Sources: Bucks brass now regrets firing Adrian Griffin and hiring Doc Rivers

If the Milwaukee Bucks could go back in time and not fire Adrian Griffin for Doc Rivers, they would.

Sources told Ahn Fire Digital that Milwaukee’s braintrust, led by Jon Horst, regrets firing Griffin in January 2024 and hiring Rivers.

The Bucks were an impressive 30-13 under Griffin during the 2023-24 season. Griffin was shockingly fired out of nowhere and replaced by Rivers, who, as of this writing, is only 94-98 in the regular season and 3-8 in the playoffs as Milwaukee’s coach.

Rivers and the Bucks lost to the Indiana Pacers in the first round of the 2024 and 2025 playoffs.

Milwaukee hired Rivers as an informal consultant to Griffin for the 2023-24 season. Horst was impressed by Rivers, so much so that he began thinking about firing Griffin and naming Rivers the new coach two weeks after hiring Rivers as Griffin’s consultant, sources said.

Bucks players questioned Griffin’s schemes on both sides of the floor, sources said, and those concerns got back to Horst. However, the team was winning games at a high rate under Griffin. The issues plaguing Griffin’s early tenure, which ranged from putting together strong schemes to communicating with his players, “would have gotten better” over time, one source close to the Bucks said.

Essentially, Horst and the Bucks panicked for no reason and made a move that has backfired big time on them.

Milwaukee will miss the playoffs this season for just the third time in the Giannis Antetokounmpo era. Since winning the 2021 championship against the Phoenix Suns, the Bucks have won just one playoff series. That was back in 2022 against the Chicago Bulls.

Antetokounmpo is eligible to sign a four-year, $275 million extension with the Bucks on October 1. If he declines the extension, Antetokounmpo will be traded this offseason, per Milwaukee co-owner Wes Edens.

“Giannis is going into the last year [of his contract],” Edens told Ramona Shelburne of ESPN. “So one of two things will happen: Either he will be extended or he’ll be traded. The likelihood you’ll let him just kind of play out the last year, we can’t afford that. It’s not consistent with what’s good for the organization. That’s not a Giannis issue. That’s any player that’s in their last year.”

Antetokounmpo has spent his entire NBA career with the Bucks. He’s a two-time MVP, one-time Finals MVP, one-time Defensive Player of the Year and 10-time All-Star with career averages of 24.1 points, 9.9 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 1.1 steals and 1.2 blocks per game.

Both Antetokounmpo and Rivers may not be on the Bucks next season, sources said. It will be fascinating to see what happens in Milwaukee this offseason.