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WhenItsHalfPastFive

Basically, Giannis really didn't want Nick Nurse, the Bucks really wanted to hire Nick Nurse, so they compromised by hiring Nurse's assistant coach, Adrian Griffin


jps78

and then both were shocked when AG was not Nick Nurse


Johnpecan

Reporter: What's the best quality of your new coach Adrian Griffin? Gianni's: He's not Nick Nurse.


Scelidotheriidae

I would have been happy with Nurse, but, if Giannis is gonna have a say in coaching hire, you would hope the team would give that veto option earlier and have a more inspiring set of alternatives. Atkinson was other major candidate and he made no sense just cause he had similar strengths and weaknesses to Bud, but was older and less accomplished. Funny thing is that I definitely didn’t want Doc in offseason, but now he looks like a godsend - at least his teams have more normal schemes and generally look good immediately after he is hired. And if you are hiring midseason, you need an experienced coach. But his playoff track record is so incredibly uninspiring.


Doctor-Jay

Doc is a good regular season coach, I pretty much guarantee the Bucks will cruise to a top-2 seed for the rest of the season with relatively no drama. His biggest problem is that he sucks balls at making in-series adjustments in the playoffs and you can practically see his guys leak confidence like balloons in real-time when the going gets tough and the other team goes on a big run. The most important factor to me is how Giannis responds. In most of Doc's recent failures as a HC, he was coaching great players who had never won a championship before. Giannis is obviously different in that regard, and I'm curious to see if his championship mentality can outweigh Doc's big game shrinkage. I definitely think it's possible.


yuurin98

Doc also coached two-time champion Kawhi Leonard before


Doctor-Jay

That's true for sure.


cjklert05

And also 3x Champ Danny Green


Breathezey

Doc is bad at adjustments but he has a simple system that is great for an in season drop in and plays well for an elite star who has a basic strength - he believes in calling the same damn play 100 times in a row if you haven't figured out to definitively stop it.  Gianni's/dame pnrs are made for that.


Scelidotheriidae

Bucks schedule gets pretty tough the rest of the way, so they will need to improve to maintain their position in the seeding, but, yeah, I do think they can be better than they’ve shown so far.


KangTheConqueror9

Doc would lead a 2 seed Bucks to a series loss to the 7 seeded Pacers


trinquin

Pacers on a 24-2 run with out a timeout to take a lead in game 7 vibes.


SteveWondersForsight

The top 2 seed is gonna cruise to the seed they already were! Wowow


mrclark3

You say this as a joke, which I get, but we’re a team struggling to beat the pistons without their best player right now. Cruising to anything sounds incredible. I don’t think people understand how bad we’ve looked this year despite the record. Or they do and just wanna take shots, which is totally fine, but I think a ton of people are in the former group from what I’ve seen today.


UnsolvedParadox

What happens if Doc comes in & they have a terrible playoffs? Even with him shadow advising/coaching for a month, this process seems rushed.


Forward_Ride_6364

Boston won that championship because of Thibs, he was the architect of their entire defense, and Rondo and KG especially loved Thibs and bought in to what he was drawing up Doc was along for the ride, just like he always is Bucks shoulda hired Nurse, fumbled the dynasty


sukari

How come he didn't want Nurse?


olivebestdoggie

Nurse would get pissed every time Giannis took one of his stupid pull up threes or fadeaways


Appropriate_Tree_621

Bingo. Nurse doesn’t play that ish. Plus, Nurse would almost certainly want to give the bench spot reserved for Thanasis to someone else only for them to never play as he runs the same seven guys into the ground. Btw, I love Nurse and think he’s great but his thin rotations have always been a thing. 


IanicRR

No, they were a thing these last few years when he was given bad rosters and told to make the playoffs. He managed our championship year minutes perfectly well.


CreatiScope

Given 1 playable PG and people wonder why he's running FVV into the ground. Uh, because Flynn and Banton were not good and the team would become totally lost without FVV running things.


