The Milwaukee Bucks are facing a challenging situation as they recently fired head coach Mike Budenholzer and are now searching for his replacement. Additionally, two of their best players, Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez, are free agents this offseason, and the franchise has an unusual ownership structure. However, the Bucks have a highly desirable job due to having Giannis Antetokounmpo on their team, and they will likely be able to attract almost any coach on the market. There are five potential candidates for the job who stand out, including Charles Lee, who is Budenholzer’s associate head coach and would be one of the NBA’s youngest head coaches, although he doesn’t lack experience. Other candidates include Nick Nurse, who is known for being a tactician, Frank Vogel, a championship-winning coach, and Mike D’Antoni, who is known for his ability to improve half-court offense.
CBS: Bucks coaching candidates: Nick Nurse, Charles Lee among likeliest choices to lead Milwaukee
By Sam Quinn; May 4, 2023
The Milwaukee Bucks are in a pretty precarious position as far as 58-win teams go. The team fired head coach Mike Budenholzer on Thursday afternoon and now begin to look for a replacement, but that’s not the only major question facing the franchise in the coming months. Two of their best players, Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez, can walk as free agents this offseason. Middleton, Lopez and Jrue Holiday are all in their 30’s. The franchise has an unusual ownership structure in which the team’s governorship, and the decision-making power that comes with it, shifts every five years between incumbent owner Wes Edens and the incoming Jimmy Haslam, who has widely been criticized for the job he has done as owner of the Cleveland Browns.
And yet, the Bucks have undoubtedly one of the most desirable jobs in all of basketball. Giannis Antetokounmpo is just that valuable. Budenholzer won nearly 70% of his games and a championship in Milwaukee. Antetokounmpo’s presence will give his successor the chance to do even more, so long as the rest of the roster is managed properly. Virtually every coach on the market will seek out the Bucks job if they are approached for it, and as such, they should be able to attract almost any candidate that they want.
So who will be their next coach? Here are the five likeliest candidates as Milwaukee begins its search.
Charles Lee
Don’t worry, we’ll get to the big names momentarily. For now, we have to start with the Budenholzer tree, which has become one of the most common sources of NBA head coaches in recent years. Quin Snyder and Taylor Jenkins both built perennial winners after leaving Budenholzer, and Darvin Ham has the Los Angeles Lakers competing for a championship in his first year as a head coach. With that in mind, the Bucks might keep an open mind when it comes to hiring a first-year coach, and there’s a potential fit already on their bench.
Charles Lee, Budenholzer’s associate head coach, has interviewed for several jobs in recent years and is currently in the running to take over the Detroit Pistons. Just 38 years old, Lee would be one of the NBA’s youngest head coaches, but that doesn’t mean he lacks experience. He’s worked for Budenholzer since 2014 and could keep the bulk of his system in place while making the few necessary tweaks the Bucks would need to make it back over the hump. That approach has proven to be a viable formula in the past. It worked out pretty well for the next candidate on this list.
Nick Nurse
The 2018 Raptors were about as similar to the 2023 Bucks as any team seeking a new head coach could realistically be. Like the Bucks, the Raptors were a No. 1 overall seed that had grown stale. They ultimately chose Nurse, one of their own assistant coaches, to replace Dwane Casey. The result was an immediate championship. If the Bucks don’t think they need to overhaul their entire scheme in order to reach the mountaintop again, Nurse has a track record of optimizing an already strong roster.
He’s since developed a reputation as one of the NBA’s best tacticians. Whereas Budenholzer is known for his dogmatic adherence to drop-coverage, Nurse will try just about anything on defense. Aggressive blitzes, zones, box-and-ones, triangle-and-twos, if you can think it up, Nurse has probably experimented with it at some point or another. He was the NBA’s 2020 Coach of the Year after earning a No. 2 seed for the Raptors despite the losses of Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green, and now he is among the most in-demand coaches on the market.
But Nurse’s biggest weakness in Toronto has been Milwaukee’s greatest flaw under Budenholzer: half-court offense. Nurse won a championship with Kawhi Leonard generating good looks in the half-court, but ever since, the Raptors have grown reliant on transition to score their points. Was that on Nurse, or the roster he was given? The truth lies somewhere in between, but if the Bucks decide on another candidate, this is one of the likelier reasons why.
Frank Vogel
When a championship-caliber job opens up, we have to mention any available championship-winning coaches. Vogel has been overshadowed on that front this offseason by Nurse, but his track record is longer. He built No. 1 defenses in both Indiana and Los Angeles, and even though he needed LeBron James to win it all with the latter, he came as close to toppling James in the East as any other coach did during his eight-year Finals streak.
Vogel isn’t quite as creative as Nurse defensively. His preference is to play the drop-coverage Budenholzer ran in Milwaukee, but he was perfectly willing to adjust his scheme in Los Angeles when circumstances called for it. The 2020 Lakers had one of the most adaptable defenses in recent memory, with star big man Anthony Davis even successfully defending Butler, the wing that has so vexed Milwaukee in recent years, for long stretches of the 2020 Finals. But like Nurse and Budenholzer, half-court offense has been a weakness of Vogel’s even with James running his team. Vogel deserves an interview here, but he’ll likely begin the process as an underdog to Nurse.
Mike D’Antoni
Who do you hire when you need to fix your half-court offense? Mike D’Antoni. The architect of three No. 1 offenses with the Phoenix Suns and a fourth with the Houston Rockets hasn’t been a head coach since 2020 and has been out of the sport for the past two seasons, but has given no indication that he is done coaching permanently. If the Bucks believe they can maintain their defensive strength by virtue of their roster talent, hiring a coach devoted entirely to fixing the offense makes plenty of sense. There isn’t a better offensive coach available than D’Antoni.
At 71, age might be a concern for D’Antoni. Gregg Popovich is the oldest head coach in NBA history at 73, so it isn’t clear how long D’Antoni would be able to lead the Bucks for. This could be a drawback, or it could be seen as a potential positive. The Bucks could hire D’Antoni without committing to a long-term contract, and could potentially even talk Lee into remaining as the coach-in-waiting. With an aging roster around Antetokounmpo, the possibility of a full reset in the near future is quite real. If D’Antoni is the right coach for right now, that might be enough to get him this job.
Whoever doesn’t survive the playoffs
None of us expected Budenholzer to be fired before the playoffs began. Here we are. The pressure of the all-in NBA frequently costs coaches their jobs when they lose surprisingly in the postseason. Doc Rivers was fired after his Clippers collapsed in the Orlando bubble. Carlisle was axed after the Mavericks blew a 2-0 lead on the Clippers a year later. Big-name coaches frequently become available in April and May nowadays. This season may not be an exception.
We don’t know who those coaches will be yet. Could Philadelphia make a change if Rivers fails to lead the 76ers past the Celtics? How about Michael Malone in Denver if the Nuggets blow their 2-0 lead over Phoenix? Until we know which coaches are available and which ones aren’t, it’s impossible to say with any clarity who the top candidates for the Bucks will be. Their next coach might still be employed elsewhere right now.
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