When the Milwaukee Bucks signed Mike Budenholzer to a four-year head-coaching deal this week, they were buying a small piece of an NBA institution: The San Antonio Spurs coaching tree.

The Spurs, thanks in large part to five NBA championships won under the guidance of coach Gregg Popovich, have long been one of the league’s top producers of bench-running prospects. So while Budenholzer may have made his name as the NBA’s coach of the year back in 2014-15, this at the height of his five-year run with the Atlanta Hawks, he formed the bedrock of his credibility during 17 years as a San Antonio assistant. That Texas-bred championship pedigree was among the key reasons why Budenholzer, in the days before he signed with the Bucks, resided prominently on the Raptors’ list of candidates to become Dwane Casey’s successor.

When in doubt, after all, why not choose a former Spur? Both head coaches in the ongoing Western Conference final, what’s being seen as the effective duel for the NBA championship, have Spurs ties. Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr played for Popovich. Houston’s Mike D’Antoni was once a San Antonio scout. Two of Milwaukee’s other coaching candidates, Ettore Messina and Becky Hammon, currently work as Spurs assistants. This month’s other NBA head-coaching hire, Charlotte’s James Borrego, plugged another former Spurs assistant into a top job.

For NBA GMs looking to sell a new hire, there’s an obvious attraction to a sprinkling of San Antonio magic (even if a good chunk of the team’s aura likely resided in the sneakers recently hung up by the peerless Spurs forward Tim Duncan, who retired in 2016). Never mind the current dysfunction surrounding all-star swingman Kawhi Leonard, or that the Spurs have lost in the first round of the playoffs two of the past four years. Popovich’s status as a truth-telling guru, in matters ranging from race relations to Italian reds to roundball, is still mostly unquestioned. If Pop will vouch for you, you must be doing something right.

The Raptors were interested in Budenholzer for those reasons and more. So Budenholzer ending up in Milwaukee could be framed as an indictment of an inherent flaw in the Raptors roster. It’s not difficult to conjure the logic that would drive a coach with options to choose a future with the 44-win Bucks over the 59-win Raptors. Toronto may have a deep roster of good players. Milwaukee is gifted with a great one, Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Still, an NBA source insisted the Raptors, after meeting with Budenholzer Monday, did not make a job offer, as first reported by ESPN. One source said the word out of Toronto was the “fit” between Budenholzer and Raptors boss Masai Ujiri wasn’t right. Even if Ujiri has modelled a lot of Toronto’s depth-building success on a blueprint laid out by the Spurs, Budenholzer’s San Antonio connection wasn’t enough.

Certainly Budenholzer wasn’t without his downside. If Casey was run out of the job for losing three straight playoff series to the Cavaliers — never mind Casey’s Wednesday night nomination as one of three finalists for the NBA’s coach of the year award — it’s worth noting that no fewer than two Budenholzer-coached Atlanta teams, one of which won 60 games, were swept from the post-season by Cleveland. Budenholzer, no matter his reputation for strategic ingenuity, is 0-8 as a post-season head coach facing LeBron James. Casey is 2-12.

Ujiri, as it is, can’t yet claim a victory in his first-ever search for a head coach. (Ujiri inherited George Karl during his tenure as Denver GM before inheriting Casey upon taking the Toronto helm.) A league source said Toronto, whose brain trust spent Thursday at the NBA’s Chicago draft combine, intends to interview more external candidates in the days to come. Internal candidates Nick Nurse, Rex Kalamian and Jerry Stackhouse are also in the mix. But if, say, Nurse ends up getting the job — and he appears to be the in-house favourite — it’ll pose some tricky questions.

Such as: If Nurse or Kalamian, Casey’s assistants since 2013 and 2015, respectively, somehow knew the secret to beating Cleveland these past three seasons, why didn’t one or both pipe the heck up?

Considering the chronic tension between Casey and management came down to perceived inadequacies in Casey’s in-game arranging of X’s and O’s, it’s fair to assume Toronto’s assistants had a hand in those moves, or lack thereof. More than one NBA coaching observer pointed out that Casey allowed his assistants unusual freedom to prowl the sidelines during games, commanding the attention of players and lobbying officials. Depending on your perspective either Nurse and Kalamian were boldly empowered to make meaningful contributions by a head coach secure in his position, or Casey lacked control of his bench. No matter how you see it, for three straight seasons the Raptors were bounced by the Cavs.

The counter-argument goes something like this: No assistant coach can be held responsible for the results of his boss. Being a No. 2 or No. 3 may come with influence, but it doesn’t come with ultimate power.

Maybe that’s true. But if Nurse is the frontrunner, it’s worth asking: Will incumbent players who saw him as an assistant take him seriously as the numero uno? Can Nurse possibly bring sufficient juice to reinvigorate a team that bowed so meekly to Cleveland?

Nurse’s biggest accomplishment as a head coach, after all, is a pair of G League championships, most recently with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, a team based in Edinburg, Texas. Edinburg lies just a three-hour drive south of San Antonio — close but not close enough to claim even the smallest of twigs on the mystical Spurs coaching tree. Those who believe in the power of San Antonio-brushed magic will note the Vipers are an affiliate of the Houston Rockets.

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