The Bucks have won just 54% of their regular season games since firing Bud, and have went 3-8 in their playoff games. With Bud they won 66% of their regular season games and went 39-26 in their playoff games). As someone who was completely against firing Bud, I feel completely vindicated.
It was a classic example of the “Grass is always greener on the other side” mentality that plagues so much sports discourse. The longer a coach stays with a team the more a fan base will key in on their deficiencies but completely disregard the huge benefits they bring to a roster.
People view coaching as something that will just build from year to year which is often not the case. For example if Coach Bud had the Bucks doing 5 things at an elite level, but he was fired for 2 other things he was deficient at, people just assume that those 5 positive things will remain with the team and those deficiencies can just be improved on with a new coach. Around all major sports we see this is often not the case. Those positives that people start to trivialize aren’t inherent to that roster, and were actually key pieces to that coach’s coaching philosophy that people start minimizing over time.
As someone who viewed the Bucks as a conference powerhouse under Bud…to see him get fired after a playoff series in which Giannis missed 2 out of the 5 games (1 in which he only played 10 minutes). In a series he was coaching while his Brother died, was just insanity to me.
The way the Bucks fanbase/organization treated Bud was disgraceful, and they deserve everything that is currently happening with them.