Last year, the offensive rating dropped from 115.6 in the regular season down to 106.1 (nearly a 10 point drop), and against the Heat last month, the defensive rating rose (which means fell) from 111.5 to 120.0 (another decline of nearly 10 points). But things changed for the worse in the playoffs since their NBA Finals victory in 2021, the Bucks had two consecutive playoff meltdowns in the following two postseasons. Per Cleaning The Glass, the offense ranked in the top-10 for four out of five seasons, and the defense landed in the top-5 for three out of five seasons. Since the 2018-19 season, the Milwaukee Bucks have been a regular season wonder. What’s the playoff priority: offense or defense? With that premise in mind, here’s some of what the next head coach should consider.

For the purpose of this exercise, we will assume that the team will largely retain the major contributors they had last season this is also the most likely path forward given the team’s salary situation and subsequent CBA limitations. So what will work for these Milwaukee Bucks? What moves the needle in the right direction?There are more tough choices to make after deciding who the next coach will be, and most of them revolve around filling out the roster. In some ways, one of Bud’s greatest successes is creating the atmosphere that allows the Bucks to cast such a wide net when searching for their next sideline general the variety of perspectives and strategies offered during the interview process will (hopefully) increase the chances of landing on one that will work. If they’re lucky, the Bucks have enough organizational inertia to keep alive the culture that Coach Bud helped build, and their next head coach simply has to keep the ship afloat rather than build it fresh. Like him or not, Mike Budenholzer was exceptionally skilled at this part of the job, and it will likely serve him well in his next venture. This is why the main job of a head coach can be so difficult, because finding alignment across these areas requires building a strong culture and maintaining an environment where everybody involved is with the program. However, coaches do control things like practice habits, playing time, lineups and rotations, and timeouts, and all of these things can be used together to navigate the chaos of a live basketball game and lead the team to success.

They plan, they strategize, they influence, but ultimately control of who the team has and what the team does is actually outside of what coaches can do by themselves. The coach doesn’t (usually) have direct control over the players that the front office supplies the roster with, nor does the coach have direct control over the execution performed by the players themselves on the court during games. The job of a head coach isn’t an easy one, but the description can be summed up in one phrase: managing without control. Who that person will be is anyone’s guess there is some grassroots support for hiring a first-timer, but those in the know expect the team to go with a more experienced option. There has already been a veritable legion of candidates who have come through Milwaukee in the past couple of weeks, and inevitably among them is the person who the Bucks will trust to lead them back to the tier of contention they were expected to reside in during this current postseason. They already made one of the toughest decisions facing them this offseason by ending the tenure of head coach Mike Budenholzer, and hiring his replacement is the next decision on the docket. The Conference Finals are moving along and, along with 25 other teams, the Milwaukee Bucks are stuck watching at home.

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