What Do You Deserve from Your Employer, Or, Meditations on Mike Budenholzer’s Firing from the Milwaukee Bucks
This past week, the Milwaukee Bucks parted ways with their head coach, Mike Budenholzer. The Bucks had the best record in the NBA this past season at 58-24, and had the #1 seed throughout the playoffs. However, this only lasted for one series, as the Bucks were eliminated by the #8 seed, the Miami Heat. It’s because of this disastrous (for pro sports) outcome that Budenholzer was fired.
“Ah, but Barb,” you say. “Your blog’s title is ‘What do you deserve from your employer.’ What does that have to do with the Bucks/Budenholzer situation?'”
My answer: Plenty.
You see, for the second year in a row, the Bucks went out early in the playoffs, though last year the Bucks at least got through the first round and past the #8 seed. (Early, in this context is, “Did not ascend to the NBA Finals.”) The Bucks feature possibly the best player in the NBA, Giannis Antetokounmpo. He’s in his prime right now at age 28, and the Bucks have been built around him for five-plus years now.
I say “five-plus” because Budenholzer was the coach for the past five years. Budenholzer’s record in the regular season was stellar at 271-120, which means the Bucks won almost seventy percent of their games.
Yep. No misprint. That’s how many wins Budenholzer had as the head coach of the Bucks: 271.
Not only that, Budenholzer coached the Bucks to the 2021 NBA Championship. The Bucks hadn’t won a championship in the NBA in fifty years, but they won with “Coach Bud.”
“Barb, you still haven’t gotten to the bit about what the coach deserves from his employer. I assume that’s where you’re going with this?”
Why, yes, dear reader. That is exactly — exactly — what I’m going for, and I’ll tell you why, too.
First, though, I want to explain something else to y’all, some of you who probably don’t know much about professional basketball. When you have the best team in the league, you are expected to win all the time, no matter what.
Including when one of your brothers dies in a car accident, which no one knew about until after the Bucks had lost in five games to the Heat.
See, Coach Bud didn’t want to make the playoffs about him, so he said nothing. But he was grieving. He found out just before game four that his brother had died. And it was in games four and five that some of the coach’s decisions seemed rather odd. But he is the youngest of seven kids. One of his elder brothers died, Budenholzer was being private as is his right about his brother’s passing, but I don’t think the coach understood just how strange grief can be when it comes to anything else. Most particularly the time sense, as when you grieve for someone you loved, nothing seems real for a while. And certainly time seems sometimes like it’s running away, and other times, it seems like it’s stopped.
I don’t know about you, but I think if someone who’s very good at their job, like Coach Bud, has a bad series or makes questionable decisions after his brother dies, I think you should give him a pass. He’s grieving, dammit! His brother’s life was more important than basketball, and yet because he is a professional, and because he’d been with his team all year, he stayed to do his best and coach his team.
I admire that impulse, but it may not have the right one.
That said, the Bucks did way wrong here. They should not have fired Coach Bud, not under these circumstances. Instead, they should’ve hired a top-flight assistant head coach perhaps to work on the defense (as the Bucks’ defense got torched by Heat superstar Jimmy “Buckets” Butler and were completely unable to stop him) and let the coach grieve his brother.
Why? Well, look again at the coach’s record. Think about the fact that two years ago, the Bucks won the NBA Championship for the first time in 50 years with this coach at the helm.
In most cases, employers realize if they have a great employee — and in any case, Coach Bud was just that — but the employee is a bit off due to grief or grieving, even if the employee maybe doesn’t even realize it (it’s possible the coach didn’t), you are supposed to let your employee take time off to deal with his grief.
In other words, you don’t fire the best coach in the NBA because he was off a bit for two games after his brother died. That’s dumb, to put it mildly, and more to the point, it’s an overreaction.
So, what does your employer owe you when you have something awful happen like a death in the family? They owe you time to grieve. They should give you time off from work, with pay, to go bury your sibling in a case like this.
You don’t deserve to be fired.
I don’t know Coach Budenholzer at all. But I do know this. What the Bucks did was classless, not to mention truly horrible behavior under the circumstances. They should not have done this. And as a Bucks fan, I am incensed.
Barb Caffrey's Blog 
Well said Barb
Thanks for another example of how money as the last say in sport. All the world over a Coach or Manager stumbles, one section of the fans will be out for their blood of course but it’s those who own the club and their backers will start getting twitchy who have the final say.
We know sometimes it’s for a Coach / Manager to go, probably through burn out or an inability to nuance their management skills to the different environment (new club). That said we all need to remember there is a human being there, one with a whole lot of responsibility, one who can plan and motivate their hearts out, yet at the end of the day, it’s all down to the team which have been sent out there.
European Soccer is fairly brutal in this area. A manager can lead a team to seasons of success, yet the year they stumble…out come to knives.
deteremineddespitewp
May 7, 2023 at 4:26 am
Yes. That is exactly it, Roger. They are human beings, first, last, and always, but we normally don’t think much about that because we’re more worried about whatever the team is doing or whatever our favorite player(s) is/are doing.
