Whenever an iconic player returns to their former franchise for a game, they are typically treated with a montage of some of their best moments with that team. A recent example is the Chicago Bulls celebrating Derrick Rose Day on Jan. 4, when they took on the New York Knicks. They played a full 20-minute video of Rose’s former teammates, reporters, current NBA players, and a host of others to talk about the legacy of Rose in Chicago and the NBA. While Rose did win an MVP and brought the Bulls back to relevance post Micheal Jordan, he never won an NBA title and only made one conference finals appearance during his prime (usually stopped by injuries or LeBron James).
It’s harder to make a highlight montage of a coach, with no flashy dunks or passes to comb through. But you would expect the head coach of a title team to receive a tribute video of some kind: moments of them yelling, celebrating, talking with the team in the huddle, and their best moments during the championship parade. Even a franchise as storied as the Los Angeles Lakers played a video for former head coach Frank Vogel when he returned to LA as the head coach of the Phoenix Suns. The current head coach of the Suns, Mike Budenholzer, who led the Milwaukee Bucks to their first NBA title in 50 years, did not receive that same honor. In his first game back in Milwaukee, all he was given was 10 seconds of a graphic that screamed “Graphic design is my passion:”
Jim Owczarski of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel shared the following:
The #Bucks did not do a tribute video for Mike Budenholzer in his first appearance back at Fiserv Forum. He led the team to its first title in 50 years & took them to one other conference finals. None other than Giannis Antetokounmpo noticed, and said he was surprised to not see one. #NBASky
— Jim Owczarski (@jimowczarski.bsky.social) 2025-04-02T05:20:30.180Z
As mentioned above, Giannis seemed surprised that his former head coach did not receive a tribute video, telling the below to Eric Nehm of The Athletic postgame:
I thought he was going to have a tribute video. It’s not hard. They had this video on Twitter. It’s like 30 seconds, he was in the dark and flamers were coming out. They had an incredible video. I thought they were going to play a video for him and they didn’t, which is surprising to me. We were the three times No. 1 team in the NBA, two times No. 4 team in the NBA, won a championship, one time in the Finals, so a lot of winning games, so I felt like it would be a two-minute, three-minute - okay maybe not two minutes, I’m exaggerating - maybe 45 seconds, I don’t like him that much (smiles). Maybe a 30-second video of him being the coach.
Budenholzer took a long road to Milwaukee. After spending 17 seasons as an assistant coach under San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, Budenholzer spent five seasons with the Atlanta Hawks before coming to Milwaukee for the 2018-19 NBA season. Under his tutelage, the Bucks went from a fringe playoff team under Jason Kidd to the first seed in the Eastern Conference with a record of 60-22, with Giannis capturing his first of two back-to-back MVPs and Budenholzer winning his second Coach of the Year award. Milwaukee would move past the Detroit Pistons and the Boston Celtics with a record of 8-1 through the first two rounds, before infamously losing the the Toronto Raptors in in six games after going up 2-0.
Playoff failure continued into Bud’s second season, with the Bucks finishing 53-12 before the season was suspended due to COVID-19. After handling the Orlando Magic in five games, they were torn apart by the Miami Heat on their way to the NBA Finals in five games (look for them again later). Although Bud’s teams had spectacular regular seasons, it wasn’t until his third year that the playoff magic finally came. After exacting their revenge on the Miami Heat in round one, they battled in an iconic seven-game series with the Brooklyn Nets in round two. Khris Middleton saved the day in the Conference Finals against the Atlanta Hawks after Giannis went down. After falling behind 2-0, the Bucks won four straight games to end their 50-year title drought against the Suns.
Primed with a core of Giannis, Middleton, and the newly acquired Jrue Holiday, they seemed on track for a potential dynasty. Yet the injury gods dashed those hopes away in what would end up being his final two seasons in the cream and green. Middleton injured himself against the Bulls in round one in 2022, leaving Giannis and Jrue to try and take down the Celtics, falling in seven games. Then came the final death nail against a familiar foe. In the 2023 playoffs, the Bucks were rolling as the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, with their third playoff series in four seasons against the 8th-seeded Miami Heat. While Middleton played in all five games and led the Bucks' offense in scoring, Giannis was limited to just three games. Behind the heroics of Jimmy Butler and the power of friendship and “culture,” Miami defeated the Bucks in five games.
Although you can debate the validity of firing Bud just two seasons after winning a championship (losing two of his best players in the middle of playoff series both seasons), the way the Bucks handled the timing of his firing drew much criticism. On April 30 of that year, then Lakers head coach Darvin Ham revealed to reporters that coach Bud’s brother had died in a fatal car crash the morning of game four against the Heat on April 24. The Bucks were eliminated two days later and just eight days after that, on May 4, the Bucks parted ways with Budenholzer. As someone who has lost close family members, I cannot fathom trying to coach an NBA game, let alone a playoff series where you’re down 2-1, while dealing with the death of a sibling. Although Bud did not have the best track record in the playoffs, 2023 was the only year during his tenure that the Bucks failed to make it out of round one. Considering the circumstances of his personal life and missing Giannis for two games, it might not have been the best work by the Bucks brass.
After taking a year off of coaching in 2023-24, Bud was brought on by the team he defeated in the Finals, the Suns, after they fired Frank Vogel. The Bucks traveled to Phoenix for their first game against Phoenix. It was an awkward set of events pre-game in the desert, with Bud not taking any questions from the media outside of the Suns TV Network sideline reporter. Owczarski reported that and even said that he raised his hand twice but was ignored by the Suns’ PR team.
Things seemed to get better when the venue switched to Milwaukee, with Bud answering Nehm’s question about coming back to Milwaukee. At the game itself, Bud seemed like Bud. He seemed to joke with Giannis a bit during the game, and they seemed to exchange cordial words afterward. But the game also featured a segment where Jim Paschke—you know, the guy whose last year of 35 for the Bucks involved calling Bud’s run to the title play-by-play—introduced a bunch of OTHER famous former Bucks who happened to be in town. It was a pretty stacked lineup by Bucks’ standards, including Paul Pressey, Bobby Simmons, Desmond Mason, Michael Redd, and Brandon Jennings. The only thing missing? A championship. Watching it unfold live was very weird and seemed like a good opportunity to honor Bud, but that didn’t happen.
I don’t know what went on between the Bucks and Horst behind the scenes .I don’t know if it had anything to do with what happened on Monday night or if this was just a poorly planned event by the Bucks' event staff. But we should all agree that Bud deserved his moment to be honored with something more than a graphic. Love or hate him, call him a master at his craft or a hack who got lucky to have Giannis, there’s no denying that he is one of the best coaches in Bucks history and was an internal part of the story of this franchise. Without him, the championship drought may still be ongoing into its 54th year. Hopefully the Bucks will rectify this situation at some point down the road, but in the short term, it’s a flat-out slap in the face to Budenholzer and what he did for the Milwaukee Bucks and the city itself.