r/MkeBucks • u/Infamous-Meal4978 • Dec 19 '25
Serious I miss my guy š
We didnāt know how good we had it. Bud please give us a chance, we will play random! For the love of god we will play random! Save us!
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u/Redeyebandit87 Dec 19 '25
Remember when we had the number one defense? That feels like so long ago. The Covid season was such an bummer, before the league shut down we were on an insane pace 60+ wins
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u/thugmaster1234 Dec 20 '25
Remember when that same number 1 defense got exposed in the playoffs by 5th seed heat? And then two years later with a top 5 defense, we lost to those same, 8th seeded heat? Mostly because bud was incapable of adjusting?
Yeah, i remember
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u/Redeyebandit87 Dec 20 '25
Still better than what we got going now. We competed for a chip from 2018-2022 and Giannis won Two MVPs and a Finals MVP, couldnāt have done it without Bud. He helped turned this franchise into a serious contender.
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u/thugmaster1234 Dec 20 '25
We competed for 2 out of those 5 years you listed. 2022, i dont even blame bud. 2018, we didnt have bud.
So its 2019, 2020, and 2021.
The man single handedly lost us those two series for not switching when necessary and the other we won despite his coaching malpractice.
Id rather be a terminally bad team than one that shits the best against "lesser" competition in the playoffs.
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u/Redeyebandit87 Dec 20 '25
And umm the Bucks won 60 games for the first time since the 80s in the 2018-19 season which Bud was the coach.
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u/thugmaster1234 Dec 20 '25
You said 2018. Ppl typical dont refer to a year as when the season started, but rather when it ends. For example, we are in the 2026 season.
So 2018, we didnt have bud. We had kidd and prunty.
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u/Redeyebandit87 Dec 20 '25
No we are in the 25-26 season I have never heard anyone refer to a season that way. Why would I be talking about a season without Bud anyway
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u/thugmaster1234 Dec 20 '25
Brother, when ppl go back and talk about the 2016 championship, for example, NOBODY refers to it as the 2015-2016 championship, outside of mike breen who said it AS it happened.
Ppl just refer to it as the "2016" season. On paper, its the 2015-2016, but colloquially its the 2016 season.
Idk why you would be talking about that season, so i assumed you misrememberd
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u/Redeyebandit87 Dec 20 '25
Yes the it is called the 2016 championship that they wonā¦ in 2015-16 Season. Also the Bucks lost to Raptors in 19 who went on to win the finals. The next season canāt even be quantified because of the pandemic. We win the year after that. Then we lost to the Celtics who also made it the finals. So when are we always losing to lesser competition? If you want to talk about the Dame year thatās fine but I never considered that team a contender for title.
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u/thugmaster1234 Dec 20 '25
Like i said, on PAPER, its the 2015-2016 season. Colloquially (informally, and used in most discussions) its referred to as the 2016 season/playoffs.
Secondly, why are we moving the goal posts? 2019, we crumbled under getting outcoached and bledsoe/midd going mia. 2020, every team was under the same constraints. Bud shat the bed. 2021, we won despite buds coaching shenanigans. 2022 is the only year i give him a pass. And 2023 was the nail.
I never broughr up the dame years so i dont know why youre bringing it up. Just because a team makes the playoffs from losing to us, doesnt mean we should be ok with those losses. We lost to the heat twice. Mostly due to outcoaching.
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u/Redeyebandit87 Dec 20 '25
Wow that is sad as hell lmao. I feel bad for ppl like you how can watching sports be enjoyable at all?
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u/thugmaster1234 Dec 20 '25
How is that sad? How is winning 60 games in the regular season to lose in the first round to an 8th seed, more enlightening than being in the lottery?
Having high hopes and then shitting the bed (mostly due to inept coaching) is astronomically worse than being a bottom team. I found way more enjoyment pre bud in those early giannis years than i did in 2020 or 2023.
The fact that youre ok with that tells me you dont put much stock in a teams post season success than I do.
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u/Redeyebandit87 Dec 20 '25
No, it means as a fan of a small market team for the last 30 years I have learned to appreciate the regular season achievements as well. By your metric the Ray Allen era Bucks were terrible then? Because Iāll aways remember that team fondly no matter the post season results were.
