Here are all the head coaches in Milwaukee Bucks history
The Milwaukee Bucks will be looking for their 18th head coach after firing Adrian Griffin on Tuesday in the midst of his first season.
Here's a full rundown of Bucks coaches:
Larry Costello
Seasons: 9 (1968-76)
Record: 410-264 (61%)
Playoff seasons: 6 (37-23)
Conference titles: 2 (1971 championship, 1974 runner-up)
One of the founding fathers of Bucks basketball was a player through the 1968 season but immediately transitioned to coaching when he was hired by the Bucks at age 37. He was a six-time all-star and NBA champion as a player, winning in 1967 with the 76ers. As a coach, he was on the sidelines for the quickest expansion-to-title run in pro sports history, helped dramatically by the drafting of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1969. He posted a 37-23 record in the playoffs (.617), twice leading the Bucks to the finals (1971, 1974) and overseeing the 1971 NBA champion as a 39-year-old. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last year and is one of 14 men to win an NBA title as a player and head coach.
More: The Bucks' title run of 2021 helps highlight a Hall of Fame push for former coach Larry Costello
Don Nelson
Seasons: 11 (1976-87)
Record: 540-344 (61%)
Playoff seasons: 9 (42-46)
Conference titles: 0
You think Favre to Rodgers was an amazing sequence of succession? What about this? Nelson eventually became the all-time winningest coach in NBA history (a mark surpassed by Gregg Popovich in 2022), and it got started with his decade of excellence in Milwaukee.
Like Costello, he went straight from a player at the end of the 1976 season (he won five NBA titles with Boston as a player) and directly entered the coaching ranks, joining Milwaukee as an assistant coach for one year. He was hired as the lead man at age 36 following Costello's resignation early in the 1976-77 season. Nelson won NBA coach of the year in 1983 and 1985, but despite leading the Bucks to the conference finals three times and the conference semifinals nine times, his teams never broke through to the NBA Finals.
Nelson was inducted into the Pro Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012.
Del Harris
Seasons: 5 (1987-92)
Record: 191-154 (55%)
Playoff seasons: 5 (6-15)
Conference titles: 0
Harris was an assistant coach to Nelson in 1986-87 before taking the reins; it was his second stop as a head coach after four seasons in Houston. He won only one playoff series during his tenure in Milwaukee but took the Bucks to the playoffs four straight years before he stepped down 17 games into the 1992-93 season to focus on his role as Bucks vice president of operations, though Harris was relieved of that role at the end of the regular season, as well. Harris also earned induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022.
Frank Hamblen
Seasons: 1 (1992)
Record: 23-42 (35%)
Playoff seasons: 0
Hamblen had been Harris's top assistant before he took over early in the 1992-93 season, but he wasn't asked to return as head coach after the season; he nonetheless remained with the team as an assistant coach for the next four years under Mike Dunleavy. Though he spent four decades on NBA sidelines, he only served as a head coach one other year, filling in for Rudy Tomjanovich with the Lakers in 2004-05, but once again had a long career as a Lakers assistant both before and after the appointment.
Mike Dunleavy
Seasons: 4 (1992-96)
Record: 107-221 (33%)
Playoff seasons: 0
The former Bucks player and assistant coach had been head coach with the Lakers for two years before coming on board at age 38 as head coach and vice president of basketball operations, essentially the general manager role. He was asked to surrender the head-coaching gig after four years but stayed on one more year as leader of basketball operations when Dunleavy and owner Herb Kohl couldn't agree on a buyout that would have allowed Dunleavy to leave the organization entirely, creating an awkward situation. A year later, he was indeed gone from his role in the front office, as well.
Chris Ford
Seasons: 2 (1996-98)
Record: 69-95 (42%)
Playoff seasons: 0
He'd been head coach in Boston for five years and had a longstanding connection to the Celtics franchise. His stay in Milwaukee was brief after two losing seasons, the first two years with Ray Allen on the team. The Bucks dealt with a litany of injuries in his second year.
More: Former Milwaukee Bucks coach Chris Ford dies at 74
George Karl
Seasons: 5 (1998-2003)
Record: 205-173 (54%)
Playoff seasons: 4 (14-18)
Conference titles: 0
The 2022 Basketball Hall of Fame inductee brought excitement back to Bucks basketball, most obviously with the 2001 run to the Eastern Conference finals, but the Bucks had winning seasons in all five of his years. He'd had a successful run in Seattle and reached the NBA Finals in 1996, but a strained relationship with his superiors made him available. His tenure in Milwaukee wasn't always rosy, either, with reported arguments between Karl and some of his players. But the Bucks hadn't won a playoff series in 12 years until that 2001 campaign and didn't win another one for 18 years (in 2019).
