Report: Bucks refuse to grant Pistons permission to interview Jon Horst

The Pistons’ search for a new team president of basketball operations may have to go back to the drawing board.

In Marc Stein’s latest Substack column, he reports that sources have informed him the Bucks refused to allow Detroit to interview Jon Horst despite the Milwaukee team president reportedly being open to a conversation.

Horst was honored as the league’s Executive of the Year in 2018-19 and helped guide the Bucks to their first championship after a 50-year drought in 2021. Horst inked a long-term extension with the club that fall. Most recently, he helped orchestrate the team’s deal to acquire All-Star point guard Damian Lillard last offseason and re-signed aging veterans Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez to generous deals.

Milwaukee underwent a tumultuous 2023-24 season. Horst hired and fired first-time head coach Adrian Griffin to lead the team’s Lillard-Giannis Antetokounmpo superstar tandem and brought in his replacement, Doc Rivers. With Jrue Holiday gone, the team’s perimeter defense fell off, though Rivers helped stabilize it somewhat when he took over. Ultimately, the Bucks finished with a 49-33 record and the East’s No. 3 seed. Lillard and Antetokounmpo were felled by injuries, and Milwaukee was upset in its first round series against the sixth-seeded Pacers.

Horst is a Michigan native, so his interest in working for his home state’s team makes sense. Conversely, it makes sense for the Bucks to not want to allow their top front office decision maker, who has been the architect for much of their recent success with Antetokounmpo, to be poached by a direct Central Division rival.

The Pistons have also been linked with Mavericks consultant Dennis Lindsey and former Knicks general manager Scott Perry. Stein has also noted in the past that Timberwolves president Tim Connelly had also been seen as a potential target if he wanted to opt out of his current contract, agreed to when Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore were expected to become Minnesota’s majority owners.

The Pistons are coming off one of their worst seasons ever, having finished with a league-low 14-68 record during their first season under head coach Monty Williams. Though Detroit was no doubt hoping to earn the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft thanks to its miserable 2023-24 finish, the team instead fell in Sunday’s draft lottery and will now pick fifth.