As of Friday, May 22nd, 2026 the Portland Trail Blazers still remain without a confirmed Head Coach. After a year of Tiago Splitter filling in as an interim appointment, the Blazers are in a search process for their next leader. Yesterday news heated up as several candidates were named as “finalists”. These included veteran coach Jeff Van Gundy, Minnesota Timberwolves assistant Micah Nori, and Splitter himself.
Just when you thought the field was narrowed down, more names are emerging today.
NBA writer’s
Marc Stein’s latest Substack edition [subscription required] is devoted almost exclusively to the Blazers and their ongoing quest. Among the most substantive pieces of information: two other candidates have hats in the “finalist” fray:
League sources tell The Stein Line contributor Jake Fischer, furthermore, that two additional previously unreported names have also advanced to those stages: Boston’s Tyler Lashbrook and Utah’s Mike Williams. Sources say various candidates will fly into Portland this weekend as the process continues.
As if that wasn’t enough, Fischer himself brings up another:
In addition to his interest from Chicago, I’m told Jerry Stackhouse will also be interviewing for Portland’s next head coaching position this weekend.
Stackhouse was most recently an assistant coach for the Golden State Warriors alongside former Blazers Head Coach Terry Stotts, who himself has thrown his hat into the ring.
For those counting, that’s Van Gundy, Nori, Splitter, Lashbrook, Williams, and Stackhouse in process and maybe Stotts ringing the doorbell with a flyer.
Stein offers a couple other tidbits. One is that new owner Tom Dundon is looking for someone who will “coach players hard”. Another is that Van Gundy’s salary may range up to $3 million per year, which is double what Dundon was reportedly offering to Portland’s next coach. That may or may not indicate an increase in salary range, at least theoretically.
One of the more interesting items in the report was this:
Portland’s search has been multilayered to date and thus challenging even for NBA coaching insiders to track, given that some candidates have spoken primarily to Blazers general manager Joe Cronin, while others have spoken directly to new Blazers owner Tom Duncan and some have spoken to both.
That’s clear on the face of it. Editorializing a bit, between the lines it amounts to, “People watching the league can’t figure out exactly what’s going on here.” That could be a sign of brilliance on the part of the franchise, as in, “They’re doing calculus that nobody has yet seen!” It could also indicate that the team doesn’t know their head from a bag of Dollar Store Doritos.
We’ll have more as the coaching search continues.
