Bucks' Doc Rivers Listed Among NBA's Worst Coaches in Player Poll

Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers has guided the club to a 48-34 record despite battling troubling health issues and roster churn. All told, he has done what he can with a flawed roster.

Still, it doesn't seem like the league at large trusts his coaching acumen anymore.

Sam Amick and Josh Robbins of The Athletic conducted an anonymous poll of 158 NBA players between the start of March and the middle of April, covering a wide variety of topics.

Incredible work by our entire staff on this year's anonymous player poll.

More than one third of the NBA - 158 players 👀- weighed in on MVP, 'Face of the league,' overrated/underrated, coaching, officiating and other league issues, at @TheAthletic https://t.co/HABCALiV0F
— Sam Amick (@sam_amick) April 22, 2025

Only 73 players voted for a league's worst coach option, as Amick and Robbins note.

“I’m not answering because I think the coaches are really good now," one player told The Athletic. "You could pick one of the bottom-feeders, like (redacted coach from a bad team), but I’ve had (him as a coach), and he’s good and it’s not his fault.”

The coach who received the most votes, by far, was Washington Wizards head coach Brian Keefe, who received 24.7 percent of those 73 votes. Former championship Milwaukee head coach Mike Budenholzer, who was with the Phoenix Suns at the time (but was fired after Phoenix finished with a 36-46 season and missed the playoffs), came in second, with 17.8 percent of votes.

Rivers came in third, with 12.3 percent. He was the first coach of a playoff-bound club to make the cut.

Keefe was guiding a blatantly tanking club, while Budenholzer was struggling to handle a checked-out, ill-balanced Suns roster.

“Coaches can be held handicap by health and the front office," one player offered. "Nick Nurse is a good coach, but he doesn’t have the players right now.”

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Rivers making the cut is interesting.

The former All-Star point guard boasts a 1,162-816 win-loss regular season record (.587) over the course of his career, plus a 113-109 playoff record so far.

Infamously, Rivers is the only head coach in NBA history to have blown a 3-1 lead in the playoffs three times. He has enjoyed plenty of deep playoff runs, and has made the NBA Finals twice, with the Boston Celtics in 2008 and 2010. He'll be a Hall of Famer eventually, but his playoff issues have gotten glaring of late.

Meanwhile, 147 players cast votes for the league's best coach, however. Reigning Coach of the Year Mark Daigneault, who led the Thunder to the league's best record (68-14 this time) for the second season in a row, ran away with the player vote, notching 21.8 percent.

Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson, considered the likely Coach of the Year winner this season, came in second with 13.6 percent of votes — tied with Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra.

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Nuggets’ Michael Malone Firing Has Instant Impact on Doc Rivers’ Bucks Future

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