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It was recently announced by a Woj bomb that Milwaukee Bucks assistant and former long time Blazers head coach Terry Stotts has stepped down from what looked like one of the best new coaching staffs in the league.
Terry Stotts has stepped down as an assistant coach with the Milwaukee Bucks, sources tell ESPN. Stotts returned to coaching after two years away to join Adrian Griffin’s new staff but has decided that he won’t continue in that role.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) October 19, 2023
When Stotts joined the staff of new head coach Adrian Griffin he stood out as one of the more experienced faces on the team which was sure to help a new rookie coach running the show for the first time sort of a lot, which could be very important before we even get to the entire Damian Lillard aspect of this whole thing.
Stotts recently took a little time off from coaching after being let go by the Portland Trailblazers in 2021. The fact that they had four first-round playoff exits in five seasons may have played a part in his departure, but that ship was in the beginning stages of going down so it was smart for all parties involved. He still left with the second most coaching wins in the franchise's history, leaving with a 402-318 record that included eight straight playoff appearances
What will probably confuse folks the most is the Dame part of this. For the first nine seasons of his career he only had one coach and that was Stotts. The relationship didn't end on bad terms, almost the opposite actually, with them both still praising each other while winning a gold as Stotts was on the Team USA coaching staff in Tokyo after his firing.
What most will take from this is the strangeness, but the biggest hope is that the conjecture machine doesn't get going and people start to guess, because guessing about what's going on in someone else's life is always a terrible practice even if you end up right. The only fact that we do know is Milwaulkee lost a pretty good coach, with a relationship with one of their biggest new stars while having big championship aspirations, so stepping down this close to opening day had to be a good reason.
