In a statement released on Thursday, Bucks general manager Jon Horst stated, “The decision to make this change was very difficult.” “Bud guided our club into an era of consistent success, to the Bucks’ first championship in fifty years, and for five amazing seasons. We are appreciative of Bud’s contribution to the winning and leadership cultures in Milwaukee.

We can use this as a chance to refocus and redouble our efforts as we work to prepare for our upcoming championship season.

During Budenholzer’s five seasons, the Bucks had the best regular season record in the league and the most wins overall in both the regular season and the playoffs of any team. In Milwaukee, he recorded a regular season record of 271-120 and a postseason record of 39-26.

Giannis Antetokounmpo, the two-time MVP, led Budenholzer’s Bucks to success that the team hadn’t had since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played for the Milwaukee Bucks in the early 1970s.

However, the Bucks were unable to duplicate their regular-season dominance in the postseason, with the significant exception of that 2021 championship season.

Despite having the top playoff seed in the league for three seasons, the Bucks never made it to the NBA Finals. In the 2019 Eastern Conference finals, they led Toronto 2-0 before dropping their next four games. In the second round of the 2020 East semifinals at the Walt Disney World playoff bubble, they were defeated 4-1 by the Miami Heat.

The playoff exits this year was very painful.

The eighth-seeded Heat defeated the Bucks 4-1 after the team collapsed in the fourth quarter of both of its previous two games. They were the only top seed to lose more than one playoff game and only the sixth to fall to a No. 8 seed in the first round.

“Regardless of how your season ends, there’s a lot of disappointment,” Budenholzer remarked following the game. It’s a difficult emotion. It’s a depressing sensation.

In Game 4, Milwaukee led by twelve points at Miami, but in the final six minutes of a 119-114 defeat, where Jimmy Butler of the Heat scored 56 points, Milwaukee was outscored 30 to 13. They led 16 points at home in the fourth quarter of Game 5, but Butler’s game-tying shot with just 30 seconds remaining in regulation caused them to lose 128-126 in overtime.