Philadelphia 76ers: 10 head coaching candidates to consider

Sixers coaching candidate: Adrian Griffin

Another former player, Adrian Griffin’s NBA career spanned nine years and five teams from 1999 to 2008. After retirement, he immediately entered the coaching circuit, starting as an assistant in Milwaukee from 2008-10. He then jumped to Chicago from 2010-15, to Orlando from 2015-16, then to Oklahoma City from 2016-18. And, mostly recently, he has been the lead assistant to Nick Nurse in Toronto.

Nick Nurse might be the best coach in basketball. To play a significant role in his coaching staff — for a team that won a championship last season — should immediately put Griffin at the top of a lot of coaching searches. Griffin was also handed the head coaching reigns for Toronto’s final regular season game in the bubble, so he clearly has Nurse’s confidence and respect.

More often than not, fresh minds are a blessing in the world of NBA head coaches. You can only get so much from a retread. So, while names like Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy will also hover around the blogosphere, it’s the fresh-faced assistants like Griffin — like Nick Nurse — who often bring the most upside.

The challenge here is obviously respect. Can someone with no head coaching experience command a volatile locker room that began to show cracks last season? That is a question Griffin will have to answer, but again, look at Nurse. He took the Toronto job fresh off a Dwayne Casey Coach of the Year win, didn’t blink, and got the Raptors a title. Maybe Griffin can capture that same magic.