The Bucks’ Window to Figure Things Out Is Getting Tighter and Tighter

Milwaukee went all in on Damian Lillard, then fired its new coach when it had the NBA’s second-best record. Will these moves lead to an NBA title?

Doc Rivers remembered the wind, those stiff, biting gusts that swept across Lake Michigan and through the sweatshirts of a group of teenagers running Hank Raymonds’s late-fall conditioning drills.

More than 40 years have passed since Rivers last lived in Milwaukee, since his three seasons at Marquette, since he banked in one of the most famous shots in Golden Eagles history, a 35-footer that beat fifth-ranked Notre Dame in 1981. A lot has changed since then. The seafood restaurant he frequented is gone. His favorite barbecue joint, too. Benji’s Deli, where former Bucks owner Herb Kohl, then a prominent Wisconsin businessman, would take Rivers to lunch every couple of weeks, is still there, still slinging Reuben sandwiches and beer-battered cod. But it’s the wind, though, that Rivers felt again in mid-February, as a realtor walked him through a waterfront condo, that brings the memories flooding back.

Lillard and the Freak have been working on weaponizing their two-man game :: Greg Nelson/Sports Illustrated

Milwaukee “changed me” Rivers told reporters when the Bucks introduced him as coach in January. As a player, certainly. Rick Majerus—who coined the nickname “Doc” when Glenn Rivers, then a gangly eighth-grader, showed up at a Marquette summer camp—took a lead role in Rivers’s development as an assistant on Raymonds’s staff. Majerus was tight with then-Bucks coach Don Nelson, who would buzz Rivers whenever he needed an extra body to practice. That experience, says Rivers, “told me I could be an NBA player.”

But it changed him as a person, too. Rivers, a heralded prospect, came to Marquette from outside Chicago with a familiar mindset. “Skate through and go to the pros,” says Rivers. Freshman year, he took political science. His first assignment was an essay. “Can’t remember on what,” says Rivers. “I was smart enough. I just couldn’t write.” But he thought it was O.K. His professor, Dr. Wolfe, gave him an F. Rivers went to him asking why. “He told me, ‘I’m not going to allow you to just get by,’” Rivers recalls. Rivers thought he was picking on him. But every week Wolfe would have Rivers over to his house to work on grammar. “And this was a poli-sci professor,” says Rivers. “He showed me there was value in more than just basketball.”

Rivers recounts this story from his office in Fiserv Forum, an office that, weeks earlier, belonged to someone else. The Bucks’ decision to fire Adrian Griffin mid-January was jarring. Milwaukee was 30–13 at the time, tied for the NBA’s second-best record, with its second-best offense. But the front office saw warning signs. A leaky defense that wasn’t getting better. A growing disconnect between the players and coach. Firing Griffin wasn’t a reaction to a singular moment. It was about seeing troubling trends and being proactive about changing them.

Enter Rivers, who was fired by Philadelphia last May. Rivers was available when Milwaukee conducted its coaching search last spring. The Bucks never called. “I believed they were going to rebuild the team,” says Rivers. As the season unfolded Rivers saw the success but, from afar, noted concerns. In December, Rivers, in his role with ESPN, was courtside for Milwaukee’s in-season tournament semifinal. The Bucks lost, surrendering 128 points to the Pacers. “I didn’t think they were connected as a group,” says Rivers, “offensively or defensively.”

Once on the inside, Rivers learned more. There was uncertainty. On his first day, Rivers asked the coaching staff what the Bucks’ identity was. “No one had an answer,” says Rivers. The communication was confusing. “Unfortunately for Griff, he had two staffs,” says Rivers. “Half of his staff was with Bud [former coach Mike Budenholzer], and then he had half of his staff. That doesn’t work.” When lead assistant Terry Stotts resigned after a conflict with Griffin, it got worse. “If I was a rookie coach and my lead assistant, who was next to the head coach, quit right before the season, the second guessing would start,” says Rivers. “When players see second-guessing among the staff, it’s over. That really hurt Griff, and that was really unfair.”

