PORTLAND, Ore. — Micah Nori will be the new coach of the Portland Trail Blazers after the longtime NBA assistant was hired Tuesday to replace former interim coach Tiago Splitter, league sources told The Athletic.
Nori, 52, signed a one-year deal with team options for each of the next two seasons.
Nori has been the lead assistant for the Minnesota Timberwolves since 2021 after a diverse history in the league as an intern, advance scout, director of scouting, player development coach and offensive coordinator throughout stops with the Toronto Raptors, Sacramento Kings, Denver Nuggets, Detroit Pistons and Minnesota.
Now, after 28 years in the shadows, Nori will step into the spotlight while leading an up-and-coming Blazers team coming off a surprise 42-40 regular season and trip to the playoffs as the seventh seed in the Western Conference.
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“I think he’s come late to the (head-coaching) party, but that doesn’t mean he’s not more than ready and won’t be successful,” Minnesota coach Chris Finch told The Athletic.
Added Timberwolves assistant Elston Turner: “A good pick. He’s worked for a lot of teams, been in a lot of positions, been with some big-name players. A good, good pick.”
A creative offensive mind who favors pushing the pace, Nori is regarded among colleagues as a brilliant tactician and game manager. He became an assistant coach for the Raptors in 2009 under head coach Jay Triano, who said he would often have Nori draw up the game’s first play or diagram late-game plays.
In Minnesota, where the Timberwolves have won five playoff series over the past three years, Finch entrusted Nori with handling the details of the game.
“He is elite in what I call the small pieces of the game,” Finch said. “Small not that they are unimportant, but small in that they are often overlooked. He’s elite with lineup combinations. Elite with rotations. Elite with special situations, whether it’s ATOs (after timeouts), end of game or just understanding how to maximize possessions. He’s just been huge for us here in that regard.”
Nori will inherit a promising and experienced roster. Led by All-Star Deni Avdija and with perennial All-Star Damian Lillard, who missed last season recovering from an Achilles injury, the Blazers are considered a team on the rise. The Blazers have defensive anchors with Donovan Clingan, Toumani Camara and Jrue Holiday, as well as explosive offensive players Shaedon Sharpe and Scoot Henderson.
Nori was also pursued by the Chicago Bulls and Dallas Mavericks, and he was one of three finalists in Portland alongside Splitter and Boston Celtics assistant Tyler Lashbrook.
He has a background in baseball — he was team captain in college as a middle infielder at Indiana while leading the Hoosiers to the 1996 Big Ten Tournament title — and later returned to Indiana as the team’s hitting coach. His son, Dante, was a first-round pick (27th overall) in the 2024 MLB Draft by the Philadelphia Phillies. Dante, 21, is hitting .245 at Double-A Reading and has the third-most hits (53) and most triples (four) on the team.
“We’re always kidding him about being a baseball guy,” Finch said. “He watches a ton of baseball. But the thing about Micah is he knows basketball … and he’s been in the game and he’s worked at every position. He literally has the foundation that you would want from a longtime assistant. He’s been scouting. He has been in advance (scouting). He’s been in player development. He’s coached both sides of the ball. He’s been a lead assistant. He knows as much basketball as anyone else who’s walking around here.”
Nori broke into basketball in 1998, when Toronto coach Butch Carter — who played for Nori’s dad, Fred, at Middletown High School in Ohio — took him on as a coaching intern. Nori lived with Carter in Toronto for two seasons and watched film with the coach.
“Micah is the real deal,” Carter told The Athletic. “He is prepared for this.”
Nori graduated to an advance scout for the Raptors for 10 seasons, traveling to NBA games to chart opponents’ plays and tendencies, before being hired by Triano in 2009. He was retained after Dwane Casey replaced Triano.
In 2011, while he was an assistant in Toronto, Nori established a connection with then-Golden State assistant Michael Malone through a chance meeting. The two met when Malone tagged along for a dinner between Nori and Golden State assistant Wes Unseld Jr., who met Nori on the advance scouting circuit. Nori was impressed with Malone’s vision and afterward sent him a text saying he would love to work for him if he ever got a job. Malone hired him as an assistant when he took over the Sacramento Kings. He served two seasons in Sacramento, then followed Malone to the Nuggets, where he was an assistant with Finch. In Nori’s first year in Denver, he coached rookie Nikola Jokić on the Nuggets’ NBA Summer League team.
In 2018, Nori went to the Detroit Pistons to be the offensive coordinator under Casey for three seasons before reuniting with Finch in Minnesota in 2021.
Nori moved over into the head-coaching seat twice in Minnesota. The first time was during the 2024 playoffs, when Finch ruptured his patellar tendon during Game 4 of a first-round series against the Phoenix Suns. Nori guided the Timberwolves to the finish line in Game 4, then coached them past defending champion Denver into the Western Conference finals while Finch — in a cast — watched from the second row.
Then this season, with Finch at home ill, Nori led Minnesota to a 104-103 victory against the San Antonio Spurs in a Jan. 11 game they trailed by as much as 19 points.
“He won us that game,” Finch said. “Whether it was playing zone, whether it was taking Rudy (Gobert) out of the game at the right time, whatever it was, switching the matchups — all the different things, he orchestrated that win. No doubt about it.”
