Jared Dudley didn’t really want to play for the Bucks after the Clippers traded him to Milwaukee this summer, but his new team’s training staff, Jason Kidd‘s coaching style, and Milwaukee’s competitiveness helped convince him otherwise, as Lori Nickel of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel details. Dudley has a $4.25MM early termination option for next season, and while he hasn’t said what he’ll do with that, he told Nickel that he’d like a long-term deal with the Bucks and that he’s willing to take a discount to sign one, citing Kidd as his top reason why. Here’s more from around the Eastern Conference:
- Greg Monroe believes former Pistons president of basketball operations Joe Dumars deserves another chance to run a team, as Terry Foster of The Detroit News relays. Bleacher Report’s Ric Bucher wrote in January that Pelicans owner Tom Benson had some interest in Dumars, and Monroe, soon to be an unrestricted free agent, is a New Orleans native. “I mean, yeah,” Monroe said when asked if Dumars should have another shot at team building. “He put together a championship team. Obviously he knows what it takes to get it done. For a stretch he had one of the most successful teams in the league. Obviously he is good at that job. I don’t see how that would be a problem to get back.”
- Derek Fisher says he doesn’t have regrets about taking on the Knicks coaching job even with the team in possession of the league’s worst record and added that he talks daily with team president Phil Jackson, notes Peter Botte of the New York Daily News. Coaching colleagues, like Tom Thibodeau, have no shortage of praise for Fisher, Botte adds.
- Clippers coach/executive Doc Rivers believes the Celtics almost had to trade Rajon Rondo this season with his contract running out this summer, as he told reporters, including Brian Robb of Boston.com. Rivers said a rebuilding team like the Celtics, whom he used to coach, can’t afford to risk that a soon-to-be free agent walks and added that he believes Rondo, and not the Celtics front office, was the catalyst for the move, as Robb passes along.