Kaleb Canales is running an NCAA Division I men’s basketball program now.<\/p>\n
The Laredo native was recently hired as the new head coach at Weber State.<\/p>\n
Nicknamed the Wildcats, Weber State is an NCAA Division I basketball program that competes in the Big Sky Conference. Canales will replace Eric Duft, who compiled a record of 66-65 from 2022-2026 at Weber State, including 16-16 this past season. Duft is still with the program and has been transitioned into a new role as the president of basketball operations and development.<\/p>\n
Weber State hasn’t made the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament since 2016.<\/p>\n
Over his 25-year coaching career, Canales has had two head coaching opportunities prior to Weber State, but both came with associate or interim tags.<\/p>\n
His most recent head coaching role was as an associate head coach under Scott Cross at Troy from 2025-26, and before that, it was when he was the interim head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers for the final 23 games of the 2011-12 NBA season. When he was promoted to interim head coach on March 15, 2012, Canales became the youngest active head coach in the NBA and the first Mexican-American coach in NBA history. Portland would eventually hire Terry Stotts, but Canales remained an assistant coach.<\/p>\n
Canales’ coaching career goes all the way back to 2001 as an assistant at Martin High School in Laredo. It was a quick rise through the ranks for Canales, who spent 2001-2003 at Martin and United high schools and 2003-04 at the University of Texas at Arlington as an assistant.<\/p>\n
From 2005-12, Canales was with the Trail Blazers. He started as a video intern and was promoted to an assistant coach in 2009, a role he held until 2013. Not only was Canales the interim head coach in 2012, but he also served as Portland’s head coach during the 2010 NBA Summer League.<\/p>\n
Coincidentally, Canales was with the Trail Blazers during the same time as star guard Damian Lillard, who played at Weber State.<\/p>\n
Following his time in Portland, Canales remained on NBA sidelines until 2023. He held assistant positions with the Dallas Mavericks from 2013-18, the Indiana Pacers from 2020-21 and the Orlando Magic from 2021-23.<\/p>\n
Canales also has experience as an assistant coach for the Mexican national team (2021), in the NBA G League with the Texas Legends (2023-25) and in the Canadian Elite Basketball League with the Calgary Surge (2025).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kaleb Canales is running an NCAA Division I men’s basketball program now. The Laredo native was recently hired…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[87644,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-236574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-aud4h","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}