Per a report from the New York Times, Milwaukee Bucks assistant coach Charles Lee is among the coaching candidates for the Oklahoma City Thunder coaching job.
The NBA coaching carousel has finally slowed to a crawl this offseason.
Of course, the Milwaukee Bucks never joined the crop of teams that were and are still looking for a new head coach this fall and going into the 2020-21 season. With that said, some principal members of the Bucks’ coaching staff have been considered for various jobs and we can add one more to the list to the lone vacancy out there at the moment.
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According to the New York Times’ Marc Stein, Bucks assistant coach Charles Lee is among those currently being considered for the Oklahoma City Thunder’s head coaching job after they parted ways with Billy Donovan nearly two months ago.
There have been intermittent rumblings surrounding Lee and his prospects to get a new gig around the league, whether as an assistant or potentially taking the step up into the coaching chair over the offseason.
Lee, along with lead Bucks assistant Darvin Ham, were among the many that had met with the Indiana Pacers before they settled on first-timer Nate Bjorkgren late last month. More recently, Lee has been linked to the New Orleans Pelicans to join Stan Van Gundy’s staff after he got that job a couple of weeks ago.
Whether Lee will ultimately get the Thunder gig remains to be seen, but the Milwaukee Bucks assistant coach is seen as one to watch for in the coaching ranks.
A former player turned coach himself, Lee has followed wherever Mike Budenholzer has gone throughout the NBA since becoming an assistant coach with the Atlanta Hawks starting in the 2014-15 season.
Of course, that has led Lee to come to Milwaukee where he has been for the last two seasons under the two-time NBA Coach of the Year. The combination of the Bucks’ success and the clear rewards of their development program have created quite the shine surrounding the 35-year-old Lee as told by ESPN’s Kevin Arnovitz earlier this year:
"“Few assistant coaches saw a bigger season-to-season jump in our informal poll than Charles Lee, 35, who’s in his sixth season working under Mike Budenholzer in Atlanta and now Milwaukee. Fans of Lee, who played professionally overseas before spending a couple of years as an equity trader on Wall Street, tout him as a five-tool coach who is every bit as comfortable having meaningful conversations with a backup point guard as he is dining with a team owner. Those who have worked with him say he has an intuitive sense of how to inspire improvement from players but also understands high-level strategy and the preparation required to implement it. He is, in the words of one peer, someone who is “categorically going to be an NBA head coach.””"
For a Thunder team that is about to take on what could be an extensive rebuild, Lee’s pedigree clearly has put him on their radar for such a task as Stein notes.
With the Bucks’ coaching staff undergoing some changes going into next season, Lee could be the next to follow. We’ll stay tuned to whether he will ultimately come out and earn his first NBA coaching job down in Oklahoma City.