Nickel: Bucks general manager Jon Horst made a bold move – again

Milwaukee Bucks general manager Jon Horst said he did not consult any of the Milwaukee Bucks players before firing coach Adrian Griffin.

That is in stark contrast to what was Griffin’s hiring process, when a couple of players, including superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo, were part of the interviews.

And Horst said Griffin did not lose the Bucks locker room – though this has been widely reported – and therefore the perceived lack of command of the team was not the reason for Griffin’s dismissal after a mere 118 days on the job.

Which is … interesting.

The Milwaukee Bucks have looked, even to the casual observer, like a hot smokin' mess so far in this 30-13 season. They are on the brink of brilliance, offensively. But Milwaukee also could be up by 30 … or down by 30. By halftime. We haven’t even gotten to the all-star break, or maybe even more importantly, the Feb. 8 trade deadline, and players have already revealed problems with lack of play calling. Lack of structure. Ambiguous scheme.

It had been the best NBA drama until Wednesday when, about 24 hours after firing “Griff,” Horst looked like a general manager very much trying to take some control of the team.

In seven years on the job, Horst has gone from a very young, and certainly unexpected, general manager to someone who has built an NBA championship team, brought back Brook Lopez and Khris Middleton and inked Giannis Antetokounmpo to supermax deals.

Horst has also fired three coaches.

Back in 2018, Horst looked extremely uncomfortable (understandably) as he approached the podium to discuss why he fired the mercurial Jason Kidd midseason.

But Horst was unapologetic in canning Mike Budenholzer last May, less than two years after he had helped deliver an NBA tile to Milwaukee after a 50-year drought that harkens back to your grandfather’s Kareem Abdul-Jabbar days. Losing to the Miami Heat in five playoff games was unacceptable.

And after the Bucks struggled in stretches to beat lowly four-win Detroit on the road Monday, Horst brazenly dismissed Griffin, for whom he apparently has great affection. Forget about all that baloney about this being just a business, which thankfully Horst did not use as an excuse in his first public comments Wednesday in a news conference at Fiserv Forum. The Bucks threw a grand pep rally for an introductory news conference for Griffin in June. And Giannis even welcomed the new coach to his homeland, Greece, in the offseason.

No, this was a bold firing. And Horst was fairly straightforward in his answer that, at least to him, it wasn't an issue with Griffin not being able to command, or maintain, respect from the players.

"My biggest frustration was that, that's the narrative," said Horst. "That's just not my opinion. That doesn't mean that I'm right or wrong, but my opinion, my assessment and ownership's assessment - this wasn't an assessment that he lost the locker room, that there was dysfunction, that there were players that were jumping off the ship. That's just not our assessment. "

Horst, in his constant evaluation, summed up the dramatic coaching shakeup as an opportunity to get better in moving on past Griffin.

"And we wanted to get better and we think we have a chance to do that," said Horst.

So when Damian Lillard said there was no play called, and Bobby Portis challenged Griffin in the locker room, and Antetokounmpo said the team was disorganized and the Bucks lost in Chicago looking all kinds of out of sorts, those were not team killers to Horst but "things that are relatively common throughout the course of an NBA season and most NBA teams.

"And in my opinion, that's just not really the true narrative," said Horst, of a locker room in turmoil. "Did some of those things exist? Absolutely. Is that uncommon in the NBA? No. It's almost 20 years I've been doing this, it happens all the time.

"... Adrian Griffin did a hell of a job. He's an incredible person. I believe he's going to be a very good coach going forward. This was a chance for us to resource our team in a different way, after a change from when we hired him - and that's why we did it."

Sometimes there’s reason to read between the lines and have an open mind to conspiracy theories. We should be ready to hear more about what really went on this season in Milwaukee in the months – and maybe years – to come. But this one thing is indisputable.

Horst fired a guy before he even had a chance to settle in to the job, the city or the team.

On a Bucks team loaded with legends and record holders, in a league powered by players, Horst trusted his gut to declare that Griffin wasn’t the right guy for the 2023-24 Bucks, so he boldly cut ties while there was still time to try to reach for another championship. Horst has lived in Wisconsin long enough to know that Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers only got one ring each, up in Green Bay, despite all their greatness. The Bucks owners have invested in this super team right now and Horst made it clear that this wasn't the right time or place for Griffin.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Nickel: Bucks' Jon Horst made bold move firing Adrian Griffin