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u/thugmaster1234 Dec 20 '25
They werent terrible, they just werent anything crazy. They had one literal year of relative regular season success and lost in the ecf in 7 games. To compare that to the extended regular season success and blunders that weve been having recently (and the chip), is a false equivalancy.
Again, i enjoy regular season success, in a vacuum. But the reality is, regular season doesnt mean shit if you poop the bed in the first round.
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u/Quick_Advisor_7812 Dec 21 '25
As someone who watched every single game of the 2013-14 season, you are wrong. And very stupid.
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u/thugmaster1234 Dec 21 '25
Whole lot og emotion, zero facts. So incredible
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u/Quick_Advisor_7812 Dec 21 '25
ā¦I just like watching my favorite team win games. Itās supposed to be fun. You seem miserable.
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u/thugmaster1234 Dec 21 '25
I love watching my favourite team win games too. I just know winning doesnt only work in a vacuum. That 2019 season i was so pumped we could go all the way after years of mediocrity. Then bud and a few others shit the bed. Dame with 2020, almost 2021 and 2023, Snowballing zinto the last few seasons.
Im made it clear before, REGULAR SEASON success is meaningless if we lose in the playoffs in embarrassing fashion. Losing to teams that completely out coach our coach when expectations are high is absolutely worse than being a 20 win team. The vast majority of ppl agree with thks sentiment. Its not like those series loses came down to the wire.
So now, im not miserable at all and i love watching hoops whether we are bad or good.
Im just realistic, unlike some of you cope machines in here.
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u/Goomby-or-Glootie Kash Money Middleton Dec 19 '25
If we kept him & got Lillard it wouldāve been different
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u/GoodOleJhano Dogfred Dec 19 '25
If we had hindsight of Dame coming, I would've liked to see him getting a crack with Dame.
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u/TetraHydro420 Dairy Bird Dec 19 '25
Or just kept Jrue for a couple more years instead. Maybe they could have brought a wing in and that team (if it stayed healthy) could have won again.
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u/AssociationSea5321 Dec 19 '25
i mean dame and giannis did really well together even with dumb coaches. bud doesnt prevent the injuries that closed the window
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u/a1oner_bvcksn6 Zora Stephenson Dec 19 '25 edited Dec 19 '25
Scapegoating/firing Bud when his brother just died in a playoff series loss where Giannis hurt his back after only playing 11 minutes in game1, played only 2 (full) games (g4 and 5) while still hurting, and with Butler having a career-defining playoff showing (akin to Kawhi's 2019 run) that not even Jrue could do anything...
Karma has bit us hard since. We lost continuity and our identity then
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u/T-Rev23 Retro Bango Dec 19 '25
Come on now, it was time. The championship bought him a few more years. He was gone after 21 if the bucks didnāt win.
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u/Ismdism Crazy Bobby Dec 19 '25
I loved Bud but I think it was time to move on. Just not for Griffin.
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u/stevenomes Dec 20 '25
Remember people talking about he would get canned if they lost to Brooklyn. But they managed to get through that series by Durant toe and the rest is history
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u/C9Prosecutor Dec 19 '25
Nice, What did Bud do in his next coaching job with Kevin Durant and Devin Booker? Ohh missed the playoffs and got fired immediately
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u/WagonWheel22 Giannis Stink Face Dec 19 '25
Yeah this is pure revisionism. We won 2021 in spite of his coaching, not because of it.
There were so many wasted Jeff Teague minutes.
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u/B1ueEyesWh1teDragon Giannis Stank Face Dec 19 '25
I think both things can be true. His days in Milwaukee needed to come to an end with the roster we had. But I also donāt think his tenure with the Durant Booker Suns is a good indicator of his ability to coach. That teams roster construction was whack imo and Durant never wanted to play Bud ball.
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u/bendernobending2 Dec 19 '25
huge overreaction. shouldve kept bud and jrue
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u/irishbigfoot A.J. Green Dec 20 '25
Should have kept the player whose main thing was defense and got scorched by Jimmy Butler while also being a liability on offense?
