The Phoenix Suns are looking to add James Posey to new head coach Mike Budenholzer’s staff to work as an assistant coach, sources informed The Arizona Republic. Posey was an assistant coach for the Washington Wizards the past two seasons, including Suns guard Bradley Beal’s final season with the Wizards in 2022-23.
Coaching Rumors
Joe Cowley: Minor happenings, but Jim Paxson was still involved with the Bulls as a consultant/NBA scout, and it sounds like he’s walked away. Also, it’s hard getting details on Mo Cheeks departure from staff, but a source said Bulls FO botched things, and Thibs of course swooped in.
Ian Begley: With regard to annual amount on Tom Thibodeau’s extension, the number is in line with the current market for head coaches, per SNY sources. Annual coaching salaries on new deals have hit eight figures regularly in recent seasons. Thibodeau’s extension is through 2027-28 season.
In a one-year span during the COVID-19 pandemic, Jim Boylen lost his brother to cancer, lost his marriage and lost his job as head coach of the Chicago Bulls. Adrift personally and professionally, Boylen didn’t know what was next. Then USA Basketball called him in 2021. Organization executives asked if he wanted to coach the men’s senior national team in qualifying games for the 2023 FIBA World Cup. “The only way you can be part of it is if you don’t have a job,” Boylen said. “I told (USA Basketball men’s national team director) Sean Ford I will swim there to do it.”
As much as USA Basketball needed a coach to help the men reach the 2023 FIBA World Cup which leads to qualifying for the 2024 Paris Olympics, Boylen needed the gig more. It was not high-profile, but that didn’t matter. “The blessing was that I got to grieve my divorce and be with my kids,” Boylen said. “I got to mourn the loss of my brother, and I got to get over getting fired.”
Since some of those qualifying games fall during the NBA season, Boylen coached a team mainly of G League players against teams from FIBA Americas: Uruguay, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Columbia. Coaching in the 50-year-old Coliseo Roberto Clemente in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is nothing like coaching the Bulls in the United Center on a Saturday night. So what. “The competitive part of it,” Boylen explained, “was exactly what I needed at that point in my life.”
Boylen is a part of the USA Basketball coaching staff and partly responsible for helping the U.S. get to the Olympics. The U.S. went 9-3, including six consecutive victories, during qualifying, which began in November 2021 and ended in February 2023. The U.S. made it to the World Cup where it finished fourth but as the second-best finisher from FIBA Americas, it qualified for the Paris Summer Games. It was a challenge. Boylen, who was USA Basketball’s Coach of the Year in 2023, never had the same roster during the six qualifying windows, had limited practice time before games and had to teach players quickly and simply the intricacies of FIBA rules. “The ball is a 12-panel ball, not an eight-panel ball like ours,” Boylen said. “Now, it’s a 40-minute game, not 48. There’s 77 possessions in the FIBA game, and 102 in an NBA game. Every possession in FIBA is like gold. “You got to win. Otherwise you’re the guy who lost and couldn’t get the U.S. to the World Cup.”
Ian Begley: Knicks, Tom Thibodeau always knew they’d find common ground on extension. Team wanted to get through major offseason player moves before working in earnest on extension, per SNY sources. New deal will have Thibodeau under contract through ‘27-‘28, as ESPN first reported.
Knicks agree to three-year extension with Tom Thibodeau
Adrian Wojnarowski: ESPN Sources: New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau has agreed on a three-year contract extension that’ll take him through the 2027-2028 season. A two-time NBA coach of the year, Thibodeau has led the Knicks to consecutive conference semifinal berths.