Rivers hasn’t complicated Milwaukee’s playbook. Rather, his mantra has been simplify. Simplify the offense, which wasn’t doing enough to feature Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard. The Freak–Dame pick-and-roll was effective; entering the All-Star break the Bucks averaged 1.23 points per pick, third best in the NBA, per Sportsradar. They just didn’t run it enough, ranking 25th in the number of pick-and-roll actions. At the Bucks’ first practice, Rivers ran dozens of pick-and-roll drills for the pair. Since the break the pair has run 6.1 pick actions per game together, up from 4.8 before it. “When they are making plays for each other,” says Rivers, “they are unguardable.” He told Malik Beasley, one of the NBA’s best shooters, to stop worrying about playmaking. “Just be who you are,” says Rivers. “It will all work out.”

Simplify the defense. “Do what you do harder and better than what they run,” says Rivers. On film, he noted the 6' 2" Lillard crashing the glass. “That’s a death sentence for a defense,” says Rivers. Against teams with nonshooters he has reinstalled Antetokounmpo, a former Defensive Player of the Year, in a roaming, free safety role. The Bucks lost seven of the first 10 games with Rivers on the sideline but, notably, were 10th in defensive efficiency during that stretch, up from 19th.

There’s optimism in Rivers’s voice. But he’s a realist, too. In 2016, Tyronn Lue took over for David Blatt midseason and guided Cleveland to a championship. But Lue had a year-plus of equity with the Cavaliers and a superstar, LeBron James, who believed in him. Rivers is an outsider whose relationship with Antetokounmpo and Lillard was little more than casual. Rivers was lampooned for saying he wouldn’t wish his situation on anyone at his introductory press conference, as if taking over a title challenger—while collecting a reported $40 million over the next three and a half seasons—was some kind of burden. The implication, though, was clear: Milwaukee has the talent to win a championship. But maybe not enough time to develop the chemistry needed to do it.

Rivers is no stranger to Milwaukee, but familiarizing himself with Giannis has taken some time :: Greg Nelson/Sports Illustrated

How’s it been? Lillard pauses to consider the question. It’s mid-February, days before the All-Star break, and Lillard is sitting behind a high-top table at a hotel in Memphis. How’s it been? It depends on what you are asking about. Personally, says Lillard, “it’s been a real transition.” At 33, this is the first time Lillard, who was acquired from the Trail Blazers in September, has been alone since he left Oakland for college. He built a support system in Portland, one that’s now gone. His three children stayed in Oregon with his ex-wife. Lillard’s downtime in Milwaukee is largely spent with his cousin Jon, rattling around a rented home playing Xbox and on FightHype streaming boxing videos.

Professionally it’s been, well, a transition. Lillard’s Bucks tenure can be summed up in stages. The first: shock. Lillard learned about the trade on Instagram, when he scrolled past a photo of him and Antetokounmpo in Bucks uniforms. “I thought it was speculation,” says Lillard. Moments later his agent, Aaron Goodwin, called confirming it. A text from Blazers GM Joe Cronin popped up. “He was telling me he called,” says Lillard. “But I didn’t see it.” Alone, Lillard started dialing family. He called his father. No answer. His mother. Nothing. His brother. Voicemail. He wandered downstairs, where he found his kids’ nanny. Needing to tell someone, Lillard blurted out, “I’ve been traded to Milwaukee.”

The next stage: excitement. It didn’t take long for Lillard to embrace the move. When he arrived in Milwaukee for his physical, Antetokounmpo met him in the training room. He asked for five minutes. They talked for an hour. About basketball. About trust. “I was just telling him, ‘Bro, there’s going to be a lot of s--- that probably takes place this season. But you’re never going to have to question where my head is,’ ” says Lillard. “There’s a lot of people with ability. But my biggest strength is mentally. I can be down bad and struggling, but you’re going to always be able to count on me.”

