Doc Rivers was officially named as a member of the 2026 class for the Basketball Hall of Fame on Saturday. The honor is a neat bow on a coaching career that has spanned almost three decades and included a championship with the Boston Celtics in 2008. But now, as his Milwaukee Bucks near the end of a disappointing season, his time in his current job is potentially nearing its end.
According to Marc Stein, there is “an anticipation that Bucks coach Doc Rivers and the franchise could be heading for some sort of parting or job restructuring after such a trying 2025-26 campaign.” Rivers took the job in the middle of the 2023-24 season after Adrian Griffin was fired despite a 30-13 record in his opening season. The message in that decision was clear: the Bucks felt ready to contend for a championship and needed a proven head coach to get them there.
Yet Rivers finished his first season in Milwaukee with a 17-19 record. The Bucks won 48 games a year later, but were knocked out of the playoffs in five games by the Indiana Pacers. Now, with Giannis Antetokounmpo’s future in Milwaukee on the line, the Bucks will miss the postseason for the first time since 2016.
Though the roster was diminished by Damian Lillard’s torn Achilles last spring and his subsequent replacement by Myles Turner, Milwaukee has only managed a 17-19 record with Antetokounmpo on the floor this season. Despite an offense that rates among the very best shot-making groups in basketball, the Bucks have struggled in almost every other regard. They don’t rebound or defend at a high level and are net negative in both turnovers and free throws by meaningful margins.
Rivers is under contract through next season, and he is owed a substantial enough sum that one of his players, Bobby Portis, recently speculated that he wouldn’t retire to give it up. As Stein notes, though, it’s possible that the Bucks could move Rivers into a front office role instead of firing him outright or watching him retire.
So, who would be atop Milwaukee’s list of possible Rivers replacements? According to Stein, former Memphis Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins “has already emerged as a likely prime candidate.” Jenkins spent his entire assistant coaching career working under Mike Budenholzer, first in Atlanta, and then in Milwaukee, though only for a single season. That gives the Bucks some organizational familiarity with Jenkins, but competition for his services will likely be steep among teams that make changes in the coming weeks and months.
Bucks governor Wes Edens has already said that Antetokounmpo will either be extended or traded this offseason. One way or another, that means this team will be transitioning into a new roster this offseason. They will either secure an extension and spend their remaining draft capital trying to build around Antetokounmpo or they will move him and launch a rebuild. Either way, it’s starting to look like they’ll have a new coach leading the way no matter who is wearing their uniform next season.
