Monday Morning Media Roundup: May 14th, 2018

The NBA’s coaching landscape continues its endless off-season churn with plenty of positions opening and being filled all the time. This last week saw Dwane Casey out in Toronto, James Borrego in at Charlotte, and everyone and their sister in Milwaukee to interview for the Bucks’s open head coach position.

For GM Jon Horst and the team's front office the hiring process was always going to be a drawn-out affair. It seems they had interest in meeting with plenty of candidates and covering all their bases before narrowing down the list. Two weeks removed from the end of Milwaukee's season it would appear the team is getting closer to finalizing a short-list of potential hirees who will meet with ownership sometime this week. From there, Horst and the owners will presumably sit down to come to something resembling a consensus on a final hire.

As of this writing no favorite has seemingly emerged, though there's plenty of talk about whether a lengthier process might rob the Bucks of their prime choices (is Mike Budenholzer in danger of being snapped up by Masai Ujiri and the Raptors, for example?) Keep an eye out for a finalist list by mid-week, and hopefully we'll be back here next week with a new head coach to nitpick to death.

Let's roundup!

Q&A With General Manager Jon Horst (Bucks.com)

Direct from the Milwaukee Bucks Official Public Information Arm comes team general manager Jon Horst discussing the very general framework guiding management in their search for a head coach.

Anyone who can read the Horst tea leaves and find something of interest out of his relatively innocuous answers is invited to share their insider info. So far, it seems like the main qualities for any hire will include:

1. Ability to breathe
2. Ability to speak
3. Knows how to dribble a basketball

If you believe you fulfill those requirements, we invite you to apply for the position! It is only natural that a Brew Hooper ends up coaching the team at some point.

2017-’18 Milwaukee Bucks team grades & 2017-’18 Milwaukee Bucks player grades (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

We're simultaneously deep in both coach hiring season and season recap season for many teams across the NBA, and the Bucks are no exception. We’ve been running a series of recaps over the past few weeks and will continue to do so, but you'd also probably have interest in reading Matt Velasquez's grading of the year that was.

As the lead beat guy covering the team, Matt is as involved in the day-to-day goings on of the Bucks as anyone outside the organization can be. I'll leave his report card for your reading, but I agree with many of his insights and areas of focus for the team this off-season.

Bucks in search of identity (ESPN)

Eric Nehm goes in here to criticize what he views as a season full of incongruities for the Bucks: They touted a desire to be on the league's best defensive teams, but finished the year at 19th in defensive rating. Offense was supposed to stem from opportunities generated by that defense, but transition scoring wasn't a hallmark of this team's identity. The team didn't lack for talent, but more often than not they looked like something below a competitive NBA squad.

It'll be up to Horst and ownership to fix these false identities with the hiring of a head coach better equipped to make the more of the roster than Jason Kidd or Joe Prunty were able to. Given the disappointments of the past season that can't be that high of a bar to reach, right?

Maker: ‘’I’m excited to play with the national team for the next qualifying window’’ (FIBA.com)

It seemed like only a matter of time until Thon Maker got the call-up to play with the Australian national team, and now we seem to have an actual date for his debut: June 29th or July 2nd in World Cup qualifiers.

The games will be played against Japan and the Philippines, respectively, and it'll be an interesting experience seeing how Maker is utilized in a different playing scheme than the one he's been used to in Milwaukee during his first two seasons. How much time he'll see in an Aussie team stuffed with talent playing in leagues across the globe is unclear, but training with veterans of the international circuit can only be a positive for Thon's development over the summer.

Best of luck to Maker and the Boomers!

From the Social Media Realm

Survivor: Bucks Coaching Candidates Edition

Calling these rumors “inaccurate" would seem to denote just a sliver of “there's still a chance,” in my opinion:

Zach Lowe: Bucks superfan.

Congrats to Steve Bandes of the Wisconsin Herd for winning the G-League Exec of the Year award!

With the Conference Finals kicking off last night I think it more than appropriate to give you predictions for how I believe each series will play out. I go in with the disclaimer that this is being written before tip-off of either Game 1, so my votes are not biased by early results: Cavs in six, Warriors in five. My reasoning, you ask? I'm not 100% sure that the “let LeBron get whatever he wants and shut everyone else down” strategy will be as useful as it was against Ben Simmons and Philly for Boston, and the Golden State Warriors are still one of the greatest teams ever assembled. No, you will not get me to provide you statistical analysis to back either of those claims up.

So go ahead, kick up your feet and enjoy the chaos surrounding the Bucks for at least a few more days before something of significance happens and we rev the vicious cycle up once again.

Happy Monday!