By Matt Mueller Culture Editor Published Jan 23, 2024 at 2:46 PM Photography: Milwaukee Bucks

Between a shocking first-round playoff exit and trading from Dame Lillard, it's been a 365 days of surprising twists and turns for the Milwaukee Bucks – and it continues today with reports that the team has fired first-year head coach Adrian Griffin. 

The bombshell comes first reported from ESPN's scoop-ologist Adrian Wojnarowski. 

The Bucks confirmed the news on Tuesday afternoon.

"This was a difficult decision to make during the season,” said Bucks General Manager Jon Horst, in a release. "We are working immediately toward hiring our next head coach. We thank Coach Griffin for his hard work and contributions to the team."

Hired just this past summer to replace fired Finals-winning head coach Mike Budenholzer, Adrian Griffin's rookie season as an NBA head coach will end up ending barely through its halfway mark. And if someone were to just glance at the standings, it wouldn't appear much was going wrong: The Bucks currently sit in second place in the Eastern Conference with a 30-13 record and hold one of the five best records in the entire league.

However, for a team with significant championship ambitions, how the standings look don't entirely line up with how the team's actually looked on the court, as Milwaukee's rarely looked dominant and struggled to hold even bottom-feeder teams on defense. That's not entirely surprising considering the Bucks traded away defensive stud Jrue Holiday ... but they also still have former Defensive Player of the Year nominees Giannis and Brook Lopez on the court, enough that they shouldn't be averaging the sixth most points to opponents on the season. And that's against the likes of the Pistons and Wizards – not the level of competition you can expect to see in the postseason. 

Add in rumblings of discord and frustration in the locker room – as well as the unexpected departure of veteran assistant coach Terry Stotts in the preseason – to the defensive fall-off and Finals ambitions, and Griffin's dismissal shouldn't come as an entirely shocking development, even if the extremely short leash given to his tenure is. 

So what next for the suddenly scrambling Bucks? According to Wojnarowski, the team expects to promote current assistant coach Joe Prunty to head coach – a familiar sentence for Bucks fans, as Prunty previously took over during the 2017-18 season after Jason Kidd was also fired midway through the campaign. However, Wojnarowski reports that Prunty isn't expected to be the permanent solution – and that the Bucks are currently looking at big-name veteran coaching options for the job, including former Celtics, Sixers and Clippers coach (as well as Marquette alum) Doc Rivers. 

Stay tuned to OnMilwaukee for more updates on the suddenly very active Bucks head coach carousel. And as for the actual on-court action, the Bucks will be back in town at Fiserv Forum for their next three games: two against the Cavs on Wednesday and Friday, followed by the New Orleans Pelicans on Saturday night. For all your Bucks pre- and postgame plans, click here. 

Matt Mueller Culture Editor

As much as it is a gigantic cliché to say that one has always had a passion for film, Matt Mueller has always had a passion for film. Whether it was bringing in the latest movie reviews for his first grade show-and-tell or writing film reviews for the St. Norbert College Times as a high school student, Matt is way too obsessed with movies for his own good.

When he's not writing about the latest blockbuster or talking much too glowingly about "Piranha 3D," Matt can probably be found watching literally any sport (minus cricket) or working at - get this - a local movie theater. Or watching a movie. Yeah, he's probably watching a movie.