Terry Stotts, the former coach of the Atlanta Hawks and Milwaukee Bucks, has been hired as the new head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, the team and general manager Neil Olshey have announced.
It’s a nice hiring. Not thrilling, but nice. He’ll do a solid job. His most recent gig was as an assistant coach for the Dallas Mavericks, and he got a ring out of that.
“Terry is one of the elite offensive minds in the NBA, has extensive experience with multiple organizations and was instrumental in the Dallas Mavericks winning the 2011 NBA Championship,” Olshey said in a released statement. “He understands the vision for the future of the franchise, appreciates the process involved and will create an environment on the court that will produce championship habits.”
Stotts beat out Kaleb Canales, who took over as the Blazers interim coach when they fired Nate McMillan last season. That would be Nate McMillan Team USA assistant coach they didn’t need any more.
Stotts’ overall record as a head coach is 115-168, but frankly that’s more an incitement of the talent he was given to work with than his coaching. Stotts can coach — and by all accounts is a good, honest guy — but to me he kind of fits into my category of most NBA coaches: They are smart and can get their teams to perform up to a fairly high percentage of the talent they are given. (There are only a handful of genuinely exceptional coaches that improve a team just by walking in the door.)
Which is to say the future of the Blazers is more about Olshey and his moves that Stotts. But it will be interesting to see what he brings to an offense with LaMarcus Aldridge, rookie Damian Lillard and some other genuine but young talent on it.