Terry Porter
Seasons: 2 (2003-05)
Record: 71-93 (43%)
Playoff seasons: 1 (1-4)
Conference titles: 0
Porter was one of the state's best basketball stories, a Milwaukee native who played at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point who became a two-time NBA all-star in Portland and played in the NBA Finals. He was hired at age 40 and led the Bucks to a .500 season in his first campaign. After a tough second season, general manager Larry Harris indicated publicly that Porter would be back, but then changed his mind a month later, shortly before the Bucks made the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft (Andrew Bogut).
Terry Stotts
Seasons: 2 (2005-07)
Record: 63-83 (43%)
Playoff seasons: 1 (1-4)
Conference titles: 0
The former Bucks assistant under Karl had gotten head-coaching experience in Atlanta, though the Bucks had hoped to lure Larry Brown or Flip Saunders to Milwaukee. Stotts came on board with a newly signed Michael Redd and newly drafted Bogut, but he didn't make it two full seasons, fired late in the 2006-07 campaign and replaced by assistant Larry Krystkowiak, who had been interviewing to become head coach at Utah. Stotts would find success later in his coaching career, overseeing a series of winning seasons in Portland over a nine-year tenure beginning in 2012.
Larry Krystkowiak
Seasons: 2 (2007-08)
Record: 31-69 (31%)
Playoff seasons: 0
As it turned out, Krystkowiak would be head coach at Utah in due time, leading the basketball program from 2011-21. The former Bucks standout didn't fare well in his one season and extra 18 games as a head coach, and new general manager John Hammond made the move shortly after his hire.
Scott Skiles
Seasons: 5 (2008-13)
Record: 162-182 (47%)
Playoff seasons: 1 (3-4)
Conference titles: 0
Stop us if you've heard this before, but Milwaukee hired another former Bucks player in Skiles, who was 44 and had been fired the previous Christmas after four-plus seasons leading the Chicago Bulls. It was occasionally acrimonious, and reporting indicated Skiles didn't want to return after the 2012-13 season. After a string of four losses that dropped the Bucks to 16-16, the coach and franchise agreed to part ways. Skiles was at the helm with the "Fear The Deer" Bucks of 2010 nearly upset Atlanta in the first round of the playoffs.
Jim Boylan
Seasons: 1 (2013)
Record: 22-28 (44%)
Playoff seasons: 1 (0-4)
Conference titles: 0
Oddly enough, the former Marquette University standout had been the man replacing Skiles on an interim basis once before, in Chicago. Boylan played out 2013 and was on the sidelines for a 4-0 series sweep against Miami in the first round. He was later on the coaching staff of the 2015-16 Cleveland Cavaliers squad that defeated the 73-9 Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.
Larry Drew
Seasons: 1 (2013-2014)
Record: 15-67 (18%)
Playoff seasons: 0
The former Atlanta Hawks coach was brought in to guide a team with rookie Giannis Antetokounmpo and low expectations, but when injuries ravaged the roster, the team recorded its worst season ever. And when Herb Kohl sold the team, Drew became a sudden casualty. Marc Lasry and Wes Edens had already negotiated with Jason Kidd to become head coach.
Jason Kidd
Seasons: 4 (2014-18)
Record: 139-152 (48%)
Playoff seasons: 2 (4-8)
Conference titles: 0
Here began the ascension of Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks, even though Kidd's teams lost both their playoff series and never fared better than 42-40. He was fired midway through the 2017-18 season despite support from Antetokounmpo. The Basketball Hall of Famer as a player may have played a role in nurturing a winning environment in Milwaukee, though it's ultimately hard to say, and he never got to coach inside Fiserv Forum.
Joe Prunty
Seasons: 1 (2018)
Record: 21-16 (57%)
Playoff seasons: 1 (3-4)
Conference titles: 0
Kidd's interim replacement did an admirable job for the rest of the 2017-18 season, and the Bucks took favored Boston to the brink before falling in seven games in the first round of the playoffs.
Mike Budenholzer
Seasons: 5 (2019-23)
Record: 271-120 (69%)
Playoff seasons: 5 (39-26)
Conference titles: 1 (2021 NBA title)
The former Spurs assistant brought the Bucks to new heights, making the playoffs all five seasons, achieving the No. 1 seed in the East three times and winning the 2021 NBA championship. He owns the best regular-season winning percentage of any Bucks coach and the second-best playoff winning percentage, behind only Costello. Milwaukee's perplexing playoff struggles ultimately proved to be his undoing.
More: From focus to adjustments: Why the Milwaukee Bucks fired coach Mike Budenholzer
Adrian Griffin
Seasons: 1 (2023-24, partial)
Record: 30-13 (70%)
Playoff seasons: Not applicable
Conference titles: Not applicable
Griffin was hired to provide a new voice for the Bucks and lead them to more playoff success than in the previous two seasons under Budenholzer.
But, despite a .798 winning percentage, good for second place in the Eastern Conference at the time of Griffin's firing, the Bucks defense was a consistent issue. While Milwaukee was second in the league in points per game, at 124.6, it was 25th in points allowed per game, at 120.5.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Bucks head coaches: A history
