You don’t exactly have to be an NBA insider to know who Taylor Jenkins is. But you could probably take a bar stool next to him, flip on NBA TV, and still not recognize the man pegged as favorite for the vacant Milwaukee Bucks head coaching post.
This is, of course, no slight to Jenkins, or even to your own NBA knowledge. Because it’s not like the average Bucks fan spends much time watching Memphis Grizzlies highlights, even though Jenkins enjoyed more than a few during his five-plus seasons as their head coach. Right up until they fired him last season with a 44-29 record and nine games left until the playoffs.
On the surface, getting kicked to the curb like that might raise red flags for Jenkins, who went 250-214 while taking Memphis from nonfactor to contender. But after helping build that team from scratch, just when Memphis seemed to be peaking, the Grizzlies became something of a circus, beset by injuries to key players and the crippling suspensions of star player Ja Morant for off-court issues. It went downhill from there.
How much blame for that decline should lay at the feet of Jenkins? And how much blame goes to an irresponsible star and a Grizzlies front office that micromanaged Jenkins and his staff? Those are the questions the Bucks brass has to answer. And they’re clearly well down that path, having flown to Memphis to meet with Jenkins.
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It’s a path worth exploring, because there’s clearly a lot to like about Jenkins. He’s already embarked on one successful rebuild, and this Bucks job certainly falls into the rebuilding category. He also knows Milwaukee, having spent the 2018-19 season as a Bucks assistant under Mike Budenholzer.
You might remember how a guy named Giannis won his first MVP award in that season. Not that Jenkins was overly responsible for this, of course, but having a prior relationship with Giannis, brief as it was, can’t hurt.
Because for all the speculation about his future, and for as rough a year as he and the Bucks just endured, Giannis remaining in Milwaukee remains Milwaukee’s best route to winning. At least it does in the remotely near future. And that can’t happen without a rock-solid partnership between coach, star and surrounding cast.
Of course, Jenkins isn’t the only name on the Bucks’ radar. Current Bucks assistant Darvin Ham, who had a stint leading the Los Angeles Lakers, has his admirers. San Antonio Spurs associate head coach Sean Sweeney, who built a close relationship with Giannis while an assistant on Jason Kidd’s staff, also has a lot going for him. Either would make sense.
But the closer you look at Jenkins, the more he seems like the strongest of fits. He’s built teams around young players, and he’s also worked with stars. He was even there at the beginning of Giannis and the Bucks becoming great.
Perhaps he can help them do so again.