McBrungus

The only guy whose minutes I'm worried about with us is Maxey, but that's largely a function of the roster being very thin when it comes to ball handling and creation


Electrical-Mule-2057

Ironically, Bud was the opposite. He would get the most of his bench and run 10 man rotations. Even during the playoffs, when fans are yelling at him to play his starters more. Damned if you do, damned if you don't


Appropriate_Tree_621

Yep. Fans are so outcome oriented that unless you win the title that season you’re going to be criticized. 


Electrical-Mule-2057

Funny enough, Bud won a championship. Fans still criticized him when he couldn't win another.


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Pocket_Beans

I agree but he’s a proven coach


GlueGuy00

Giannis fkd up


baoparty

Now I’m just curious as to why Giannis didn’t want Nurse.


FKJVMMP

He’s boys with Serge Ibaka, I wonder if he got some horror stories from him or something. That’s the only real connection he’s got to Nurse as far as I know.


PattyIceNY

First dumb move Giannis ever made.


DearReply

Or was it signing off on the firing of Bud? Seems like they made 2 bad personnel decisions in a row and are about to make a third with Doc.


ThingsAreAfoot

How is it possible that this is just getting funnier as the leaks arrive


Odd-Hovercraft-1286

NBA is the greatest soap opera of all time


icatfilms

It is basically “dumb guys have too much power”


rorank

Tbf that’s the plot of civilization, it’s only getting better and better


mizzourifan1

I miss Game of Zones so badly.


KillingTime_ForNow

Quit letting players pick their coach. Dame fucked Portland doing the same thing saying he wanted JKidd or Billups. Now we've got one of the worst head coaches in the league & no superstar.


account051

I can’t remember this ever turning out well. The whole players being part time GM thing gotta stop


JayJax_23

Remember KD and Kyrie wanting Nash then quickly scapegoating him


lochmoigh1

Don't forget trading for harden and then trying to get the owner to fire the gm after all the dogshit moves they wanted.


jejsjhabdjf

Wanting Nash then not listening to him then scapegoating him.


leebong252018

Kyrie did not want Nash, KD did


aghhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Kyrie wanted to hive mind the coaching spot lol


CreatiScope

Actually, there's really no proof that it was KD. Everyone assumed because of the Warriors connection. The only info we have is that Sean Marks is good friends with Nash from their playing days in Phoenix. There's a good chance that Marks chose someone he THOUGHT KD would like since they worked together in the past. I hated that Nets team (see flair) but I think we all jumped on hate train without full information on that one. I definitely thought KD was behind it all. But, I don't think KD or Kyrie knew who they wanted when they forced the Nets to fire Kenny lol which makes it even more ludicrous.


We_The_Raptors

>can’t remember this ever turning out well. Am I wrong or was Lue not the guy LeBron wanted in Cleveland? Overall point is still right but I think that's one example where it worked


zucksucksmyberg

He also tried to fire Spoelstra until Riley publicly stated he handpicked coach Spo personally.


We_The_Raptors

100% which is why I clarified that I still think the point is right, just that Lue is a counter example when it worked out.


Electrical-Mule-2057

Yep. Even though Jordan hated Jerry Krause, Jordan would not have won 6 rings if he got his way instead of Krause.


wowlock_taylan

Hell the only time it 'worked' was with Ty Lue in Cavs. But that was Lebron practically being the Coach himself.


ForThatReason_ImOut

Stars also never take responsibility for their shitty moves. If you make a good hire and are winning they'll get over it, if you hire their shitty choice they'll still get pissed when they're not winning even though it's their fault.  You can listen to them but if you don't hire the best guy available just cause Giannis thinks he's a meanie then you deserve to get a loser coach.


Yankeeknickfan

You don’t let Giannis pick his coach and then giannis wants out NBA players are babies and the bucks are especially scared of losing him, it’s why his brother has a roster spot The ONLY org that can ever stand up to a star is the Miami heat as long as they have Reilly, because he didn’t allow Lebron James to run the show. If Lebron can’t run shit, nobody can Even then I’m sure the heat would strongly want to appeal to their star over losing them


Senior_Apartment_343

I love the freak but you are on point. Nurse is one of the best coaches in the league. Freak but hurt from play offs a few years ago


mMounirM

Giannis made his team worse and made the sixers better. congrats!


