been up until this point.

I’m not going to pretend that I have the answers for what would theoretically come next if, or when, things come to a head or who stands as a more suitable and available option that has the pedigree to take the Bucks where they ultimately want to go in this current window of time (which is, admittedly, not helpful on my part).

Next: Win In 6 Podcast #164: Jason Kidd continues to fall short in familiar ways

But for the type of team they want to be, the painfully obvious answer, as it has been for a while now, is that Kidd isn’t the coach capable of leading the Bucks toward perennial success. Now it’s time to see whether the powers that be will ultimately agree with that.

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