{"id":884204,"date":"2026-10-16T09:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T09:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/884204\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T09:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T09:52:12","slug":"nba-season-to-begin-with-6-coaches-in-new-places-including-3-first-time-sideline-bosses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/884204\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA season to begin with 6 coaches in new places, including 3 first-time sideline bosses"},"content":{"rendered":"

National Sports<\/a><\/p>\n

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Milwaukee Bucks head coach Taylor Jenkins calls a timeout against the Chicago Bulls during the second half of an NBA preseason basketball game, Wednesday Oct. 14, 2026, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo\/Ross Harried)<\/p>\n

Dusty May is new to the NBA. He\u2019s not new to the NBA stage.<\/p>\n

Thanks in large part to a Final Four run at Florida Atlantic in 2023 and leading Michigan to the NCAA title last season, May has coached plenty of big games in plenty of NBA arenas and knows what it\u2019s like when those buildings are filled to the rafters.<\/p>\n

And that means, when he officially starts as coach of the Dallas Mavericks in a few days, May will have a real sense of what\u2019s coming — at least from an surroundings standpoint.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in that environment,\u201d May said. \u201cNot at the level, obviously, but I\u2019m someone who\u2019s big on visualization. I see myself there. \u2026 But I have a real unique ability to, once the game starts, for 48 minutes to have 100% of my focus on the court and our bench.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, the coach of last season\u2019s NCAA champion truly believes he\u2019s ready for the NBA challenge. And he\u2019s not alone, with six teams under new coaching management this season.<\/p>\n

May is one of three first-time NBA coaches this season, along with Orlando\u2019s Sean Sweeney (the former San Antonio assistant) and Portland\u2019s Micah Nori (the former Minnesota assistant).<\/p>\n

Another trio of coaches got new jobs in the league — former Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins has taken over in Milwaukee, former Orlando coach Jamahl Mosley has taken over in New Orleans, and former interim Portland coach Tiago Splitter (who coached for basically the entirety of last season) is the new coach in Chicago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think just in general, the way we\u2019re approaching things is, \u2018What do we need to do today? Where are we at? How did we do with it? What do we need to improve on?’\u201d Sweeney said. \u201cWe\u2019ve done a good job of trying to set high standards for ourselves and lay down expectations for each other and live up to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is possible to win somewhere in Year 1 as a coach — just ask New York\u2019s Mike Brown, who led the Knicks to last season\u2019s NBA championship in his inaugural season on that team\u2019s sideline. The coach of the reigning Western Conference champions, San Antonio\u2019s Mitch Johnson, got to the finals in his second season as coach of the Spurs (which, technically, was his first full season as head coach).<\/p>\n

Sweeney and Nori were widely considered as being ready to become head coaches for a few years before getting their current chances. May had taken two schools, one of them a mid-major, to the Final Four in a four-season span, more than proving his ability to win. Splitter did such a good job under awkward circumstances in Portland last season that he was a coach of the year candidate, and both Jenkins and Mosley have had success at their previous stops.<\/p>\n

Nori essentially accepted a one-year contract with the Trail Blazers, an extremely rare move, especially for a first-time head coach. He\u2019s betting on himself, saying that if he does the job the options for future seasons on the existing contract will take care of itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been around a lot of — I think it\u2019s 13 — head coaches, so you start to see what you would do and what you\u2019d like to do,\u201d Nori said. \u201cI guess the biggest difference, and they always talk about sliding over that one seat, is that it ends with you. \u2026 It\u2019s your program now. That\u2019s been the biggest adjustment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mosley was living in Florida a few months ago, never thinking he\u2019d be in Louisiana now. But when the Magic decided to change coaches, the Pelicans didn\u2019t wait long before pouncing — knowing that Mosley would be a hot commodity. And Mosley says a change of scenery gave him an opportunity for what essentially is a reawakening.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get to do a lot of reflecting quick, right? You get to see exactly what worked, what didn\u2019t work, how you can balance out what you do, the roster you have, you get to reflect on a lot of things that were successful and things that you need to work on,\u201d Mosley said. \u201cThat\u2019s what it gave me. And now look at the group of guys that we have here — young, energetic, wanting to learn, wanting to figure it out, hungry to get better. There\u2019s so much of it here that it\u2019s easy to pour into an organization like this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"National Sports Milwaukee Bucks head coach Taylor Jenkins calls a timeout against the Chicago…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-884204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}