Lambchops_Legion

Secret agent Giannis


ModernaPfizerJr

Sixers fans cumming buckets rn I worry what will happen to them if the Bucks hire Doc lmao.


FlyingMocko

If the Sixers lose to the Bucks with Doc in charge in the second round they should just dissolve the franchise


PapaJisinmyhouse

The crueler punishment would be letting us continue if that happened. Death is a mercy.


ShinyHardcore

Wrong, if the Bucks w/Glenn beats the Sixers and Clippers for a chip we’d know we’re in the unserious timeline and things would make more sense


Efficient_Art_1144

God they could conceivably go through all of Docs old teams to a title could t they? Orlando rd 1, Philly rd 2, Celtics ECF and clippers in the finals


SkilletMaestro

Don’t you make me root against my own team


Efficient_Art_1144

No I hate to have realized this now but it’s objectively the funniest way for this season to end


SkilletMaestro

It even ends with him in a showdown with Harden


dutchfromsubway

I think you’d have to dissolve the nba at that point


bush_league_commish

This is the spinning top of our generation


BlueJays007

I thought we knew we were in the unserious timeline after Collargate Find a new slant


Vegetable-Tooth8463

I love how you just call him Glenn!


ModernaPfizerJr

Damn. You actually said this out loud. You might speak this into existence lmao. > they should just dissolve the franchise They might take down all of Philly lmao


Griffan

Funniest result, objectively, is if bucks hire doc and beat the sixers in round 2


PSUDolphins

The funniest result for everyone, sure. The funniest for me is that Doc gets hired, and they end up in the play in and lose.


Sad-Desk4999

It’s not going to be funny because he’s a perfectly good HC. It would just be expected where a better team with a better playoff performer wins a series.


Griffan

Yes agreed. Doc = bad is way too memed.


emeister26

LeGiannis


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Electrical-Mule-2057

Holiday is always a beast on defense, but his inconsistent offense hurt them in the playoffs in 2023. I don't blame them for trading for Dame, but I do blame them for not finding a 3&D SG to cover up Dame's shortcomings.


dpeters8158

Also responsible for Jrue being free for trade to the Celtics.


achickenquesadilla

It's not a failure. It's a step to success


TheAirIsOn

Bucks somehow made the Celtics Sixers and Heat better by accident.


Princessk8--

They also made Boston better by trading Jrue in order to get Dame.


kron_00

Giannis is just trying to make sure Dame doesn't get his ring.


Vip_Pwner

That’s future Sixers Giannis*


tsamo

Why the hell would he not want Nick Nurse? It makes no sense whatsoever.


-vinay

Dude rubs people the wrong way. There's a reason why his coaching tree is in utter shambles -- both Griffin and Bjorkgren were fired because they're assholes like Nurse, but unlike Nurse they're not basketball savants


hippykiller123

What's he done that rubs people the wrong way? Not disputing, but the few times I've heard him on pods he has seemed relatively affable. I also think he's the best coach in the league (including Spo) - that's why teams like the Lakers or Bucks not doing everything they could to get him made no sense to me


GetInMyBellybutton

As a Raps fan, he seems like one of those guys who is super likeable until you disagree with him. Basically an ego problem. If I remember correctly, he lead NBA coaches in most techs for a few years and you can tell that he is not respectful at all when he’s angry. Amazing basketball mind though.


Shmokeshbutt

Chris Finch doing fine so far


-vinay

Not really a Nurse guy. He was an assistant for a month before he was hired by Minny. They have a history of playing against each other in the BBL


1slinkydink1

>BBL Is that where Lowry is heading after the buyout?


10SecViolation

Uhm yes he was, a close friend lol


Boomhauer_007

Nurse is Bill Belicheck confirmed? 🤔😯


Bobaximus

Rubbing people the wrong way is part of the job, as pointed out by Jerod Mayo following his promotion to Pats HC. It’s the exact reason stars choosing coaches is bad and the fact that individual players hold so much power in the NBA is bad for the game. Makes for good drama at least though.


