MILWAUKEE — Weeks of interviews have left the Milwaukee Bucks’ brass with plenty of options for the franchise’s next head coach. While it won’t be an easy decision, one national NBA newsbreaker has reason to believe the pool has been reduced to just three primary candidates.
As reported on Monday by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowki, the Milwaukee Bucks have narrowed their search down to three top candidates: former Toronto Raptors coach Nick Nurse, Golden State Warriors associate head coach Kenny Atkinson, and Toronto assistant Adrian Griffin. Bucks leaders are expected to meet with all three of them sometime this week, Woj reports.
Milwaukee decided to move on from championship coach Mike Budenholzer following the team’s devastating first-round upset loss to a Miami Heat ball club grasping into a 3-0 lead over the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals. Coach Budenholzer won a championship with Milwaukee in 2021 and had the best regular-season record of any head coach over the last five seasons.
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Nurse, 55, is renowned for his creative defensive schemes and expert execution during Toronto’s NBA Finals run in 2019. The following year in 2020, Nurse was named the NBA’s Coach of the Year as the Raptors secured the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference despite their star player, Kawhi Leonard, departing for L.A.
His top assistant, Griffin, has been a riser in head coaching candidacy over decades in the NBA. The 48-year-old is a former NBA player himself and has been on the bench in Milwaukee — the first top in his NBA coaching career — Chicago, Oklahoma City and Orlando.
Atkinson is largely credited with establishing a winning culture for the upstart Brooklyn Nets prior to the deals that brought Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving to the franchise. He was also and assistant with the Los Angeles Clippers before joining Steve Kerr’s bench in Golden State.
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