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Talk about a familiar name coming out of left field! Beno Udrih, former Milwaukee Buck/Spur/Knick/Grizzly/King/Piston/Heat/Magic guard, is set to be named the Wisconsin Herd’s next head coach:
13-year NBA veteran Beno Udrih – a two-time champion with the Spurs – is becoming the new head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks’ Wisconsin Herd G League team, sources say. Udrih has spent time as a G League assistant coach, Pelicans assistant and pro scout for Hawks last season.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) August 9, 2023
I suppose I hadn’t even considered the fact that Mike Budenholzer’s canning would have left the Herd’s top spot open by necessity. As it is, Chaisson Allen had been replaced by TBD on the Herd website sometime in the previous few months on the Herd’s website, and Udrih will now be taking TBD’s spot.
Beno retired from his playing days back in 2021 after a career that saw him serving far and wide across the NBA. He spent the entirety of 2011-2012 with Milwaukee; a team that went 31-35 in a lockout-shortened season. Mercifully (for him), he was shipped out the following year as part of the Tobias Harris trade that brought the Bucks 32 games of JJ Redick mania. A franchise mired in such abject mediocrity if there ever was, and this guy was inadvertently part of that heritage.
I looked up “Beno Udrih Bucks highlights” on YouTube and this is the best I could find:
Since stepping away from the court, Udrih has continued to wander from organization to organization, spending time as an assistant coach both in the G League and the NBA, and also as a scout (per his LinkedIn).
His time in the G League was spent with the Westchester Knicks — he joined in January of 2020 and the league cancelled the rest of the season that March; Udrih would depart for New Orleans that November. It isn’t quite clear how involved he was with the Pelicans staff during his stint from November 2020 through June 2022 as he isn’t even listed on the assistant coach/staff pages I can look up, but let’s be charitable and assume he’s largely responsible for Devonte’ Graham and Jose Alvarado’s development. That’s nothing to sneeze at.
I’ve no idea what connections he may have with new Bucks coach Adrian Griffin besides maybe having good vibes and a solid basketball mind, but given how little the Herd/most G League teams are utilized by their parent clubs, I suppose it doesn’t really matter. If he can take his marching orders to feed MarJon Beauchamp and Andre Jackson Jr. 40 minutes and 20+ shots apiece when they’re occasionally exiled to Oshkosh, he’ll do just fine.
Here’s hoping he can help along the development of a player or two from the young guys he’ll be tasked with leading. Good luck to him!
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