Micah Nori Lands Blazers Head Coach Job on a Contract That Says Plenty About Tom Dundon
The Portland Trail Blazers finally have a head coach. Micah Nori, the longtime Minnesota Timberwolves lead assistant, is taking over the job, according to reports Monday night. He gets one guaranteed year and two team options. That is not a vote of confidence. That is a tryout.
Nori has been one of the most respected assistants in the league for years. He helped Chris Finch run a team that played in back to back Western Conference Finals. He has done time with the Pistons, the Kings, the Raptors, and the Wolves. He has paid every due there is to pay. And after all of that, Portland handed him the same kind of contract you give a long shot trying to make the roster out of training camp.
That has nothing to do with Nori. That has everything to do with Tom Dundon.
Dundon bought the Blazers for $4.25 billion in March and immediately started running the franchise like a guy who is allergic to spending money. Reports of cost cutting around the team are everywhere. The free t-shirt program for home playoff games got axed. Two way players were left off road trips. Even staffers waited around in a hotel lobby to avoid late checkout fees. So when the same owner caps a head coaching search at roughly $1.5 million a year, the league talks.
The Blazers were never going to land Tiago Splitter on that budget. Splitter went 42-40 as the interim, won a playoff game, and parlayed it into the Chicago Bulls job. He left. The shortlist after that was Royal Ivey and Nori. Nori got the gig.
Here is the good news for Portland fans. Nori is a real coach. The Timberwolves loved him. Players talk about his preparation, his ability to break down film, and his calm in late game situations. He is not a marquee name, but neither was Mike Brown when the Kings hired him. Neither was Joe Mazzulla when the Celtics turned the keys over. The track record of unheralded assistants getting promoted to head coach gigs is actually pretty solid.
The bad news is the contract. One guaranteed year is the structure you use when you are not sure you actually want to keep the guy. It pressures Nori to win immediately on a roster that is not built to win immediately. Shaedon Sharpe is still figuring out the NBA. Scoot Henderson has been wildly inconsistent. Donovan Clingan is a project. Anfernee Simons could be in trade rumors any day.
Nori has to coach all of that, run a system, develop young players, and somehow show enough in 82 games that Dundon picks up the option. If he wins 35 games, he could get fired. If he wins 40, the option might not get picked up anyway because Dundon does not want the salary. This is a setup for failure dressed up as an opportunity.
Credit Nori for taking it. NBA head coaching jobs do not grow on trees, and waiting for the perfect opening means you might never get one. He gets to call himself an NBA head coach, build relationships with players, and prove he can do this. Even if it ends after a year, the experience gets him in line for the next job. That is a smart bet.
But make no mistake about what just happened in Portland. The Blazers did not hire Micah Nori because he was the best candidate on the market. They hired him because he was the best candidate they could get for the money they were willing to pay. Those are very different things, and Blazers fans should be paying attention.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
