Getting Taylor Jenkins a Coach of the Year Award in his first season in Milwaukee might seem like a lofty goal, but that never stopped the Bucks before. There's a real possibility for Jenkins to sneak into that conversation or even take home the honor by the end of the 2026-27 season, but everything needs to go perfectly for it to work out that way.
The Milwaukee Bucks are making a run at the most underrated team in the league award, with many publications and pundits placing them as the worst team in the Eastern Conference, even suggesting they might finish as the worst team in the NBA overall. When you truly dissect their roster, there's too much depth and talent for that to make sense, but now that Giannis Antetokounmpo is gone, the national media no longer feels incentivized to say anything complimentary about the Bucks.
Former Milwaukee Bucks champion Jeff Teague has a different perspective, however. On his podcast, Club 520, Teague shared his hot take that Jenkins will make a run for Coach of the Year, and that he believes the Bucks could sneak into the Playoff picture despite the narratives around them:
"Coach of the Year will be Taylor Jenkins," Teague said. "I think the Bucks [are] gonna be better than we thought."
Jenkins became the winningest coach in Memphis Grizzlies history (250) because he instilled a culture, taught a core of young players to play team-based, gritty basketball, and overachieved against the expectations of the general public numerous times over. If he can carry that into Milwaukee, where GM Jon Horst has handed him full control of the locker room and culture, Jenkins could make some real noise in his first year leading the Bucks.
Taylor Jenkins has some tall hurdles to clear, but a Coach of the Year run is a real possibility in Year 1 with the Milwaukee Bucks.
This is not the likely outcome, but it is certainly one within the range of possibility. The 42-year-old is experienced enough to lead a group of young men ranging from 19 to 32 in age, but also young and hungry enough to relate to the players and build trusting relationships. He's also a business-oriented leader, not in terms of ticket sales or marketing objectives, but in his professionalism.
Much to their detriment, Milwaukee was not a very serious team during the Doc Rivers era, and Adrian Griffin was forced to concede to his stars and veterans instead of having real latitude to establish a system or culture. None of those issues will impact Jenkins' ability to install the system he wants to, as we're already seeing with the Constraints-Led Approach (CLA) he's deploying in practice.
Furthermore, Jenkins' playstyle simply fits the current trends of the league. His teams like to push the pace, space the floor, attack mismatches, and generate them with constant motion and by running sets in the half-court. Milwaukee has the personnel to follow suit, with rangy, defensive-minded guards, heaps of shooting, versatile forwards, and rim-protecting, floor-stretching big men.
So if the Bucks overachieve and find themselves at the top of the Play-In Tournament seeding or higher, and a few things break right elsewhere in the league, Taylor Jenkins can make a real statement in his first year back in Milwaukee, even if he doesn't outright win Coach of the Year. However, that's one of the longshot goals that's worth fighting for this season.
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