Bucks’ Taylor Jenkins brings tough film to lottery picks Brayden Burries and Nate Ament as rebuild begins

Milwaukee’s post-Giannis Antetokounmpo rebuild is already turning into a culture project, and the message landed quickly with two of the Bucks’ newest lottery picks, guards Brayden Burries and Nate Ament. At their introductory news conferences Thursday, both players described an early, direct approach from the man now tasked with reshaping Milwaukee’s identity: Bucks head coach Taylor Jenkins.

According to Ament’s account, Jenkins walked through a predraft session built around correction, not consolation. Ament said Jenkins went over the Tennessee forward’s five worst plays in college, isolating what went wrong and why. Burries said Jenkins used a similar process with him as well, framing it as a learning tool rather than a critique meant to discourage.

Burries, listed at 6-foot-4, characterized that feedback as part of the transition from college production to NBA expectations. The theme, as he presented it, was accountability. In practical terms for a franchise that is rebuilding, it suggests the coaching staff wants players to develop by diagnosing their habits early, then changing them before slumps become patterns.

Jenkins’ approach also matters because it indicates how Milwaukee plans to treat its incoming talent as more than depth. Lottery selections come with a mandate to play, grow in visible increments, and contribute under pressure. A film-first method, especially one that spotlights shortcomings up front, is one way to shorten the distance between talent and trust.

The Bucks’ hiring of Jenkins is the key backdrop to Thursday’s events. His reputation as a structured, details-focused NBA coach has been tied to both player development and in-game adjustments. By taking that same emphasis into his earliest conversations with Burries and Ament, Jenkins appears to be establishing standards before the regular season even begins.

For Ament, the NCAA-to-NBA bridge runs through Tennessee, where he spent his college career as a forward with the expectation that his strengths would transfer to the physicality and pace of the NBA. But the predraft emphasis on his five worst plays suggests the Bucks are also looking at the full record, not just highlights. That implies a focus on decision-making, shot selection, spacing, and the defensive reads that often separate promising prospects from consistent contributors.

Burries and Ament now face the next step: turning coaching feedback into repeatable habits during team activity. What comes next to watch is how Milwaukee mixes these players into its on-court actions, including how they handle roles that might fluctuate while the organization continues to reshape its roster after the Antetokounmpo era.

In a rebuild, the stakes are rarely measured only by individual timelines. They also involve whether coaching clarity can make young players useful quickly, whether mistakes are treated as information, and whether the franchise’s long-term plan can be made tangible in the day-to-day details of practice. Thursday’s conferences offered a window into that approach, with Jenkins setting the tone long before tipoff.