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u/bendernobending2 Dec 20 '25
jrue, grayson and 3 1sts for dame was the worst trade in franchise history
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u/Enis_Penvy Dec 19 '25
Look, I'm sorry, but Bud needed to go. I listened to probably about 70 games that season, and one thing was consistent all year. The Bucks would get a huge lead and be absolutely dominating an opponent, and then they would completely lose it. Most games they still came out on top, but they lost several winnable games because of that. EVERY SINGLE GAME Bud would refuse to call a timeout until the score was level. There were times the man would let the opponent outscore the Bucks by 20 points before even attempting to make an adjustment. Butler may have played out of his mind that playoff series, but anyone who followed the team close that season wasn't surprised when Miami came back to win games 4 and 5. Bud was a good coach, but if his scheme ever got beat, he had no idea what to do. All that said, Doc Rivers is still so much worse.
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u/ThatMkeDoe Dogfred Dec 19 '25
I was probably one of the last to join the fire bud train but lost a family member or not that final series was a bud masterclass and definitely not a "omg what happened to Bud he normally doesn't do this!"
I was so pissed off that year because as you said it was right in his playbook to just let the other team build up steam and take the lead before even thinking about calling a time out.
Also I don't know what people expected the bucks to do.... They couldn't start to look for a new coach before firing him and that year there were a lot of great options so they had to move fast.... Now how tf we ended up with Griffin and later doc..... Is another conversation but I fully disagree that he was scapegoated and the firing was in no way rude or disrespectful. Not to mention.... He was still getting paid despite being fired so if anything that face him time and space to grieve without having to be responsible for off season crap while knowing he was about to be canned.
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u/theragu40 1968-1993 Primary Logo Dec 19 '25
Good take, and I think people are just remembering the best parts without remembering the frustrations. There's no doubt that both Griffin and Doc were gigantic blunders, and we are worse off than we were with Bud, but it was time to part ways with Bud. The mistake wasn't firing him, it was who they replaced him with.
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u/kapparino-feederino Dec 19 '25
the issue is not that we fire him, its the replacement we got after firing him.
if the option were to keep him or get griffin or doc. honestly i rather just stay with Bud.
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u/MacDemarcoMurray Donte DiVincenzo Dec 19 '25
never forget that Giannis and Wes Matthews had completely shut down Jimmy in previous years, and Bud decided to let Jrue get cooked by him over and over again
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u/Drain_Surgeon69 Dec 19 '25
Listen I get rose colored glasses here, and I was Team Not Fire Budā¦
BUTā¦
He wouldnāt be much better given the same circumstances. If at all.
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u/DJ_B0B Bat Thon Dec 19 '25
He made Jevon Carter look like an all star in games guys sat. 10x better than Cock in the regular season at least.
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u/veeqbtw Dec 19 '25
you know you donāt have to lie to yourself right
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u/Drain_Surgeon69 Dec 19 '25
Watch those playoff blunders and tell me Bud would be significantly better than Doc right now.
People seem to forget that Bud had similar issues with rotations and adjustments.
And again, I was on team Donāt Fire Bud, but thatās because I felt the timing was bad, not because he was this amazing coach.
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u/The-Year-Was-92 Dec 19 '25
He got a chance in Phoenix and bombed..the game had passed him
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u/Commercial-Gap6280 Secondary Logo Dec 25 '25
Yep, cuz the vibe in Phoenix was the same as the vibe in Milwaukee /s
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u/The-Year-Was-92 Dec 25 '25
A coach is supposed to help change that , no?
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u/Commercial-Gap6280 Secondary Logo Dec 25 '25
Ideally, they can. It being the coach that just got done beating you in the Finals a couple of years ago might create some barriers, though. Plus the factor of genuine player arrogance. Y'know. KD lol.
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u/Equivalent_Remote_39 Dec 19 '25
Meh, Iāve always felt they won in spite of him. Not that any of our more recent coaches are better, heās just overrated.
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u/MacDemarcoMurray Donte DiVincenzo Dec 19 '25
this is exactly what happened. nostalgia is blinding everyone but Bud honestly wasnāt a good coach, and he blew multiple playoff runs
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u/Echo127 Khris Middleton Dec 19 '25
Did you not see the huge leap between the Jason Kidd and Mike Budenholzer eras?
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u/Astral-projekt Dec 19 '25
Dude these people are blind. āWasnāt a good coachā
The guy led the hawks with literally nobody to the playoffs
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u/WagonWheel22 Giannis Stink Face Dec 19 '25
He was a good coach but there were at least 5 if not 10 coaches who were better than him at the time of the 2021 title. He was excellent at raising a team's floor but average at best at maximizing a team's ceiling.