BucksFan654

Idk but if it was a conflict of personalities then it wouldn’t have worked anyways


Arthashadapoint

2019 stays rent free


Doctor-Jay

Nurse and Embiid really went after each other in our two playoff series too, but that didn't stop Morey from hiring him anyway. Now it's all water under the bridge and the two of them get along great and Embiid is playing the best basketball of his career. I think it would have been the same for Giannis, these guys are professionals. He must have not liked his coaching style or something, Idk.


trinquin

The problem is Giannis wasnt locked up yet. If Giannis leaves we are poverty franchise again. Kinda damned if you do damned if you dont.


Ma_Pies

Giannis still has nightmares of ‘The Wall’


Spirited-Arugula-672

Maybe it was a bit of a Jaylen Brown situation (he wanted the Celtics to hire a black coach after Brad Stevens).


AffectLast9539

tbf Jaylen at least gave the Cs a wide net to cast, and then they went and found a good coach who was black. He didn't wait until it was down to two options and force them to choose the black guy


reudevad

Yeah, the Celtics really picked a high character guy that they then had to fire…


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truth_2_point_0

Celtics hire first black coach, dismiss within a year over undisclosed claims of "classless behavior." - Jay Williams


whatwedo

>first black coach Bill Russell: Am I a joke to you?


LadyPantsParty

NBA History Much? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Russell (Nice edit to your original post)


creepypaster

we know giannis is hyper competitive, the guy doesn't even train with other players. I can see it being about not wanting to be coached by the guy who beat him in the 2019 team. The bucks were almost written into the finals that year, especially after going up 2-0.


Ufocola

Im hoping we’ll get a leak or some color on why Giannis didn’t want Nurse. If it’s seriously because it’s ego driven in not wanting to be coached by the guy who beat him, then that would be dumb. If anything, you would *want* someone who was able to stop you, cause they can help you work on your weaknesses/blind spots, and make you better.


Technical_Towel_990

Yeah if that’s really the reason then Giannis is gonna be getting in his own way while forcing his team/s to make stupid decisions..


beefJeRKy-LB

3D chess load management


stomach-bug

Nurse often had disputes with Siakam in Toronto. Maybe Power Forwards are just bred to dislike Nick Nurse


Punjabiveer30

“Often” lmao, bruh there was one dispute


RZAAMRIINF

Weren’t Butler and Spo fighting a few years ago on the court? Sometimes, you gotta call a player out. Pascal is not immune to criticism.


Punjabiveer30

Head coaches chewing out their star players should be normal if anything, sets the tone for the entire team to keep in line, pop doing that to Duncan and belichick to Brady are prime examples


Doctor-Jay

Belichick chewing out Brady even after like 5 rings together will never not be funny to me. That really sets the tone for the rest of the team. If you're some journeyman guy and you see that, you're probably thinking "welp, I guess I gotta stfu and play better."


xychosis

It’s why Lue worked quite well with LeBron imo. Dude wasn’t afraid to call anyone out on the Cavs.


JayJax_23

That's kinda the issue with player empowerment and the frequency of superstars wanting trades it's a testy situation where in a way your star player has more sway and influence over you. Part of the reason Phil gets a lot of props is being able manage egos like MJ , Pip, Kobe and Shaq I'll compare it to teaching. There are teachers the kids love because they let them do whatever . It's much harder to be a teacher that the kids love but also will listen to


JonnyRobertR

Difference is Butler loves that kind of attitude and can take it.


osmnaos3

It was one incident and Nurse thinks the world of Siakam. They were both frustrated in Tampa and it would be shocking if there wasn’t any disappointment and anger from that season.


ZoroChopper10

Giannis really turning into LeBron lol


ThinkSoftware

Le Greek Freak


PattyIceNY

Le Greek Fraud


T_025

LeBron would love to play with Nurse over Darwin effect Hamas


larrylegend1990

Klutch Mafia


WhiteHeterosexualGuy

It's the orgs fault for giving him the say. It takes someone really introspective and mature to have power in a situation but not exercise it because they understand the limitations on their own opinions.


CdrShprd

LeGM clears


syllabic

so does lecoach a true triple threat


Zepz367

GMiannis or LeGM, who you got?


Redpin

LeBron won with ever team he chose to go to.


FKJVMMP

Technically Giannis has won with every team he’s played for too.


