Surprisingly, the Milwaukee Bucks sacked Adrian Griffin halfway through the season and brought in experienced coach Doc Rivers, who has only coached 10 games since. Griffin was in his first season as the team’s coach, but the organization thought it was time to let him go, even though the Bucks had the second-best record in the Eastern Conference at the time. Rivers acknowledged that he was perplexed by Milwaukee’s choice to let go of Griffin in an interview with SiriusXM NBA Radio on Tuesday. He even told the organization as much.
About the team’s breakup with Griffin, Rivers said, “To be honest, when they called, I told ownership, ‘I don’t understand why you’re doing this.'”
“One of the things they said was, ‘Well it doesn’t matter, we’ve done it now, and we want you,'” Rivers remarked. “And so that was a tough one, that’s where the hesitation…” Griffin coached Milwaukee for 43 games, finishing with a 30-13 record. Ownership apparently lacked confidence in the first-year coach despite the team’s strong start, which led to the shakeup that saw the Bucks bring in Doc Rivers. Under Rivers’ coaching direction, Milwaukee is 3-7. The team lost its last two games going into the All-Star break, including a loss to the drastically undermanned Memphis Grizzlies.
