National Basketball Association

Bucks' Greg Monroe may have found out he lost his starting job from a reporter

Published Nov. 15, 2016 3:03 p.m. ET

foxsports

The Bucks signed Greg Monroe to a max contract in free agency last summer, and that was a win for the franchise all by itself. Milwaukee has historically had difficulty attracting free agents, so the mere fact that one chose to play there was a positive step.

But the Bucks underachieved last season, and with training camp set to begin, head coach Jason Kidd told reporters at Monday's media day that he plans to experiment with his lineups -- which means that Monroe and point guard Michael Carter-Williams will be coming off the bench.

"We'll probably start off with looking at the second half of the season with looking at Michael and Greg coming off the bench," Kidd said. "We won't make that decision until later in the week. We'll go through training camp, we'll have them start, we'll have them come off the bench, we're going to look at a lot of different combinations. I think we liked the way that it ended last year with Miles (Plumlee) starting. It gave us some firepower off the bench and made us deeper."

Not a big deal, and it's clearly nothing permanent. But Kidd may have wanted to let his players know before he informed the media, because Monroe was surprised when he was asked about the shakeup.

"That's news to me, but it's not the first time," he said. "Like I always say, it's about once I'm on the court and that's all I focus on. If you have questions about the rotation you're going to have to ask (Kidd). When my number is called I just try to be ready."

Monroe has been in the starting lineup for the vast majority of his NBA games, and started in 67 of his 79 appearances for Milwaukee last season. It's almost unheard of for a player on a max deal to come off the bench, but it's obvious that Kidd thinks tinkering with his lineups is warranted after the way last season finished.

It just would have been nice if he had informed his player first.