Press Conference Highlights: Adrian Griffin Introduced As Bucks Head Coach

Over a week after the news initially broke, the Bucks finally dropped their official announcement that Adrian Griffin has been named the franchise’s seventeenth head coach late Monday afternoon:

Soon after, the team put forth word that an introductory press conference would occur the very next morning! Short notice, but never fear: Brew Hoop’s intrepid beat reporter Gabe Stoltz was there, alongside a bevy of other local media and a handful of players as well. In fact, some may raise an eyebrow at the six Bucks who showed up, because only half of them happen to have a guaranteed NBA contract with the team for next season:

Yes, that’s unrestricted free agents Joe Ingles and Meyers Leonard, two-way player A.J. “don't call me Griffin” Green (whose two-way deal may or may not cover next season), oft-discussed trade candidate Grayson Allen, arising sophomore MarJon Beauchamp, and Jevon Carter, who can opt out of his contract this summer. Interesting!

But let’s get back to the new guy. If you’d like to watch the entirety of the press conference, which the Bucks streamed live, you can do so here. You’ll hear many familiar voices asking a variety of questions; some boilerplate and others fans probably are more curious about given the situation Griffin is coming into as he returns to Milwaukee. After the larger forum concluded, reporters had a chance to get one-on-one with the coach in smaller scrums, including Gabe. Here are a couple of the questions he got to ask the Bucks’ new boss, and Griffin didn’t disappoint with the insight:

A big takeaway I and others had from Griffin’s intro was how well-spoken he was. When you have a PhD—a path was inspired to pursue by his late father, who always wanted the degree—in leadership studies, I’d wager you’re probably a pretty charismatic person. While Bud wasn’t terse with his answers, depending on what you were asking him, he wasn’t particularly eloquent in terms of diction or the substance of his response. We’ll see what Griffin is like in a post-game presser, especially after an L, but early returns are good in the quotation department.

The questions predictably didn’t get into the waters of the allegations of Griffin’s ex-wife of domestic abuse, and the lawsuit Griffin filed against her in response. That’s not necessarily the right time and place, but the scrums away from the cameras were, so Steve Megargee of the AP, and Lori Nickel and Jim Owczarski of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did the important work of bringing this up. Predictably, Griffin answered in much the same way he did when the allegations were made in 2020:

Before anyone brings this up, as it has been from some complete clowns in the mentions to these reporters: yes, these are fair questions to ask, even considering that Griffin’s children have taken their father’s side. These reporters are doing their job, and doing it well; just because you personally might not have these particular questions, others do. Let me put this next statement forth with the strongest possible emphasis:

If you’re going to complain about reporters “attacking” someone by bringing up these allegations which are absolutely relevant, don’t attack the reporters personally for doing so, lest you want your own hypocrisy to show.

More on this at another time, but for now, handwaving the situation away—or worse—is uncovering the ugly side of our fanbase.

Though GM Jon Horst was also on hand during the first portion of the interview, I’m not sure that he stuck around to answer further questions from the press, so perhaps he didn’t have the chance to describe how the Bucks addressed this situation during their search. For Griffin’s part, he believed Horst did look into them, but we may not know how closely or to what end until we hear from the GM himself.

For now, though, there’s plenty to digest from Adrian Griffin’s first appearance as the Milwaukee Bucks’ newest head coach. What takeaways did you have from the whole process? Let us know below.