Adrian Griffin Fired: How Historically Unusual Was the Bucks’ Move?

Griffin's 30-13 record was one of the best ever for a coach fired at midseason.

First-year NBA head coaches usually get a little bit of runway in building up their program — especially if they are winning games. But that was decidedly not the case for now former Milwaukee Bucks coach Adrian Griffin, whom the organization let go on Tuesday just 43 games into his head-coaching career.

The move was stunning not just because of the speed at which Milwaukee moved on from Griffin, who was hired to replace longtime coach Mike Budenholzer last June. But the Bucks were not doing badly, either, with a 30-13 record that earned them the No. 2 spot in the Eastern Conference. Milwaukee currently ranks fourth in The Messenger’s NBA forecast model with an 8.4% chance of winning the NBA title, as well as 10th in the league with a 1599 Elo rating, but that wasn’t enough to save Griffin’s job.

Griffin’s dismissal was nearly unprecedented. Only one other coach in NBA history was replaced at midseason between his team’s 35th and 50th game (roughly the same range of the season as Griffin had completed) with either a better record or a better Elo rating than Griffin at the time of his departure: David Blatt, whom the Cleveland Cavaliers fired with a 30-11 record and a 1669 Elo rating back in 2015-16.

Only 10 teams in NBA history have moved on from a coach with a .500 record or better at this stage of a season — so it’s incredibly rare to see a move like this.

In Blatt’s case, behind-the-scenes turmoil within the Cavs organization reportedly led to Tyronn Lue replacing him as coach. Something similar might have played out in Milwaukee, as Griffin had already clashed with both Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis earlier in the season. (The Bucks’ veterans had reportedly “lost faith” in Griffin’s coaching before Tuesday’s announcement.)

And of course, Lue stepped in with Cleveland in 2016 and led them to the franchise’s only championship, thanks in part to some guys named LeBron James and Kyrie Irving. The Bucks are clearly hoping they can replicate that run, whether with Doc Rivers (whom CNN reported had accepted the job on Tuesday night) or any of the other names rumored as replacements for Griffin.

If Rivers does take over in Milwaukee, the first item on his to-do list will be to improve a defense that ranks 21st in efficiency this season, the Bucks’ worst showing on D since finishing 23rd under Jason Kidd in 2015-16 — and a huge dip from last year’s fourth-place defensive finish. It’s hard to conceive of a team led by Antetokounmpo being that mediocre defensively for an entire season.

But it’s worth wondering if the Bucks’ expectations might also simply be too high.

At the time of his firing, Griffin was actually tracking for more wins (57.2) than Milwaukee’s preseason Vegas over/under of 54.5 victories, which is usually a good way to keep your head-coaching job in the NBA. And while the defense did slip, the team’s signature offseason addition was Damian Lillard — a known defensive liability at guard. Some kind of defensive drop may have been inevitable with Dame playing 35 minutes a night. The Bucks’ D is bad when Lillard isn’t on the floor as well, so there are certainly gains to be made there, but the big question remains whether Milwaukee can maximize the offensive potential of its star duo together without suffering on defense.

That’s a puzzle Griffin obviously couldn’t solve, even if he was given a historically short amount of time to work on the problem.

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