Tom Dundon just made an NBA head coaching hire that has people in other sports genuinely confused. Maybe baffled is a better word.
The Portland Trail Blazers signed Micah Nori to a one-year contract with two years of team options. This is the guy they picked after Tiago Splitter left for the Chicago Bulls. So essentially Nori gets one guaranteed season as a head coach. Then the franchise can decide whether to keep him for 2027-28 and 2028-29.
That structure is borderline unheard of in pro sports. Typically head coaches get multi-year deals to actually build something. Not one year with an organizational escape hatch.
CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones texted a bunch of NFL agents and executives to ask when they last saw a head coach sign a one-year deal. The responses were pretty direct.
“Never,” came back twice.
“Um… never.”
“WTF. That’s insane.”
“That’s wild. Haven’t heard of that.”
One person just sent an eyes emoji.
Look, the NBA is not the NFL. The coaching markets work differently. But the reaction from football people tells you how unusual this is. These are agents and execs who negotiate contracts for a living and they couldn’t think of a single comparable situation.
Dundon’s track record with money
This isn’t coming out of nowhere. Dundon has a reputation around the league for being cheap. Multiple reports during the search said he was offering candidates well below the typical market rate for an NBA head coach. The actual dollar figures on Nori’s deal haven’t leaked yet but the structure alone tells you who holds the leverage.
Nori is 52 years old. This is his first head coaching opportunity. That’s a late-career debut by any standard. He probably took whatever was on the table because how many more chances is he going to get? The Blazers know that. The one-year deal works heavily in Portland’s favor.
If Nori comes in and the team overachieves? Great. Dundon picks up the options and gets a bargain coach on a team-friendly structure. If it goes sideways? One year of salary and you move on. No buyout drama. No paying two coaches at once.
The risk for Nori is obvious. He’s walking into a situation where his boss has shown he’s not afraid to look cheap. If things get rocky early, the front office doesn’t have much financial incentive to let him work through it. One bad season and Dundon can wipe his hands clean without eating a big contract.
It’s a bet on himself. But it’s a bet where the house wrote the rules.
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