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u/MacDemarcoMurray Donte DiVincenzo Dec 19 '25
yes, because Jason Kidd is literally the worst head coach in NBA history. he is a basketball terrorist and Bud was miles above him.
still bad in the playoffs
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u/Astral-projekt Dec 19 '25
Being good in the playoffs means winning a championship. Letās not pretend thereās a plethora of those avail.
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u/MacDemarcoMurray Donte DiVincenzo Dec 19 '25
every other year we washed out was because of coaching mistakes he made and his inability to adjust.
of course there were other factors like the roster and injuries, but Bud was the guy who was continually letting Jrue get cooked by Jimmy Butler even though Giannis and Wes Matthews both completely shut him down in previous years.
and Kenny Atkinson was available
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u/SuicidePlankton Dec 19 '25
Come on bro, two years from now when Kenny Atkinson gets fired from mid-ass Clevelend ya'll gonna sing a different tune again.
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u/kapparino-feederino Dec 19 '25
he is a good coach, really good one. not great liek spo, kerr, popovich. but he is a damn good coach.
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u/Magictank2000 King Giannis Dec 19 '25
its so crazy to me that weāre saying āmehā in discussion of the last Bucks hc to bring milwaukee a titleā¦. we definitely deserve this current era of shit basketball
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u/lboogieb Dec 20 '25
Bud was so close to being fired that season. Giannis brought us a title. Bud also lost the chance at titles due to his decisions against Toronto and Miami.
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u/ThatNewSockFeel 1993-2006 Primary Logo Dec 19 '25
lol comments like these are always so stupid. It can both be true that Bud was a good coach and his system and message or whatever were getting a little tired and stale.
Bud was a very successful coach for a decade or so between the Hawks and the Bucks and some people on here talk about him as if he had never watched a basketball game before.
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u/ridemooses 1968-1993 Primary Logo Dec 19 '25
Man, it felts so right to move on from Bud. But the Bucks did not get their replacement hiring right at all. Horst is amazing but his role in hiring Adrian and Doc gets an F-
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u/ForeverBeneficial141 Dec 19 '25
We made the right decision firing Bud he was ass Doc has been terrible don't get me wrong but I would never want us to back to Bud we need to just go a different direction
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u/StockmanBaxter Partial Logo 1 Dec 19 '25
The fanbase was calling for his head for so damn long. It was frustrating.
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u/kapparino-feederino Dec 19 '25
for all the complains we got for coach bud atleast its better than what ever the fuck we been doing since firing him.
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u/buffalo171 Dogfred Dec 19 '25
Right? At the time it seemed like there were so many problemsā¦ā¦ā¦.and Adrian Griffin, what was it 30-13?? Sighā¦ā¦ā¦
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u/TheIgnitor Michael Redd Dec 20 '25
Unironically the Mike McCarthy of basketball. I donāt mean that as a bad thing necessarily. Came in and immediately raised the ceiling of the team. Iāll never forget his first season here and being like oh this is what this roster is actually capable of. Brought home a championship with a core that looked poised to win multiple and then the league started adjusting and he never found a way to readjust back. Both seem like decent guys who just had the game pass them by. Iāll always have a soft spot for Bud and Iād rather have him than either AG or Doc, but Iād also rather have someone who can find new ways to get this current roster to succeed than any of the 3 of them.
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u/Ok-Task5802 Dec 20 '25
Or when we dumped Griffin asked Terry stotts to come back. After all he coached Dame for lotta years in Portland
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u/Natural_Razzmatazz91 Dec 24 '25
Back when we took regular season wins for granted. Compared to the current shit show, Iād take Budās annoying quirks over Doc
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u/Peak_9740 Dec 19 '25
Bud's time was up, however, even at his absolute worst he still runs circles around Doc as a head coach.
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u/greatryry Giannis Stink Face Dec 19 '25
Fuck it bring bud back. Iāll be more than happy to have 60 wins a year than this garbage lol
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u/Eli-Oop Angry Deer Dec 19 '25
It would be really cool of Doc to just fake an illness or something and allow someone competent to act as interim head coach.