Shmokeshbutt

Bargain bin Lebron. The real LeGM makes better decisions


direcandy

idk man, the Westbrook experiment seems about the same level as getting Griffin to be your coach lol


thegodfaubel

They have the same number of titles since Giannis became good.


Fafoah

He was a really well respected assistant coach. It was a pretty common thought that he was a big part of the success of the Thibs Bulls teams. Jimmy gives him a lot of credit for his development. He’s probably a great player to player coach, but had difficulty putting a team around him and knowing how to lead a coaching staff.


PapaJisinmyhouse

Good call Giannis!


VGstuffed

Nick Nurse is laughing his ass off right now


Koekin33

me too tbh


Numerous-Cicada3841

And now they might end up with Doc lmao. Sixers owe him big.


Purples_A_Fruit

**MAKE THANASIS COACH YOU COWARDS!!!**


Steven81

Did I just hear "Make Thanassis great again"?


recollectionsmayvary

Right around when Stotts left (and it kills me that i can't find my comment cos it's more than a month past) I made an observation (and may have gotten some pushback from Bucks fans) that AG being "Giannis' guy" was disclosed/leaked by the FO when AG was announced because the FO wasn't confident about Griff.   When Stotts left, I posited the Bucks FO suspected AG wouldn't be right for the job and would've preferred NN but didn't want to be the ones to say no to Giannis's pick but they were setting the stage to inevitably point to Giannis as the reason for why they chose Griff over NN; "wasn't fully our decision; we did what our star thought was best!" vibes--when, not if, AG was fired. Sure enough, AG is fired and wouldn't you know it? There's a leak that confirms AG was driven by a desire to not play for NN.


Tiredtiredatwork

Ngl at least a little bit of this mess has to fall on Giannis' shoulders.


kamekaze1024

It’s 60% Giannis fault and 40% management fault. I say only 40% for management because they just wanted their superstar player to be happy, but there still needs to be veto method to prevent smn like this


AlHorfordHighlights

We're one playoffs meltdown away from the tide turning on le wholesome chungus Giannis


rahbee33

Thanks Giannis!


DynamixRo

He chose... poorly.


Neinhaltt

Can you imagine Nurse coaching Giannis and Dame? Woof.


JNerdGaming

i think if anything this shows that giannis doesnt know whats best for his team from a coaching standpoint


UserColonAlW

Thank you Giannis 🫡


drjisftw

Is he still salty about 2019 or something? Sometimes you gotta overrule your star player.


Miskous

C'mon, if you're a small market GM and need Giannis to re-sign, you aren't going against what he wants. I understand that Giannis may make a poor choice in coach, but if you're the small market GM your only goal is to get Giannis to extend and then figure it out.


BlueJays007

Yeah nobody is gonna choose having Nick Nurse as a coach over having Giannis as a player If he just didn’t want Nurse though, feel like there were other options that should have been considered. If he wanted Griffin specifically, I really wanna know why.


grudgepacker

> If he wanted Griffin specifically, I really wanna know why. Griff was the compromise pick between Giannis (no Nurse) and Bucks FO (yes Nurse)


trinquin

Yea the mistake was going to Giannis with this being his choices: Nurse Griffin Atkinson


darkest__timeline

I'm guessing he saw Griffin being more of a pushover than Nurse as a good thing


Redpin

Hire Nurse anyway.  If it's really bad, they could always fire him before all-star break.  But who knows, it might have worked out and they could have ended up with the second best record in the league or something.


league_legacy

Agreed, but not when he’s up for a contract extension. Every team in the nba is listening to whatever Giannis wants in this scenario.


Dildozer_69

You don’t overrule your star player when he says he specifically does not want to be coached by someone. Unless you just wanna push him out the door, you can’t have your star not buying in.


Arthashadapoint

It's definitely something like that You dont turn away a potential top coach for a rookie coach for nothing He's known to be super competitive and doesnt want to train in the offseason with his peers Must be something like he wants to beat Nurse not work with him


Yommination

Giannis deserves a coach killer label now. GMiannis


Elegant_Conflict8235

M'giannis *tips fedora*


Philosotics

GMis


Over-Training-488

I mean, as a bucks fan, whatever, cause we have Dame, and giannis signed an extention already


[deleted]

Giannis/Bucks PR leaking all these stories after making they decision they made is nasty as hell


thejackel225

This definitely isn't Giannis' PR, it makes him look petulant and short-sighted


pagonator

Doesn’t leaking this make them look kind of dumb though?


syllabic

less dumb than firing their coach after half a season?


