Milwaukee Bucks: Highlights from Mike Budenholzer’s introductory press conference

The Milwaukee Bucks officially introduced Mike Budenholzer as their new head coach at a press conference on Monday afternoon.

With the backdrop of the court in the team’s almost completed new arena behind him, Mike Budenholzer was officially introduced as the Milwaukee Bucks’ new head coach at a press conference on Monday afternoon.

Joining Budenholzer in attendance at the Wisconsin Sports and Entertainment Center was general manager Jon Horst, while Bucks players Khris Middleton and Marshall Plumlee were also said to be in attendance.

Khris Middleton and Marshall Plumlee in the house for Mike Budenholzer’s introductory press conference.
— Matt Velazquez (@Matt_Velazquez) May 21, 2018

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The press conference saw Budenholzer and Horst answer a wide range of questions, varying from the infamous breakfast meeting Budenholzer had with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Middleton, to the overall process, the new coach’s vision for the Bucks and much more.

The press conference is available to watch in its entirety via the team’s official website, but if you’d rather a more condensed version of some of the highlights, you need look no further!

Budenholzer on the breakfast meeting:

"“It was a great opportunity to sit and visit with both Khris and Giannis. To talk a little bit about families and life. I think it was such a smart and important part of the process, you know, with how important both players are to us in the short term and the long term. As a coach, you’re only as good as your players, and so to connect with them on a lot of different levels was important that morning. It’s important going forward. It’s important to connect with really our entire roster.”"

Budenholzer on unlocking potential in players:

"“I think there’s a daily approach that our players, our staff and people with the organization will see starting with me. There’s an approach to player development that’s as simple as giving it time every day, but then I think there’s building confidence in them and giving them opportunities. Teaching, holding them accountable, you know, all of those things that are really just a part of coaching. I think if you’re going to unlock potential and take players and teams to the next level, which we hope to do here, those things become critical.”"

Budenholzer on leveraging Giannis:

"“There’s a lot of reasons to be excited about coming to Milwaukee, but there’s no doubt that Giannis is one of them. He’s so important to our success, I think he embraces his leadership role and how he needs to grow, improve and get better along with all the rest of us. So the excitement is through the roof, and how we can use and implement him defensively and offensively, it started some at breakfast and it will continue into the weight room today, tomorrow and the next day.And those are conversations I look forward to having with Giannis, and listening to Giannis too. I think he’s a smart player at 23, and he has an IQ and an understanding of the game. Together, I think he and I will push each other, but I look forward to pushing him. He believes it and I believe it, but he’s going to get a lot better as we watch him over the years.”"

Budenholzer on what persuaded him to come to Milwaukee:

"“The fit here just really felt right. Whether it was with Jon in the interview and the day we had together with his staff, the time with ownership and visiting with them and getting a sense of how important winning is to them, and then sitting and visiting with Giannis and Khris at a breakfast. The longer the process went on, the greater the fit felt.When you’re building a team — I’ve been a part of building a lot of great championship teams in San Antonio, a lot of success in Atlanta over the last few years — lots of times fit is almost more important than anything.”"

Horst on how Budenholzer’s experience and skills add to the organization:

"“Anyone who has worked with me so far, and any of our staff, would tell you that being collaborative and having the pillars of our franchise work together on everything, and share ideas, and go back and forth before ultimately having responsibility in the area you’re hired to have is really important.And we talked a lot about that during our interview process. Bud has been with the San Antonio Spurs. They’ve done a great job of drafting, they’ve done a great job of finding talent on the margins, they’ve built great organizational culture, and as we’ve talked about before, leveraging resources, leveraging experiences is everything. This is not an I game, this is not a me game, this is a we game. To have someone with his experience and his knowledge to help us and support us is tremendous.”"

Horst on the coaching search:

"“The process for me was a great education and a great learning experience. You only get so many opportunities to go through something like this, and hopefully we don’t go through it again for a long time as that’s the goal and the plan, but for us we ran a really thorough process and we interviewed a lot of high quality candidates. But you go through something like this and you have a focus or a target of what you want to accomplish, and Bud was obviously that for us.”"

Budenholzer on his focus in terms of philosophies:

"“The thing that probably stands out to me first is the potential on the defensive side of the ball. I would say that’s been always something that’s prioritized. We want to be great on both sides of the ball, and whether it be the last five years in Atlanta as a head coach or San Antonio at the end of the day has always been great defensively.…One of the words I used in the interview process was how can we unlock this talent defensively. I just think there’s so much to work with and you really could go up and down the roster.Instilling our defensive principles and things that we hold core to our beliefs, and I think some of them are very simplistic and the players will understand quickly, and that’s part of freeing them up to be great on that side of the court.Offensively, I think it’s going to be a great challenge for me and my staff. Certainly I’ve got a million ideas flying around in my head for the last three or four days about the different things we could do. But I can tell you that playing with more pace, with great pace, playing faster, lots of great people and ball movement, which again are kind of core to what I believe in.When you talk about a system and what we’ve done for the last five years, those kind of things I think we’re going to figure out how it best fits the players in Milwaukee and implement and teach it. And like I said earlier, we’ll learn from our players here too.”"

Budenholzer on his meeting with ownership:

"“It was Wes [Edens], Marc [Lasry] and Jamie [Dinan] in a beautiful office in New York, and it was obvious I think how much they want to win and how passionate they are about winning. How they’ll do anything for our players and the organization, and whether it be the front office, the coaching staff, it was a real commitment that I sensed.”"

Budenholzer on how he looks to improve players over the course of the offseason:

"“We’ve been in kind of a big conference room with Troy Flanagan and the medical group, and some of Jon’s front office group and some of my group that we’re hopeful will be here. It’s probably the most important thing is you start looking at a calendar and you start mapping out how can we touch these guys, how can we start teaching, how can we start developing them. And it’s just not from the coaching standpoint, it’s how is our medical group and how are they progressing with strength and conditioning, and nutrition and all of those things. It’s literally the first thing we did this morning, starting at 8.30.It’s certainly something that’s core to our beliefs is player development. Our players, hopefully they’re going to feel that when they come to Milwaukee, they’re going to be a better player if and when they leave, and it’s going to help us retain our players, it’s going to help us attract players because they know they’re going to be developed and cared for at a high level.”"

Next: Milwaukee Bucks: Get to know head coach Mike Budenholzer

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