Bucks coach Doc Rivers was recently inducted into the Hall of Fame, and there may be more news coming from him in the months ahead.
Marc Stein, in his latest newsletter, writes that there is a growing sense that Rivers and the Bucks could either part ways or change his responsibilities after a season that has gone off the rails, including a 31-47 record and the franchise growing increasingly at odds with star Giannis Antetokounmpo.
While Stein doesn’t specify what such a restructuring would look like, the implication is that it could include a move to the front office.
“At the very least, Rivers’ Springfield induction in August, at age 64, has helped fuel the notion that he will not be coaching the Bucks after the regular season concludes,” Stein writes.
Jake Fischer, also of the Stein Line, writes (via Twitter) that there is a lot of change expected to come out of the Bucks organization after this season.
Stein adds that former Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins is seen as a potential top candidate to replace Rivers should the Bucks decide to move on this summer.
We have more updates from Stein:
- The Bulls may be weighing the future of executive vice president Arturas Karnisovas, as the team will miss the playoffs for the fourth straight season. Chicago has made the playoffs once during Karnisovas’ tenure, a first-round exit in 2022 against the Bucks, and has struggled to find a direction or extract peak value in trades. Stein writes that meetings to determine his future with the team will be taking place soon.
- Despite the uncertainty around the shape of the front office, the Bulls would like to retain head coach Billy Donovan, Stein writes, noting that the team denied the Knicks’ request to interview him for their head coaching vacancy last summer before signing him to a multi-year extension. Donovan has recently been linked to the UNC head coaching job, but Stein writes that the Bulls’ coach will likely want to wait until after the season concludes on April 12 to meet with UNC, and the university may want to make a decision sooner than that.
- The Trail Blazers may be one of the teams this offseason looking for a new coach. New owner Tom Dundon is said to be looking at the coaching landscape as he determines interim head coach Tiago Splitter‘s future with the team. Stein writes in the newsletter that there’s an expectation that this summer could bring in more coaching movement than last year, and Splitter, who took over at the beginning of the season following the arrest of Chauncey Billups, could be one of the coaches on the move.