Micah Nori finally has his shot.
The Portland Trail Blazers introduced the 52-year-old as their 17th head coach on June 25, at the team's practice facility in Tualatin.
Nori, a longtime NBA assistant who spent the last five seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves, fills the league's last remaining coaching vacancy for the 2026-27 season.
"A playoff roster, adding a future Hall of Famer in this great city with this fan base and the support that we get — it's an opportunity that I could not pass up and was ecstatic to take," Nori said at the press conference.
All-Star forward Deni Avdija, fresh off a workout, stayed in the back of the gym to listen.
Nori inherits a team that went 42-40 under interim coach Tiago Splitter last season and made the playoffs for the first time since 2020-21. He'll also welcome back Damian Lillard, who sat out the entire 2025-26 season with a left Achilles injury.
The contract raised eyebrows across the league. Nori signed a one-year guaranteed deal with team options for the following two seasons, plus a below-market base salary offset by performance incentives. National Basketball Coaches Association president J.B. Bickerstaff called the structure "a slap in the face to our value."
Owner Tom Dundon used a similar model with Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour in 2018; the Hurricanes made the playoffs every season and won the 2026 Stanley Cup.
Nori brushed off the controversy. He told reporters the charge from ownership is simple: win.
General manager Joe Cronin said the front office and Dundon agreed to "take a chance on each other," describing the arrangement as "shared risk."
Nori arrives with a defensive pedigree. During his five seasons in Minnesota, the Timberwolves posted the fifth-best record in the NBA and reached the Western Conference Finals in both 2024 and 2025.
Minnesota ranked No. 1 in defensive rating in 2023-24. When head coach Chris Finch ruptured his patellar tendon during the 2024 playoffs, Nori stepped in as acting head coach and guided the Wolves through a seven-game series win over Denver.
He identified two immediate priorities for Portland: cutting turnovers (the Blazers led the NBA at 17.0 per game last season) and improving in clutch time, where the team went 21-22.
"We need to get that to about a 60-65% winning percentage," Nori said of close games.
Nori, who began his NBA coaching career as an intern with the Toronto Raptors in 1998, interviewed for head coaching jobs seven times before landing this one, finishing as the runner-up at least five times, including with the Knicks in 2025 and the Lakers in 2024.
Dwane Casey, who twice hired Nori as an assistant, called the hire "a home run."
The 2026-27 NBA season tips off in October.
