Bucks: Ranking 6 replacements for Budenholzer after playoff meltdown (Updated)

Mike Budenholzer has coached Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks to some of the best regular seasons in franchise history. Since he was hired before the 2018-19 season, the Bucks’ 271 wins rank first in the league. Add in the first championship for Milwaukee since 1971, and Budenholzer has had a lot of success with the Bucks.

The other side of the ledger, however, is that the Bucks have lost painfully in four of the five seasons he has been head coach. If Kevin Durant’s foot was two inches shorter, he would never have had a chance to win that title, either. After another devastating loss to the Miami Heat this season, many Bucks fans are calling for Budenholzer’s head, and rumors are swirling around his future with the team.

This piece won’t evaluate whether or not Coach Bud should be fired. Instead, it will look at the step beyond; if he is fired, the team will need to hire a replacement. Here are six candidates the Bucks can consider hiring if they do send Budenholzer packing.

Update 5/4/23: Per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Milwaukee Bucks have officially dismissed Coach Mike Budenholzer.

Bucks coach replacement No. 6: Kenny Atkinson

The former head coach of the Brooklyn Nets has been an assistant coach with the Golden State Warriors for the past two seasons. Kenny Atkinson has been long respected for how he took a talent-bereft Nets team and built a winning culture, one that elevated the team above its talent level and was successful enough to lure Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant in free agency.

Atkinson isn’t the most likely option because his track record has leaned towards player development and younger teams, but he has been in the Warriors’ ecosystem for the past two seasons learning from Steve Kerr, Mike Brown, and Ron Adams. Brown’s instant success with the Sacramento Kings could entice the Bucks to take a look at Atkinson.

Bucks coach replacement No. 5: Jay Wright

College coaches making the leap to the NBA have seen mixed results, although lately, those transitions have largely been positive ones. While the 1990s and early 2000s were littered with disappointing showings, in recent years Brad Stevens and Billy Donovan have been positive examples of looking to the college ranks for a coach (Fred Hoiberg, not so much).

Jay Wright retired a season ago from coaching college basketball and seems quite happy working as a studio analyst. Even so, Wright is just 62 years old, and the grind of coaching the college game (recruiting, NIL deals, working the transfer portal) is much different than the NBA. Wright might be enticed to return to coaching at the NBA level.

If so, he would bring a lot of championship experience. Wright was the head coach of the Villanova Wildcats for 21 seasons, building the program from mediocre to dominant. He led them to eight conference championships, four Final Fours, and two NCAA National Championships.

What’s more, Wright’s teams were known for their modern offenses as he embraced the 3-point shot and spaced the court. Many of his former players, such as Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, and Josh Hart made the leap into the NBA and thrived early on. Wright would bring experience, fresh offensive concepts, and a different kind of voice to a team that may have tired from Budenholzer’s message.

Bucks coach replacement No. 4: Steve Nash

Things did not exactly end well for Steve Nash in his first head-coaching gig. The two-time MVP as a player was not able to wrangle the superstar talent of the Brooklyn Nets, and he was a casualty of the dysfunction a few months before it broke the entire team up.

Even so, there is a lot to like about Nash’s resume. He was an incredible point guard during his playing days, a gifted passer and shooter who was at the center of the revolutionary “Seven Seconds or Less” Phoenix Suns’ offenses. After retiring he spent his time with various teams as a consultant, learning how Hall of Fame coaches like Steve Kerr ran their teams.

Add in cross-sport pollination from his love of soccer, his connections with Canada Basketball, and his laid-back but engaged persona, and he seems like the kind of guy who would be an excellent head coach. The situation in Brooklyn was largely out of his control, and while he wasn’t able to manage it by the end, his coaching career shouldn’t be cut short because of it.

Is Milwaukee willing to take a chance on a coach like that? It’s hard to say, but the Bucks know how close the 2020-21 Nets were from advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals and likely the NBA Finals from there. Replay that Second Round series 10 times, and the Nets likely win more than half of them, and Nash’s resume looks wholly different.

Managing the personalities in Milwaukee, with a superstar who is a true leader and not full of himself, would allow Nash’s giftings to shine. If the Bucks could find an offensive guru like Nash to improve that side of the court while maintaining their tough defense, they could get the refresh needed to continue contending. Nash should be a strongly considered candidate.

