Phoenix Suns assistant coach Kevin Younger yells to his group throughout the first half of an NBA basketball recreation towards the Boston Celtics, Friday, Dec. 31, 2021, in Boston. (AP Photograph/Mary Schwalm) AP
Every spring throughout the NBA playoffs, ESPN’s Kevin Arnovitz places collectively a listing of coaches whom he’s heard chatter might develop into head coaches within the league sometime.
Arnovitz launched his 2022 checklist final week, and the primary identify talked about was Kevin Younger, a Utah native who presently has the title of affiliate head coach of the Phoenix Suns, the perfect group within the Western Convention this season.
“If it’s alignment you’re in search of, Suns affiliate head coach Kevin Younger is a pure match,” Arnovitz wrote. “Each the Suns’ basketball ops crew and head coach Monty Williams regard Younger as a vital hub to share concepts throughout the group.
“It’s a logical function for a younger coach who excels at each listening and speaking.”
Younger, 40, was a head coach in Eire for a yr at age 23 earlier than turning into an assistant at UVU (then UVSC) for a season.
He was then an assistant at a small college in Georgia for a yr earlier than turning into an assistant with the NBA D-League’s (now G League) Utah Flash, which is now the Salt Lake Metropolis Stars.
He held that function for a season earlier than being promoted to move coach for the 2010-2011 marketing campaign.
Younger then succeeded present Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse as head coach of the D-League’s Iowa Vitality, a submit he held till 2013 when he grew to become an assistant with the Delaware 87ers, the Philadelphia 76ers’ affiliate.
Younger was promoted to move coach after the 2013-14 season, and stayed in that place till 2017.
At that time he grew to become an assistant with the 76ers till 2020, when the Suns employed him as an assistant (he and Suns head coach Monty Williams had been assistants collectively in Philadelphia throughout the 2018-19 season).
Younger was promoted to the function of affiliate head coach in Phoenix earlier than this season.
“He has earned the respect of gamers together with his work ethic and candor,” Arnovitz wrote. “He was a finalist for the Washington job final spring, the place his sharpness impressed.”
Along with Younger, Arnovitz included on his checklist Younger’s fellow Suns assistant Brian Randle and the staffs of the Milwaukee Bucks, Memphis Grizzlies, Miami Warmth, Golden State Warriors and Boston Celtics.
On Sunday, Warriors assistant Mike Brown was employed as head coach of the Sacramento Kings, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski first reported.
Moreover, Arnovitz talked about the next names on his checklist:
- South Carolina ladies’s head coach Daybreak Staley
- Former Utah Jazz heart Jarron Collins, who's an assistant with the New Orleans Pelicans after a few years as an assistant with the Golden State Warriors
- Former Villanova males’s head coach Jay Wright
- Barcelona head coach Sarunas Jasikevicius