The Suns have named Paul Jesperson the head coach of their G League affiliate, the Valley Suns, the team announced today in a press release.
“Paul is ready to take this next step in his career as he moves into the role of head coach,” Valley Suns GM Brendan Sabean said in a statement. “His background and experience complement our vision to utilize the G League as a lifeline of development for Suns and Valley Suns players. He’s a natural fit for the job and I’m looking forward to seeing the impact he can make as head coach.”
Jesperson was an assistant on the Valley Suns’ bench last season, so on one hand, the move looks like a fairly straightforward internal promotion. However, it happened in a roundabout way.
A report in May stated that the Kings had reached an agreement with Jesperson to make him their head of player development, and when Sacramento officially announced Doug Christie‘s staff a few weeks later, Jesperson was named to that position. However, earlier this month, reporting indicated that D.J. Ham had agreed to become the Kings’ head of player development after Jesperson stepped away from the team.
We now know that Jesperson left that new position in Sacramento in order to rejoin the Valley Suns. He’ll replace former head coach John Little, who was named an assistant under new Phoenix head coach Jordan Ott.
Jesperson, who played college basketball at Virginia and Northern Iowa before briefly spending time in the G League and in Europe, worked for the Hawks and the Oklahoma Sooners before joining Phoenix’s NBAGL team as an assistant last season.