Jon Horst's first year as GM defined by big decisions, with another one looming

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Jon Horst is closing in on a year as general manager of the Milwaukee Bucks.

In his spacious office with a view of the team's new arena going up across the street, Milwaukee Bucks general manager Jon Horst looks right at home sitting at his desk.

A year ago, the thought of him in this office wasn't even being discussed. Of course, the Bucks' Sports Science Center, including its upstairs office space, wasn't finished yet. But more importantly, John Hammond was still the team's GM.

In late May 2017, everything changed. Hammond left for the Orlando Magic, the Bucks underwent a search for a new general manager instead of promoting assistant GM Justin Zanik and after nearly a month, ownership decided to hire Horst, who had been with the team for nine seasons and had most recently been Milwaukee's director of basketball operations.

It was just the beginning of a whirlwind first season for the new general manager.

“It’s definitely different sitting in this chair," Horst said. “I don’t know that you could fully ever prepare or understand what a job like this is until you have it, until you learn it and live it."

That first season started with about a week to conclude preparations for the NBA draft and less than a month to make sure everyone was on the same page for the beginning of free agency.

That summer wasn't just about managing the roster, though, as Horst also had to put together a staff, including accounting for the franchise's new G League developmental team and finding an assistant general manager to support him in his new role, a position that went to Milt Newton.

“What I’m proud about and the things I think we did well, is every day that I’ve been in this job for these 10 months we’ve gotten better and better at having processes, making decisions, being collaborative, building a culture," Horst said.

"I would just point to a lot of the things in the business that have progressively gotten better. You can’t expect to have them in place and ready the moment you get in even if I were someone who had been a general manager for 13 years instead of someone who had just been in the NBA for 13 years. You’re not going to come into a new environment, hire a completely new staff and start working with all your processes and decision-making things in place. It takes time to get things implemented. I’m proud of the way that we’ve done that and that we’re going to continue to do that.”

When the season came, it didn't take long for Horst to make his first major move. On the morning of the team's 10th game, the Bucks traded center Greg Monroe and a pair of protected draft picks — a first-rounder and a second-rounder — to the Phoenix Suns for point guard Eric Bledsoe. It would be the first of two trades by Horst during the season, with the second coming in February, netting center Tyler Zeller from the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Rashad Vaughn and a second-round pick.

The trades, however, paled in comparison to firing head coach Jason Kidd on Jan. 22 just hours before the Bucks were set to host the Suns. Kidd's firing came as the team had slipped to 23-22 on the season and had gone 8-12 over its past 20 games after peaking at five games over .500.

"I evaluated this, I made a recommendation and ultimately made a decision that had unanimous support from ownership," Horst said during a press conference that day.

The Bucks went the rest of the season with Joe Prunty, formerly Kidd's top assistant, as the team's head coach.

Now, Horst's latest critical task awill be to identify the team's next head coach, a process currently ongoing this week with interviews with more than a half-dozen candidates.

“The first 10 months ... I’ve made a lot of decisions," Horst said.

"Significant trade, a coaching change, we had a draft, we had a free-agency period we were active in, just hiring a staff, helping to try to continue to build a culture and restructure the way we look at doing things in the front office and the way that we integrate analytics and sports and performance and coaching and really trying to get us all on the same page to really be partners in everything we do.

"We’ve done a lot. ... We’re not happy with everything that we’ve done — we didn’t make every right decision. We’ve made some wrong, we made some right. Ultimately, I think we’ve started to build a really strong foundation for making really good decisions and having a great culture that will help us win for a really long time.”

Timeline of Horst's decisions in his first year

June 16, 2017: Hired as general manager.

June 22: Selects D.J. Wilson (17th overall) and trades for the right to No. 46 pick Sterling Brown in the NBA draft.

July 1: Re-signs Tony Snell for four years, $46 million at midnight as free agency opens. Deal made official July 31.

July 6: Signs Bronson Koenig to two-way G League/NBA contract.

July 8: Signs Jalen Moore to two-way contract.

Aug. 9: Hires Milt Newton as assistant general manager, along with numerous other front-office personnel.

Sept. 1: Waives Spencer Hawes and stretches his contract to help get Bucks under luxury tax.

Sept. 6: Signs James Young to training camp roster.

Sept. 10: Waives Moore.

Sept. 18: Re-signs Jason Terry to one-year deal.

Sept. 21: Waives Koenig.

Oct. 14: Cuts Joel Anthony, Gerald Green, Gary Payton II and Brandon Rush from training camp roster. Xavier Munford, Kendall Marshall and James Young also cut in previous days and weeks.

Oct. 16: Signs DeAndre Liggins via waiver claim, filling out roster for beginning of regular season.

Oct. 17: Signs Payton to two-way contract.

Oct. 20: Signs Joel Bolomboy to two-way contract.

Nov. 7: Trades center Greg Monroe and pair of protected draft picks to Phoenix for point guard Eric Bledsoe.

Dec. 18: Waives Payton and signs Sean Kilpatrick to two-way deal.

Jan. 7, 2018: Waives Liggins before his contract becomes guaranteed; puts Bolomboy on an NBA contract and then waives him in hopes of dissuading teams from claiming him off waivers and thus getting him back with the Wisconsin Herd; converts Kilpatrick to a standard NBA contract and signs Munford to a two-way.

Jan. 15: Signs Marshall Plumlee to two-way contract.

Jan. 22: Fires head coach Jason Kidd and replaces him with assistant Joe Prunty for remainder of season.

Feb. 5: Trades guard Rashad Vaughn, a former first-round draft choice, and a second-round pick to Brooklyn for center Tyler Zeller.

Feb. 13: Signs former Bucks point guard Brandon Jennings to Wisconsin Herd contract.

March 2-4: Waives Kilpatrick to make room on roster to sign former Timberwolves wing player Shabazz Muhammad.

March 10: Waives forward Mirza Teletovic, who had been out since Nov. 7, 2017 due to knee surgery. During Teletovic's rehab, he developed pulmonary emboli for the second time in his career. Waiving Teletovic indicated the Bucks don't expect he'll be medically cleared to return to NBA.

March 11: Signs Jennings to 10-day NBA contract.

March 21: Signs Jennings to second 10-day contract

April 1: Signs Jennings to multi-year contract.