I know I am sometimes guilty of this, too, when it comes to players doing badly. One guy on the Brewers baseball team was doing so badly the last few weeks, I said he should’ve been DFA’d (designated for assignment, which means if he passes through waivers and no one picks him up, the player is sent to the minors; there are other things that can happen, but that’s the most usual consequence.)
Because of this happening to Coach Bud, I wondered about what I said about this baseball player. Perhaps he’s having a rough time in his personal life. (Not a death in the family, but maybe trouble with his wife/girlfriend or siblings or someone like that.) Perhaps he’s just having a rough stretch of days and needs time off.
I have to remember that when these players don’t do well, they’re still human. No one wants to do badly, after all; what’s the point of that?
And yes, it is all up to the team. The manager or coach can only do so much. In this case, our big star, Giannis, missed 13 free throws in the final game (game 5). Had he made even three, the Bucks would’ve won. I didn’t mention that because I felt the bigger issue was how the Bucks treated their excellent head coach, but you are absolutely right. When it comes down to it, it’s up to the players to play. The coach can only do so much, and blaming the coach rather than the players unless the coach is doing something egregious (which Coach Bud wasn’t) makes no sense.
Glad you enjoyed the blog, Roger. 🙂
Barb Caffrey
May 7, 2023 at 8:13 pm
Oh Barb I could transpose most of that onto our soccer team Aston Villa; based in Birmingham UK.
The teams seem to develop a bizarre knack of snatching defeat out of the jaws of certain victory. They can be heroes for a run of five games, fire up ‘the devoted’ with ideas of glory (or at least achievement), then splutter and stutter into mediocrity….We all know it’s going to happen and blame ourselves for being swept along in tides of tragic optimism.
Still then might end up in the Top Ten of the UK Premier League at the end of the season, which since they were in danger of relegation until a change in manager is something.
As our own team motto in a dour Birmingham accent goes…. ‘It Could Always Be Worse You Know’
deteremineddespitewp
May 8, 2023 at 2:33 am
Yup. I get it. 🙂
Barb Caffrey
May 8, 2023 at 5:33 pm
Why do we torture ourselves so🙃.
I can’t remember the exact details, but years back I was exchanging views with someone on WP about sport and they made reference to a baseball team (reasonably well known I think) known with affectionate exasperation by their fans as ‘The Bums’.
Of course we can call our team all sorts of things, but woebetide any outsiders or worse rival fan who does so!
deteremineddespitewp
May 9, 2023 at 3:16 am
That’s true, Roger.
I know the reason I do is that both of my parents were huge sports fans, and it was — and still is — a way to connect with them.
I know when the Dodgers were in Brooklyn, one of their affectionate nicknames from their own fans were “the Bums.” 😉 But I don’t think since they’ve been in LA that’s been the case. (I wasn’t born during the Brooklyn era, of course. They moved to LA long before I was born. But I’ve read books from players and writers of that era.) The NY Mets also were called ‘dem bums’ because they were almost hapless as a team the first few years. (Again, wasn’t born yet, but have read books.) One of the players, Marv Throneberry, hit a triple but didn’t touch first or second base, so was called out. (It’s very unusual, to say the least, that someone would miss putting his foot on a base, much less missing two bases!)
Barb Caffrey
May 9, 2023 at 10:58 pm
Thanks info for that Barb, I though there was an NY connection!😀
deteremineddespitewp
May 10, 2023 at 2:34 am
Nah. We’ve always followed Wisconsin sports teams. 😉 But I also follow San Francisco’s teams because that’s who my husband rooted for, if that matters. (Don’t know if it does, but I figure it can’t hurt anything either.)
Barb Caffrey
May 10, 2023 at 9:44 pm
I’m an Aston Villa fan by marriage. Folk come to clubs in all sorts of ways. How Tom Hanks got there I do not know.😀
I agree…..It’s a fun part of sport.
deteremineddespitewp
May 11, 2023 at 10:01 am
It definitely is. 🙂
Barb Caffrey
May 14, 2023 at 5:23 am
The coach may have missed an excellent opportunity to gather his team and honor his brother. By gathering his team and explaining that his brother died, but that he wanted to honor him by continuing to coach, that team would have played for an altogether different reason and with a different mindset. “Let’s win one for the coach and his brother” might have brought about an altogether different outcome. Being fired was indeed a classless act.
Kayelle Allen
May 7, 2023 at 7:47 am
I agree with you, Kayelle. I think Coach Bud was grieving so hard he had no idea what to say except to fellow coaches he’d known or worked with before. Head Coach Darvin Ham of the Lakers used to be a Bucks assistant, and it was because of him that we know now that Coach Bud’s brother passed on.
I agree 100% with you that had the coach realized that his team cared about him — I think they did and still do, most of them — they would’ve wanted to honor him and his brother.
I’m still very angry with Bucks management for doing this. It’s pointless, stupid, unnecessary, reactionary, and utterly wrong. And, as I said before — and as you agreed with! 😉 — an utterly classless act.
Barb Caffrey
May 7, 2023 at 8:16 pm