Why the Milwaukee Bucks Needed Doc Rivers

As Doc Rivers prepares to make his coaching debut Monday night, the Milwaukee Bucks prove why they needed him as much as he needed the opportunity.

April, May, June. Those 3 months are always going to determine the tenure of any Bucks head coach as long Giannis Antetokounmpo, and now, Damian Lillard are in Milwaukee.

Since the Bucks won the NBA championship back in July of 2021, they have found that climbing up that mountain again has been more challenging than it had been getting there in the first place. Poorly-timed injuries to star players, bad luck, and a historic collapse have both been significant reasons, among others, why Milwaukee’s post-championship playoff runs have been extinguished these last two seasons.

To the credit of the front office, specifically Bucks general manager Jon Horst, they reshuffled the deck on the cusp of training camp this year with the arrival of Lillard. Yet, the biggest risk Horst and the Bucks have taken was entrusting a first-year head coach to sustain this era where vying for championships were a requirement, not conditional.

Now, nearly a week after the Bucks dismissed Adrian Griffin and setting off one of the wildest weeks in franchise history, Doc Rivers is set to make his Bucks coaching debut against the defending champion Denver Nuggets Monday night.

Rivers has 36 regular season games left to help connect a Bucks team whose parts were playing well individually, but showed very little signs of a team that was coming together as the season went along. He will do so with the third-hardest strength of schedule, per Tankathon, and very little practice time to make sure things gel faster than it had under Griffin’s watch.

What Rivers inherits is exactly what drew him to the job in the first place. To coach a two-time MVP and an eight-time All-Star that has yet to fully cultivate a partnership that lifts both Antetokounmpo and Lillard to heights that unlocks one another in co-existing roles. Rivers also faces the task of reconfiguring a foundation that boasts a strong supporting cast that had been put in unfamiliar positions to start the year.

The irony that the Bucks turned to a coach like Rivers, who has increasingly been best known for his playoff disappointments in April and May over the last decade-plus hasn’t been lost to some of the more skeptical fans at this time.

Rivers’ playoff record speaks for itself since he won his lone title with the Boston Celitcs in 2008. Blowing 3-1 leads in playoff series on three separate occasions in two separate coaching stints is the most damning evidence of all. He has been able to coach some of the most talented players that have defined this era of the NBA for the last decade-plus and does not even have a Conference Finals appearance to show for it since leaving Boston more than a decade ago.

For all of that, though, Rivers currently ranks ninth in all-time coaching wins (1,096), and is one 10 coaches to pass the 1,000 wins mark. You can’t mention some of the most successful coaches in the history of the NBA without mentioning Rivers’ name, warts and all. To win at the highest level means being in a position to play for the greatest challenge and living with the results.

It was just a week ago where Rivers was in the same exact position that all Bucks fans had found themselves in. Analyzing from afar, trying to find the pulse and the connective tissue to a team that didn’t fully resemble its 30-13 record at the time of Griffin’s firing. That mark stood as a testament to the individual brilliance of the team’s roster from the top down and as more and more anecdotes roll in, the disconnect between Bucks players and Griffin only grew more stark before he was ousted for the third-shortest coaching tenure in NBA history.

In returning to Milwaukee, a place that holds a special place for Rivers going back to his days at Marquette University, there is no question that he is going for some storybook ending as he sets on this unique challenge. At 62 years old, and after more than five decades of being in and around the NBA, opportunities like coaching this Bucks team may be one of the last best chances Rivers gets in trying to rectify his previous playoff disappointments and failures.

The reality is that what Rivers sees in the Bucks and what the Bucks see in Rivers resembles one another. For all of the glow and equity that has been afforded to both Rivers and the Bucks in light of winning championships when they have, both parties have been equally been defined by their playoff shortcomings, wearing them as some sort of scarlet letter.

Now, it’s only fitting that they are trying to ascend to that championship summit together.