Doc Rivers is departing as head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, team sources confirmed to The Athletic on Sunday.
Rivers, who signed a deal worth approximately $40 million when he was hired in January 2024, has another season remaining on his contract. Per team sources, he will be paid out on that final season.
The Bucks and Rivers are in talks about another role moving forward within the organization, team sources said, but Rivers appears very interested in taking a break. The veteran head coach hinted at that new role over the last week, but also highlighted his desire to get away from the grind of the NBA schedule to spend more time with his seven grandchildren. After Sunday’s season finale in Philadelphia, Rivers again alluded to the prospect of stepping away.
“I can tell you we’re all on the same page,” Rivers said about the plan discussed with the organization. “We’ve talked about it, and we want it out pretty quick. I just want them to do it; it’s better. But I think you guys pretty much know.”
After starting 8-5 this season, the Bucks fell apart as Giannis Antetokounmpo regularly struggled with injuries, missing 46 of the 82 games. They finished 11th in the Eastern Conference, 11 games behind the Miami Heat for the final Play-In spot.
In Rivers’ 2 1/2 seasons, Milwaukee compiled a 97-103 regular-season record. In playoff series against the Indiana Pacers the last two seasons, the Bucks went 3-8, as injuries to Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard severely limited the team’s playoff chances.
“I personally have enjoyed the challenge,” Rivers said of his time with the Bucks. “It didn’t go the way I wanted it to go, obviously. I always say I could do a better job. We could have had better health. We could have had all kinds of things.
“I’m not a big guy at looking back. All you can do is look forward. We did a lot of things to improve a lot of the young guys. Unfortunately, that was the road that kind of presented itself for us, and we did that.”
Across 27 NBA seasons with five teams, Rivers has a 1,194-866 record (.580). His regular-season wins are the sixth most in NBA history. In the postseason, he has a 114-112 record (.504) and won an NBA title with the Boston Celtics in 2008.
Earlier this year, Rivers was selected as part of the 2026 class to be enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
“I mean, this is 47 years, so this is a long time,” he said on Sunday of his time as a player and coach. “I think we all still (have something left to give). I mean, there’s so many ways to give to the game. There really is. Teaching, still. Teaching players, teaching coaches. There’s a lot you can give to the game. I still have a love for the game.
“And I’ve always tried to protect the game. A lot of coaches — and I’m not just talking about me — we take so many things to the grave that I think we should take to the grave. That’s what coaches do, and I preach that. Every time I talk to other coaches. So I think we’re in a good place right now with our game, and I just want to keep it better and growing.”
Rivers took over in Milwaukee for Adrian Griffin halfway through the 2023-24 season after the first-time head coach compiled a 30-13 record in his first 43 games. The Bucks closed out the season 17-19 under Rivers, then lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Pacers with Antetokounmpo sidelined by a left soleus strain suffered with a week left in the regular season.
Milwaukee opened the 2024-25 campaign with renewed hope in the franchise’s second season with Antetokounmpo and Lillard together, along with three-time All-Star Khris Middleton. But Middleton missed the first 21 games before trying to mesh with Milwaukee’s dynamic duo. The trio never found the right chemistry, and the Bucks moved Middleton to the Wizards at the trade deadline.
Milwaukee finished the regular season as the fifth seed in the East with a 48-34 record but lost to the Pacers in the first round for a second consecutive season. Lillard played in three of the five games in that series, but his impact was muted as he returned from a deep vein thrombosis issue in Game 2 and then tore an Achilles tendon in the first quarter of Game 4.
With Lillard’s Achilles tear and the team’s subsequent decision to waive and stretch his contract last summer, the Bucks entered this season with significantly lower expectations. Their 32-50 record fell short of the standard set over the previous eight seasons with Antetokounmpo as a perennial MVP candidate atop the roster.
As general manager Jon Horst laid out to Milwaukee beat reporters on Tuesday in Brooklyn, the Bucks have a big offseason in front of them as they attempt to figure out a path forward. The big decision, of course, is whether that includes Antetokounmpo or if the team wants to move on from its franchise cornerstone after 13 seasons together.
