Bucks fire Kidd in 4th season as head coach
The Milwaukee Bucks have fired head coach Jason Kidd, and assistant coach Joe Prunty will serve as interim head coach until they find a replacement.
Because of Giannis Antetokounmpo and other younger, talented players, the Bucks job will be a sought-after gig, and expect former NBA coach Monty Williams to be a strong candidate.
“You have short windows in the NBA to build towards contention and actually contend and we didn’t want to waste time in putting our team in the best position to do that,” Bucks GM Jon Horst said. “... A general manager in the NHL had a statement once, ‘If something’s inevitable, why wait?’ and so I think we’d come to the conclusion that this was the best thing for the fu- ture of the franchise.”
The Bucks are one of the younger teams in the league with Antetokounmpo, 23; Malcolm Brogdon, 25; Jabari Parker, 22; Thon Maker, 20; Khris Middleton, 26; Tony Snell 26; Sterling Brown, 22; D.J. Wilson, 21; and Rashad Vaughn, 21.
But even with that youth, there was belief in the organization that the team was underachieving. With Antetokounmpo an All-Star and Middleton having an All-Star caliber season, the Bucks are still 25th in defensive rating, allowing 107.5 points per 100 possessions.
Prunty, who also served as the interim coach in 2015-16 while Kidd recovered from hip surgery, has been in the NBA for two decades working his way up from assistant video coordinator in San Antonio to advance scout with the Spurs to assistant coach. He has been an assistant with Dallas, Portland, Cleveland and Brooklyn.
The Bucks have also been hurt by injuries all season. Parker has not played as he recovers from his second serious knee injury, and forward Mirza Teletovic is out indefinitely with a pulmonary embolism. Antetokounmp missed some games with a sore right knee.
Kidd helped engineer a 26win turnaround in his first season, taking over a team that went 15-67 and guiding it to 41-41. He had a 139-152 record during his 3
seasons and went to the playoffs twice.