NBA Coaching carousel keeps turning: all things quiet for Nuggets assistant

With all of the turnover on NBA coaching staffs leaguewide each offseason, it’s begun to feel a bit like a game of musical chairs. Coaches get fired from one job and usually seem to get hired by another team. Most veteran coaches have become retreads, working for multiple teams over their tenure in the league.

We’ve seen coaches like Darvin Ham, Frank Voget, JB Bickerstaff, and others lose their jobs this summer. And we’ve seen former coaches like Mike Budenholzer get jobs coaching new teams. We’ve also seen veteran assistants get their first opportunities to be head coaches like Charles Lee with the Hornets and Brian Keefe with the Wizards.

Keefe took over the Wizards down the stretch of the season in an interim role once the team parted ways with Wes Unseld Jr. and they’ve made it official and hired Keefe to the full-time position. That team is in a rebuilding phase and they think Keefe is the right guy to head that process.

Cavaliers and Lakers still looking to hire a new head coach

That leaves just two current coaching vacancies on the market; the Lakers and the Cavaliers. The Lakers search has been going on for almost a month since they fired Darvin Ham after getting eliminated from the playoffs by the Nuggets.

Nuggets assistant coach David Adelman was a candidate for the position and was scheduled to interview with the Lakers, but it appears that ESPN analyst JJ Redick is the favorite for the job, and former Hornets coach and current Pelicans assistant James Borrego has also been brought back for a second interview.

It would appear that those are the two leading candidates at the moment, which would mean that Adelman is unlikely to leave the Nuggets’ staff for LA. The last opening in Cleveland has seen the Cavs line up interviews with familiar candidates Kenny Atkinson as well as Borrego. They both have head coaching experience and would make sense for a Cavs team that is trying to contend immediately.

But Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported that this is just the beginning of an expansive search that will include several more candidates. So for now, it appears that the Nuggets are safe and will likely be able to keep Adelman on their bench, but it’s still a volatile situation to keep an eye on.