Early on, Lillard saw flashes of the potential in their partnership, and it helped that Stotts, Lillard’s coach for his first nine NBA seasons, was there. “I thought it would just start happening,” says Lillard. It didn’t, which led to the next phase: confusion. Sure, there was early success: three straight 30-plus point games in November, a game-winning buzzer beater to beat the Kings in January. But Lillard was searching. For the right role. For the right chemistry with Antetokounmpo. His shooting percentages dipped. For the first time in his career, he was indecisive. “I want to try to be complementary to how he plays,” says Lillard. “But I think the hardest part is just I’ve spent so much time knowing exactly how I was going to do this and do that and where I could get a shot at and when the ball was going to come. I was familiar with everything so I knew how to control it. I knew how to get what I wanted. And I think the biggest challenge here has been I don’t know where that is.”

There’s another stage, one Lillard hasn’t reached but believes is coming: vindication. Yes, the Bucks went 3–7 in Rivers’s first 10 games. But Lillard saw signs of progress. Stretches, he says. Of great pick-and-roll offense. Of connected defense. He believes in Rivers’s keep-it-simple approach. After the slow start under Rivers, Milwaukee won six straight, and the Bucks sit in second place as they visit conference-leading Boston Wednesday night. “Tell people what their jobs are,” says Lillard, “and people will usually do them well.” He shrugs off the criticism, mostly because he considers it uninformed. “This year more than anything I’ve learned that people don’t watch games,” says Lillard. “They look at a box score, they look at highlights or they look at what’s being said about games. But we’ve had moments. It is just not enough. People want it all the time, every time, and we have to do it more.”

The chemistry with Antetokounmpo is a work in progress. “We talk all the time,” says Lillard. “I’m not a fan of forcing a relationship to just blossom right away. It takes time. You got to go through the process of having a relationship.” Still, Rivers has looked for ways to speed it up. Recently, Lillard and Antetokounmpo flew separately to events in Portland. Rivers asked why they didn’t fly together. “Those are little things that will get them growing,” says Rivers. “They communicate, but they can communicate more. They have to.”

Shortly after accepting the job, Rivers gathered five members of the Bucks’ 2020 title team—Antetokounmpo, Brook Lopez, Khris Middleton, Pat Connaughton and Bobby Portis—along with Lillard. He urged them to take ownership of the team. Singling out Lillard and Antetokounmpo, he said they had to be dominant. “We have to establish who we are, how we are going to play and then just be us,” says Rivers. “When you play Denver, you know what’s coming. Same thing with Miami. You have to deal with it. That’s how we have to be. That’s how we’re going to win.”

In February, following an ugly loss to Memphis, Giannis called for urgency. “Enough with our s--- don’t stink mentality,” he says. “Do we really want it?” And there is urgency. Lillard is 33. Antetokounmpo is 29. Middleton, who has battled injuries the last two years, is 32. Antetokounmpo signed an extension last fall, but—as was the case with Lillard, who signed a max extension with the Blazers 12 months before asking out—contracts do not always mean commitment. Another early playoff exit could have consequences. “I know Dame—what, he came here to lose?” says Antetokounmpo. “He didn’t come here to lose. I believe that guy is one of the baddest motherf---ers out there. When he’s operating, we’re all behind him. We give him that confidence to lead; he is one of the toughest guys in the league. And that’s what we need him to do.”

It’s what Lillard wants. He’s had success. Four seasons of 49-plus wins. Eight trips to the playoffs. One to the conference finals. It’s the ring that’s eluded him. The challenges of this season have not discouraged him. They only harden his belief that success will follow. “When stuff like this starts happening, I start thinking there’s a reward coming,” he says. “Because I do s--- the right way. I don’t change. Some things take time. Especially the stuff that’s most rewarding.”