Bucks coach replacement No. 3: Charles Lee

Nearly every NBA team that has had a head-coaching opening over the past couple of years has reached out to Milwaukee to ask to interview assistant coach Charles Lee. After a brief overseas playing career, Lee began his coaching career in 2012 and two years later made his way to Mike Budenholzer’s staff in Atlanta, following Bud to Milwaukee in 2018.

Budenholzer’s coaching tree has seen a lot of success leaguewide over the years. Darvin Ham was the most recent assistant coach to fly the coop, and he is leading the Los Angeles Lakers deep into the playoffs in his first season. Taylor Jenkins has had the Memphis Grizzlies at the top of the league standings two seasons in a row. The aforementioned Kenny Atkinson saw success in Brooklyn.

Lee is familiar with the organization and with this team, and he has spent years building trust with the players. Giannis Antetokounmpo knows Lee, and that bedrock of a relationship would help the transition into the head chair. There is no question that Lee is qualified to be a head coach; the question is whether he is different enough from Budenholzer to make sense as a replacement.

There is historical precedent for firing a head coach, elevating his top assistant, and winning a championship. The Los Angeles Lakers famously did that not once but twice in the 1980s, and much more recently Nick Nurse took over for Dwane Casey in Toronto and won it all. If and when Budenholzer is fired, Lee will absolutely be a top candidate for the job.

Bucks coach replacement No. 2: Frank Vogel

Speaking of winning a championship, the last two candidates on the list have both done so in the past five seasons. It’s rare that a title-winning coach would be unemployed this quickly after doing so, but if Budenholzer is fired three of the last four championship coaches would be without a job.

Frank Vogel has the longest NBA coaching resume of any of the candidates on this list, coaching 11 seasons as a head coach at three different stops. He was very successful with the Indiana Pacers, had a terrible two-year run with the Orlando Magic, and then led the Los Angeles Lakers to an NBA Championship in the Orlando Bubble.

Vogel lost his job in Los Angeles more from circumstances than poor performance. He proved that he could coach a team to success in both the regular season and the playoffs, and the Lakers had an elite defense when they had something approximating a healthy roster. What he wasn’t able to do was keep Anthony Davis and LeBron James healthy, nor prevent the front office from making bone-headed move after bone-headed move after taking Vogel’s title-winning roster and stripping it down for parts.

Vogel would represent the veteran replacement for Budenholzer, a longtime coach who has proven it in the league but doesn’t have Budenholzer’s recent playoff disappointments to his ledger. He knows how to manage stars, he would continue the Bucks’ elite defensive ways, and he would be a steadying hand at the helm. That makes him an attractive candidate for the Bucks to consider.

Bucks coach replacement No. 1: Nick Nurse

There is no surprise as to the top candidate on this list. Ever since Nick Nurse started speculation that he would be leaving the Toronto Raptors, speculation that ended with the organization letting him go, any team with an opening or a shaky coach began dreaming of Nurse in the captain’s chair.

Nurse took over as head coach of the Toronto Raptors in 2018 and immediately led the team to a title. He is a tactical genius, applying creativity on both ends of the court to help his team stay a step ahead of its opponents. He led the Raptors past the Milwaukee Bucks in the 2019 playoffs in large part because he made adjustments much faster than Budenholzer did.

Nurse’s time in Toronto soured lately, however, and the question for the Bucks or any other team interested in Nurse is whether that was more a result of Nurse’s message having a short shelf life, or whether the roster limitations were too tough to overcome and both sides just needed a change.

Many successful coaches have moved on from a pairing that has run its course and found success elsewhere, and in hiring Nick Nurse the Bucks would hope for the same. Unlocking the talent of this group on offense could be revolutionary for their playoff success, and utilizing three of the best defenders in the world in new ways on defense could be amazing to watch.

Nick Nurse will almost certainly be at the top of Milwaukee’s list should they fire Mike Budenholzer. Would he want to coach the Bucks? It seems like the kind of job any head coach would want, an in-his-prime Hall of Fame superstar with a talented team around him. The pressure is high in Milwaukee, but so is the upside.

Nick Nurse, Frank Vogel, Charles Lee or any other coach could find a lot of success pairing up with Giannis Antetokounmpo. Will one of them bring another title to Milwaukee?