11:14 am: While Ott is a finalist for the Suns’ head coaching vacancy, Shams Charania of ESPN confirms, it’s Bryant – not Quinn – who joins him in that final group. According to Charania, the two Cavaliers assistants will meet in person with Ishbia, Gregory, and Suns CEO Josh Bartelstein in Michigan.
Bryant, who was hired last offseason as the Cavaliers’ associate head coach, previously worked for the Jazz (2014-20) and Knicks (2020-24) as an assistant.
John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7 (Twitter link) reports that the Suns are expected to make their decision by the end of the week.
8:50 am: After reporting over the weekend that the Suns are expected to advance two or three finalists to the last round of their head coaching search to meet with team owner Mat Ishbia, NBA insider Marc Stein (Substack link) says Heat assistant Chris Quinn and Cavaliers assistant Jordan Ott have been “repeatedly forecasted in league coaching circles” to reach that final stage of the search process.
Quinn, a former NBA player, worked as an assistant for Northwestern in 2013/14 before joining Miami’s coaching staff under Erik Spoelstra in 2014. He has since emerged as Spoelstra’s top lieutenant, having spent more than a decade on the Heat’s bench and served as the club’s acting head coach when Spoelstra has had to miss games.
Ott was part of coaching staffs with the Hawks, Nets, and Lakers before reuniting with Kenny Atkinson in Cleveland a year ago. Ott, who previously worked under Atkinson in Brooklyn and attended Michigan State like Ishbia, was reportedly a finalist last spring for the head coaching job in Charlotte that ultimately went to Charles Lee.
Quinn and Ott are among four candidates confirmed to have interviewed with Suns general manager Brian Gregory, along with Cleveland assistant Johnnie Bryant and Dallas assistant Sean Sweeney.
According to Stein, the expectation was that Gregory would meet with Thunder assistant Dave Bliss in Oklahoma City over the weekend. Stein doesn’t confirm that the meeting took place as planned, but notes that Bliss wasn’t expected to fly out to meet the Suns while his team was preparing for the NBA Finals.
Marc J. Spears of Andscape and NBA insider Chris Haynes (Threads link) have both stated that Suns assistant and former NBA head coach David Fizdale was also still in the mix for Phoenix’s coaching vacancy entering the team’s third round of interviews. The club initially identified between 15 and 20 candidates for the job before advancing nine of those candidates to the second round of the process.
Taking so long because everyone saying no thank you.
Who wins the booby prize?
Why is it necessary to make it know who the two finalists are for the job? Especially when they’re currently coworkers for a different team. I don’t understand the need to constantly update as you narrow the search to fewer and fewer people.
> Why is it necessary to make it know who the two
> finalists are for the job?
Good question. IMO, the new Suns front-office has completely inexperienced leadership that is trying to show the world it knows what it’s doing. But it has the opposite effect.
It’s not like the team decided to do constant updates. It’s more that the media has nothing better to do than seek constant updates. They are quite literally the only team hiring a coach right now. There’s not much else to talk about on the NBA front.
Reflect- This is completely driven by the team. The team announced the 9 candidates by name. Then the final 6. Then it was 3, and now down to 2.
Only the team has info at this level of specificity. It’s being released in this way to signal how professional the Suns front office is.
Yes it’s exactly like the team decided to do constant updates. You think fans could care less?
Aristotle is a dubs bandwaggoner. He acts like he cares but he is just a hater of non Warriors news.
Brian Gregory an NBA GM. Ha.
The Jordan vs Bryant battle continues.
The HEAT has always been been one of the top defenses in the NBA, yet Ishbia will go for a co-alumnus ….. gotta have someone scratch his old college war stories itch.