Nothing positive has come out of the Doc Rivers coaching era in Milwaukee, especially this season, and Bucks fans aren't the only ones taking notice. On the latest episode of the Game Theory Podcast, The Athletic draft expert Sam Vecenie didn't hold back his thoughts on Rivers, highlighting for the world how he has been one of Milwaukee's glaring issues this season.
"It feels like this is broken. We gave Doc a lot of credit early in the season. It felt like Doc had kind of figured some things out with spacing and how to make it work around Giannis [Antetokounmpo]. That has gone away. Doc has been one of the worst coaches in the league this year, I think at this point."
Bucks bringing back Rivers was the ultimate red flag for the season
Many questioned the Doc Rivers hire from day one, but it was especially puzzling when management decided to bring him back after two consecutive first-round exits. How does that one quote about doing the same thing over and over expecting different results go again? That's exactly what the Bucks were doing here, and unsurprisingly, it has backfired on them to the highest degree.
The team is a mess right now, and it very well could cost them Giannis Antetokounmpo as rumors about his future with the franchise swirl. How can the Bucks convince Giannis they are a contender when they are 18-26 on the season, including 3-11 without him? Would a new coach have fixed the team's issues in full? No, but it could have helped.
As Vecenie further explained in the podcast, Milwaukee's offense and rotations have been abysmal. There's no rhyme or reason to what the Bucks are trying to do. They have the 24th-ranked offensive rating in the NBA this season, and it's only that high because Giannis does so much heavy lifting. In the minutes he's off the court, the team nosedives because he can't backpack them.
Without Giannis, there is no creativity. No flow. No energy. And there's no way out. What reason is there to think that the team can steady the ship with Rivers leading the way? Sure, everything that he says in the press conferences sounds great, but results speak louder than words, and the results have been poor. The fact that Rivers got another go-round after two poor years is baffling.
Did the Milwaukee Bucks not want to have another massive salary on their books for firing another coach? Were they worried about how they'd look after firing another coach after the Adrian Griffin debacle? Marc Stein (subscription required) reported that the Bucks thought keeping Rivers could help convince Giannis to stay, and it did momentarily, but now, it could cost them the Greek Freak.
All signs point to the Milwaukee Bucks keeping Rivers at least until the end of the season, and only time will tell how that bodes for them. It could end up being a franchise-altering move that could have been avoided from the very beginning.
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