Trail Blazers hiring T-Wolves assistant Micah Nori as head coach, reportedly on 1-year deal with team options for subsequent seasons

The Portland Trail Blazers are hiring Minnesota Timberwolves lead assistant Micah Nori as their next head coach, the organization announced on Tuesday.

Nori has signed a one-year deal with team options for each of the next two seasons, per The Athletic's Jason Quick.

Portland is the last franchise to fill its head-coaching vacancy this cycle. Embattled new ownerTom Dundon and general manager Joe Cronin have their replacement for former interim head coach Tiago Splitter, who landed the Chicago Bulls' head-coaching job last week.

Splitter was reportedly a finalist for the Trail Blazers’ full-time head-coaching job, and so was Boston Celtics assistant Tyler Lashbrook.

Nori, 52, also attracted interest from the Bulls and the Dallas Mavericks, The Athletic reported. The Mavericks reportedly went the college route, tapping Michigan national title-winning head coach Dusty May.

Nori served as the right-hand man for Timberwolves' head coach Chris Finch since 2021. A presence on NBA benches since the late 2000s, Nori held assistant gigs with the Toronto Raptors (2009-13), Sacramento Kings (2013-15), Denver Nuggets (2015-18) and Detroit Pistons (2018-21) before working under Finch in Minnesota the past five seasons.

During that span, the Timberwolves returned to relevance, making the playoffs each go-around. They reached the Western Conference finals for the first time in 20 years and then made it back to that very spot the following season. Minnesota's won at least one playoff series three straight seasons. For reference, prior to Finch's regime, the Wolves had advanced past the first round just once, and that was during the team's first run to the Western Conference finals in 2003-04.

Along the way, Finch clearly trusted Nori to help him pull off that franchise revival, even turning to him to coach parts of the Wolves' 2024 playoff run after Finch ruptured his patellar tendon.

"He is elite in what I call the small pieces of the game," Finch said, according to The Athletic. "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."

Known especially for his keen attention to detail and for his offensive ingenuity, Nori will be tasked with elevating a Trail Blazers team that was one of the league's darlings in 2025-26. Splitter, a former NBA center who stepped in for Chauncey Billups after the Basketball Hall of Famer was arrested in an FBI gambling probe, piloted the Blazers to their first winning season in five years and a play-in tournament victory that secured them the No. 7 seed in the Western Conference playoffs. In the first round, Portland stole a game on the road against the NBA Finals-bound San Antonio Spurs before bowing out in five games.

Still, what could have been a lost season was instead filled with plenty of on-court intrigue, even if the off-court hoopla surrounding Dundon's cost-cutting tactics soured some of that optimism.

Nori will have a pair of stars at his disposal in Portland, with Deni Avdija coming off his first All-Star campaign and Damian Lillard coming back from his Achilles injury.

A longtime assistant, Nori finally has the keys to an NBA team after toiling through the ranks of the association.