Bucks GM Horst opens up on firing Jason Kidd

The firing of JasonKidd as coach of the Milwaukee Bucks came as a mild surprise across the NBA when the move was made Monday.

Bucks General Manager JonHorst, who made the decision to relieve Kidd of his duties and put the team in control of former Cleveland Cavaliers assistant JoePrunty with unanimous approval from club ownership, discussed the decision with Matt Velazquez of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

"What pushes it over the edge is when you kind of look at everything in totality, you take a 360 view and you have this holistic view of the team, not only where you want to get this year and where you expect to be this year, but maybe even more importantly where do you want to be?" Horst said. "Giannis (Antetokounmpo) is going to be here for however long, we know for sure for the four years. You hope for much longer beyond that. You look at all of that and you say, like, "OK, where are we trending?" It just felt like we were standing still when we should be climbing."

The Bucks stand 25-22 on the season, presently occupying the seventh position in the Eastern Conference standings. Horst stressed this season played a big part in his decision to fire Kidd.

"This is an important year. Like I said, there’s relatively small window in professional sports to compete at a high level, and we think we have a team that can compete at a high level now.," he said. "Maybe a championship team, maybe not, but a team that can play at a high level. It’s proven they can play like a top-four team in the conference and we just haven’t shown the consistency or the ability to do that on a consistent basis."

Horst wants the Bucks, who visit the Chicago Bulls (18-31) on Sunday, to get the most out of this season as possible.

"This felt like an opportunity or a way to try to maximize this season while also understanding that the long-term goal of this thing is to build toward a championship and we can get someone in place that will help us build toward a championship," he said.

"That could be Joe (Prunty) and this staff and we’re very open to that and they have every opportunity to do that. If it’s not, we have the opportunity to have an exhaustive process and search this summer to find, hopefully, the person we think would lead us to that."