Milwaukee Bucks general manager Jon Horst met with the local media before his team’s game against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday night at Fiserv Forum to address the firing of first-year head coach Adrian Griffin on Tuesday.

Griffin had directed the team to a 30-13 record, which was second in the Eastern Conference. It is the shortest full-time head coaching stint in franchise history and third-shortest in NBA history. The team announced Griffin’s hire June 6 after a lengthy search process following the firing of Mike Budenholzer on May 4.

Here are the key takeaways from Horst’s 15-minute news conference. Questions and answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.

In his opening statement, Horst said he would not comment on Doc Rivers, the veteran coach the team appears set to hire.

Why was Adrian Griffin fired?

Jon Horst: It’s part of my job. It’s our job to constantly evaluate and to learn and listen and just continue to figure out how to improve this team. For us, we felt like this was the right time, the right decision to make, and that we had an opportunity to improve the group. And there isn’t a specific instance. There isn’t a specific timing to it. It’s just going through it and evaluating and looking, the dynamic’s different. Giannis (Antetokounmpo) extended. Khris (Middleton) committed. Brook (Lopez) committed. We were able to acquire Dame (Lillard). These are hard windows to come by. These are special opportunities. We think we have a special group and believe in this team at a high level, and ownership, myself and Peter (Feigin, Bucks president), we’ve continued to be bold and to be aggressive in figuring out how to try to maximize these chances that we have. And that’s what we’re doing here.

Was there a misjudgment in the process to hire him?

Horst: Someone really wise once said looking back is ego, so I’m going to stay in the present and not look back. There’s no regrets. I believe in the hire that we made. I believe in the reasons we did it, the process we went through, and again, Adrian has contributed to this group. Part of why we are where we are today and who we are is because of him. This was an opportunity about going forward. Yeah, no regrets from me. No looking back. I believe in what we did why we did when we did it and believe in where we’re at today as well.

Did Adrian Griffin's lack of experience play into this decision?

Horst: It was a tough job and a great opportunity – both things were true – when we hired Griff. The dynamics and the things that changed after that I think created even more of an urgency and even more so. These are special opportunities. The talent became even more special. The commitment to the team even more significant. And I think that increased the urgency. It’s not because I’m afraid to be wrong. I’ve been wrong many a times. I believe Griff still is a head coach. Guy’s 30-13. It made this such a tough decision. This is an assessment and an evaluation for myself, Peter and our ownership group in how do we give this team the best resources to maximize this window. It’s way more about that and way less about what Griff did or didn’t do.

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Giannis Antetokounmpo said ‘we need to be coached better.’ Did player comments or conversations with the players play a role in this decision?

Horst: In fairness, he didn’t just say we need to be coached better. He talked about himself being better, his teammates, I think the equipment manager, the trainer, me, and kind of went through the whole list. This is not about players comments. This is not about things said or unsaid. Again, this is my job, this is the organization’s job at the top to evaluate every single day all areas of the organization and feel like whether we’re getting or not getting the most we can out of that group. If we feel like we could maximize the talent of this group better, we made a change. That’s why we made it.

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How can the Bucks go from good to great?

Horst: I think for me and my staff, we constantly are turning that over. We’re looking for ways to improve the roster. That’s not to say that we don’t believe in this group as constructed. I think this group as constructed has upside. I think we have yet to maximize what we can become. Some of that is timing, integrating a new star, integrating new pieces, a new system, Khris coming back and playing a real role and real minutes compared to what he’d done in the last year or so, and so I think there’s upside in the roster as constructed. I know we’re going to do our job to figure out if we can improve the roster, and then as part of this and why we’re sitting here today, I think there’s a coaching element where we have a chance to do better as well.

What are the Bucks looking for in a new head coach?

Horst: No surprise, we're trying to find – and you said "what we didn't have in Adrian Griffin?" I'm not going to comment – what we're looking for now is a path to go forward and maximize this group from a leadership perspective, from an experience perspective. We want to try to bring in a coach that can really take us to the next level where we think we can go with this group. That's not just about coaching. The players have to be better, they have to improve, my group has to continue figuring out how to improve the roster, but we think coaching is an element for us to get better.

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Did management address the players about this change? What is the timetable to make a hire?

Horst: It’s fast. The pace of these things is fast. So you do the best you can to communicate to folks in real time so they can hear from you, whether its text message, phone calls, maybe you see them in person. So that's a little bit scattered. I had an opportunity today, which was intentional, to get with the guys as a group before shootaround. And its just point blank, you share the facts, share the status of where we’re at. Why we did what we did. How we support them. What our process looks like going forward. Those are great conversations. It was a great opportunity to do it, I hope they appreciated it. It's the right thing to do. And timing wise going forward, we’ll be as urgent and as quick as we can to try and transition. Joe (Prunty) is in place, Joe’s a pro. He’s done this before. We have total confidence in his ability to help us in this transition; he’s also fully aware that he’s an interim coach at this point and we’re trying to hire a head coach.

What was the conversation like with ownership to make a change after just 43 games and now having to pay three head coaches this season?

Horst: I think it's less about a conversation or conversations. Those are hard decisions, those are hard discussions when they happen or have to happen. The last part is where I'll focus. It's way more about this ownership group – Jimmy and Dee Haslem, Wes Edens, Jamie Dinan – Peter's support, my ability to lead and be a part of this organization to try and push and do everything we can to resource this team. It's a belief in those guys. The guys that are gonna go out and play the Cleveland Cavaliers. We believe in this team at a super high level and want to make sure we're doing everything we can every step of the way. And that changes, it's not the same every day. You have to have a pulse for that, you have to explore that, you have to learn from that, and then if needed you need to make bold decisions. They've been unafraid and have supported us in doing that along the way, so I'm thankful for that.

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Is there enough time for the new head coach to make an impact?

Horst: Generally speaking NBA players, the NBA system, to me is incredible, how they can transition, adapt and adjust on the fly. Players that get traded, changes that happen in season all the time. Although it’s a condensed period of time calendar-wise I think in the world of the NBA and what in particular our really smart, professional and mature players can do, a great coaching staff around them, I believe that there is enough time for them to find an identity, find a rhythm together and continue to grow. So, it may feel shortened but the things that happen in the NBA happen quick all the time and transition happens all the time and I think we’ll be well adapted to it.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Bucks general manager Jon Horst on why team fired coach Adrian Griffin