NBA Rumors: Insiders 'Extremely Skeptical' Mike Budenholzer Will Continue as Bucks HC

Mike Budenholzer coached the Milwaukee Bucks to the NBA championship in 2021, but his job is reportedly anything but safe just two years later.

ESPN's Zach Lowe discussed as much on his podcast (h/t RealGM) following Milwaukee's stunning first-round exit against the Miami Heat:

"There's some losses for which there's just no going back. You cannot come back the same team. And the Bucks cannot come back the same team from this. I don't know how it will go...

"League insiders, you don't really have to be an insider, but league insiders are extremely skeptical that Mike Budenholzer can return as head coach of the Bucks after this. He has, according to [Adrian Wojnarowski], his last extension which happened after they won the title runs through the '24-25 season, so he has two years left. I just don't see any coming back from it. It's just logic.

"I think the league insiders are going to be right. I just don't see any other way."

Shams Charania of The Athletic echoed those sentiments, saying the coach's status is "very much shaky."

From a strictly wins-and-losses standpoint, it's difficult to criticize Budenholzer.

He is 271-120 in five seasons with the Bucks and led them to the playoffs all five years. The 2021 championship run will go down in franchise lore, and the team also advanced to the 2019 Eastern Conference Finals and finished with the best record in the league this season.

However, he has been criticized for failures to make adjustments and has a history of playoff disappointments. Stephen Noh of Sporting News noted his teams have been eliminated by lower seeds in four of his nine playoff appearances, with none as shocking as the most recent one.

The Bucks didn't just lose to the eighth-seeded Heat that needed to escape the play-in tournament just to get there—they lost in five games. They had no answers for Jimmy Butler, and the lack of timeout usage in crunch time of Wednesday's Game 5 loss was jarring.

Butler tied the game in the final second of regulation, and Milwaukee didn't call a timeout to set up a final shot. Then in overtime, it didn't even get a shot off in the final seconds while trailing with a chance to win, even though it had a timeout.

It put Budenholzer under the spotlight heading into an offseason when Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez will be free agents, and this latest exit might ultimately cost him his job.