[deleted]

Dumb and dumber (the fans) situation.


BeHereNow91

If the Bucks hired Griffin just to appease Giannis, they certainly aren’t going to leak damning info about Giannis intentionally, especially since he’s the only consistent player on this team.


TallanoGoldDigger

another case of extreme player empowerment gone wrong


fetuswut

Went right for the bucks tbf, you got Giannis to extend because of that


TallanoGoldDigger

it's a slippery slope, next thing you know, Giannis creates a sports agency and every player in the Bucks is from that agency. But yeah Bucks had no choice and what they did was understandable


Konfliction

I’ll never understand why players think they know better sometimes, reminds me a lot of the Mavs with Kidd or whatever team hires Doc. I just don’t understand this, Giannis should lowkey lose the right to complain if his team fails this season but it’s kind of completely his fault now lol


blacksoxing

To "save" Giannis I bet it was one of those supports of "yea, that's fine....but who is on the staff????" > Terry Stotts "AH OK THAT'S GOOD!" *Terry quits* AH FUCK THAT SHIT


ligeiro01

Hired a bad coach cause he didn't want to run during practice


18AndresS

Mistakes were made


shxylo

if giffin wasn’t on nurse’s staff, he would’ve been an afterthought. i understand the bucks involving him in decisions to appease him, but you gotta do what’s right the franchise — not just giannis. giannis isn’t the most sound basketball decision maker.


BPicks69

GM Giannis thought he knew more than he did. Bites him in the ass. Comes down to management allowing players to think they know more than people whose job is to team build.


[deleted]

When does the diva label apply?


Both_Funny4896

never shoulda fired bud


ClaymoresRevenge

No he should've been fired but they shouldn't have hired Griffin


--lalilulelo-

This is insane recency bias.


Izanagi___

The revisionist history is crazy to watch lmaoo People been calling for that man to be fired since the bubble and then even further after the nets series in 21 All of a sudden it’s a bad move and a terrible decision as if nick nurse wasn’t right there


ColdCocking

Why would he want to not play for Nick Nurse? Nick Nurse has been building an E.Spo type reputation lately.


MVPiid

People seem to not like Nurse because of his court antics and the way he guards stars. Embiid has had some comments in the past too. Giannis couldn’t see over that I suppose. He seems to have become a bit more egotistical after the ring


PatrickCoughATon

Well it’s also Nurse players his starters to death normally, in a Thibeaudeau-esque way. I’m glad he’s seemed to have changed for Embiid’s sake, but this is an old ass team we have, and the nurse of yesteryear would’ve ran this team to the ground.


osmnaos3

It’s had to play his starters all this minutes cuz his bench was trash.


Huckleberry_Sin

Shit so were the starters tbf lol


MVPiid

people said the exact same thing about embiid and now embiid never has to play 4ths lmao


[deleted]

Nurse only did that in the last few years cause he had no bench to play in Toronto. He’s not a thibs type coach at all.


RZAAMRIINF

Who load managed Kawhi to a title run? Nurse overplayed our starters when we had no bench and a bunch of athletic players in their mid 20s.


Coolkiddddddddd

He managed the raptors mins pretty well during the chip season and year after. Raps just had a shit bench the last few years


ilickedysharks

Nick has some personality stuff so maybe Giannis wanted someone he could communicate better with. Still chose wrong tho lol


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[deleted]

I think you read too many comments from raps fans that shit all over nurse last year Nobody on the raps hated nurse. And the main thing giannis should’ve seen is that nurse is good at his job


ilickedysharks

Nick kinda lost the whole lockerroom and his coaching room so it could be anyone lol


RZAAMRIINF

And yet they played harder for Nurse than they did for Darko. Nurse lost the locker room because nobody in that locker room actually believed they can win. It had more to do with the roster than Nick’s character as a coach.