It remains to be seen whether the Clippers will aim to run it back next season with the same cast on the court. On the sideline, well, they’re already guaranteed to have a different look.
Assistant coach Kenny Atkinson is close to agreeing to terms with the Golden State Warriors to serve as one of the lead assistants there, according to The Athletic. The former Brooklyn Nets head coach spent the past season on Tyronn Lue’s staff, leading the player development aspect of the operation.
Additionally, Chauncey Billups – whose first coaching experience came last season as a top assistant this season on the Clippers’ bench beside Lue, as well as Atkinson and Dan Craig – has been named as the new head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers.
Both coaches helped steer the Clippers to their deepest postseason run in franchise history; despite losing All-NBA first-team forward Kawhi Leonard in the second round of the playoffs, they reached the Western Conference semifinals for the first time, losing to the Phoenix Suns in six games.
Lue spoke frequently this season about Atkinson’s value to the team – including his fellow coaches.
“Oh, it’s been fantastic,” Lue said in April. “I have never seen an operation ran like this. They have P.D. – player development – meetings every single day. Kenny is constantly having Dahntay (Jones) and Shaun Fein and Beau (Levesque) and Conor (Dunleavy) and those guys keep them up to speed on what we want to do today, what players are progressing in certain areas, what players need to work on certain things.
“They meet every single day, when they come into the gym every single day with the young guys, constantly keeping those guys prepared, playing three-on-three, four-on-four, five-on-five, working on all the things they need to work on. You’ve seen the improvement of Amir Coffey, Terance Mann, Luke Kennard through the course of the season.
“He’s just been so valuable to our team with just making sure we are prepared on the player development side. It’s been great.”
With Golden State, Atkinson would join Mike Brown at the front of the bench – one of two former head coaches working as lead assistants with the Warriors.
Atkinson’s name also reportedly came up as a candidate for some head coach openings this summer before he became the lead candidate to assume the front-of-the-bench vacancy left by Jarron Collins, who split with the Warriors in June.
As the head coach in Brooklyn from 2016 to 2020, Atkinson kick-started the Nets’ swift rebuild before superstars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving joined the fold. Soon afterward, Atkinson relinquished his head coaching role in March 2020, just before the coronavirus spurred a months-long hiatus.
He joined the Clippers last November.
Asked Ty Lue pregame about the roles Shaun Fein and Kenny Atkinson have played in their revamped player development staff this year. He gave them tons of credit: pic.twitter.com/J9uE2M769h
— Shane Young (@YoungNBA) May 7, 2021
This post first appeared on ocregister.com
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