New owners often means changes are coming. Like any person buying any business, they want people they trust close to them. That means changes.
The Milwaukee Bucks got new owners, hedge-fun billionaires Wesley Edens and Marc Lasry, and among the changes they made was to bring in Jason Kidd, pulling him out of Brooklyn (where Kidd made a failed power play to get team GM powers) and bringing star power to the Milwaukee bench. It was well within their rights to make that move — but they handled it sloppily. The owners (and Kidd) violated the unwritten code of coaches, having a public discussion of a coaching seat while somebody else was already sitting in it. Team GM John Hammond even didn’t know about the owners’ moves.
All of that caught that current (and about to be ex) coach Larry Drew by surprise, he told Charles F. Gardner of the Journal Sentinel.Larry Drew said he was “blindsided” by the way he lost his job as head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks…
“From their (the owners’) standpoint, there’s no set time for these type of things,” Drew said in an interview with the Journal Sentinel. “It caught me in a position when I least expected it. But I know how these things work. I don’t have any hard feelings, any grudges against anybody.
“Marc (Lasry) called me and I just wished him luck. I’ve got to keep moving forward.”
Drew landed on his feet, he’s a lead assistant now for David Blatt in Cleveland.
Drew also sounded like the veteran coach, choosing not to be bitter about how this went down but rather saying these things happen to coaches and he just has to move on.
The Bucks have an interesting roster loaded with potential — Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jabari Parker, O.J. Mayo, John Henson, Larry Sanders — and the challenge is to develop it, get that team to be professional on and off the court. Can Kidd, who has one year of coaching experience with a veteran team built to win now (that didn’t) do that? Good question. Did Edens and Lasry learn a lesson about doing business in an up-front manner and telling the people around them what they’re thinking? Time will tell.
Drew doesn’t care much about those things. He’s moved on.
