The Milwaukee Bucks sent owners Wes Edens and Jimmy Haslam, along with general manager Jon Horst, to Memphis early last week to meet with Taylor Jenkins about their vacant head coach job. Jenkins, the former Grizzlies coach, still lives in Memphis with his family.
The visit matters because Milwaukee is trying to steady itself after a season that ended without a playoff berth and after the organization parted ways with Doc Rivers. Portis said Jenkins could help because he was in Milwaukee during Coach Budenholzer’s run, when the Bucks won the 2021 title with a staff that guided Giannis Antetokounmpo and the club to its first championship in 40 years.
Portis, speaking April 23, 2026 on FanDuel TV’s Run It Back, said Jenkins already knows the franchise and some of the people who still shape it. “What helps is that [Jenkins] was in Milwaukee during Coach Bud's stint in Milwaukee,” Portis said. “He was one of the assistant coaches on the roster.” He added that the ties Jenkins has with Antetokounmpo and Horst “sits still with the franchise, and I think that kind of helps.”
The bigger issue hanging over Milwaukee is Antetokounmpo himself, and Portis did not try to soften it. He said the decision will come down to whether the star forward signs the supermax, and he called it a difficult call for a player who is already the best in franchise history. “Obviously, it's going to come down to him. Eventually, he's gotta make the decision,” Portis said. “Whether he is going to sign the supermax or not sign the supermax.”
Portis also pointed to the human side of what can become a cold business judgment. “Obviously, I know the team probably doesn't want to part ways with him,” he said. “Kind of hard to fathom that part in their eyes. At the same time, it is business.”
That is the tension now in Milwaukee: the team is searching for a coach, but the larger question is whether the player who defines the era will stay beyond the next contract decision. There is no official word on Antetokounmpo’s immediate plans, which leaves Jenkins’ meeting in Memphis as only one part of a much larger test for the Bucks.