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Experience still matters in coaching, but the NBA is skewing younger when it comes to head coaches. Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla won a championship at age 35 in 2024, and many of the coaches hired before the 2024-25 season — including JJ Redick and Charles Lee — were fresh faces.
Plenty of veteran coaches have still found ways to stick around, though. Former Spurs coach Gregg Popovich stuck around for nearly three decades before health issues forced him to transition to being the Spurs' full-time head of basketball operations.
At the time of his decision, Popovich was easily the NBA's oldest head coach. Who is it now?
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Here's a look at the NBA's oldest active coaches, from Tom Thibodeau to Nick Nurse.
Oldest NBA head coaches 2025
1. Tom Thibodeau, Knicks
- Age: 67
- Experience: 13 seasons
- Record: 578-420
Thibodeau didn't become a head coach until age 52, which seems ancient for a first-timer in today's NBA, but he's carved out a long career for himself as a head coach after two decades as an assistant.
Now the NBA's oldest coach at 67 after Popovich stepped aside, Thibodeau has spent the last five seasons coaching the Knicks after stints with the Bulls and Timberwolves. He won 62 games in his first season with the Bulls, during which Derrick Rose earned MVP honors, and he led both Minnesota and New York back to the playoffs within two years of being hired.
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2. Rick Carlisle, Pacers
- Age: 65
- Experience: 23 seasons
- Record: 993-860
Carlisle has spent the last four seasons as head coach of the Pacers, his second stint in Indiana after coaching the franchise from 2003-07.
Between those two stints was a successful 13-year run with the Mavericks, which saw Carlisle win an NBA championship in 2011 and reach the playoffs nine times. While former Mavericks owner Mark Cuban once said he envisioned Carlisle as the organization's Jerry Sloan, the two sides decided to split in 2021.
Carlisle took the Pacers to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2024 and won 50 games in 2024-25; he will enter the 2025-26 season seven wins away from 1,000 for his career.
3. Doc Rivers, Bucks
- Age: 63
- Experience: 26 seasons
- Record: 1,162-816
Rivers was hired as head coach of the Magic in 1999 and hasn't spent a season out of the NBA since. He earned his reputation as head coach of the Celtics during the franchise's dominant run in the late 2000s and early 2010s, guiding the franchise to a championship in 2008 and reaching the NBA Finals again in 2010.
Rivers posted a winning season in each of his seven seasons with the Clippers and all three with the 76ers as well, but he earned plenty of criticism for his lack of playoff success — and penchant for blown leads — in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. That criticism persisted after Rivers was hired as head coach of the Bucks midseason in 2024.
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4. Billy Donovan, Bulls
- Age: 59
- Experience: 10 seasons
- Record: 438-362
Donovan's first foray into the NBA lasted only a few days — he was introduced as head coach of the Magic in 2007, only to reverse course and return to Florida after winning back-to-back national championships — but he officially made the jump in 2015 when he was hired by the Thunder.
Donovan led Oklahoma City to five consecutive winning seasons, coming within a win of the NBA Finals in his first season, but he's hovered near .500 in five seasons with the Bulls due partly to questionable roster construction.
5. Steve Kerr, Warriors
- Age: 59
- Experience: 11 seasons
- Record: 567-308
Kerr was hired without NBA coaching experience in 2014, but it didn't take long for him to establish himself as one of the league's top coaches. Kerr won NBA championships in three of his first four seasons, setting the single-season wins record with 73 in 2015-16 and tacking on a fourth title in 2022.
While not every Warriors season has gone smoothly since 2019, Kerr has only one losing season in 11 years and has one of the safest seats of any NBA coach as a result.
6. Quin Snyder, Hawks
- Age: 58
- Experience: 11 seasons
- Record: 458-363
Formerly the head coach at Missouri and an NBA assistant, Snyder spent eight seasons as head coach of the Jazz from 2014-21 and was hired midseason by the Hawks in 2023.
Snyder guided Utah to the No. 1 seed in the West in 2021, reaching the playoffs in each of his last six seasons with the organization and going 372-264 in an era that saw Gordon Hayward, Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert pass through.
7. Kenny Atkinson, Cavaliers
- Age: 5
- Experience: 5 seasons
- Record: 182-208
Atkinson spent time as an assistant with the Knicks and Hawks before taking the reins of a rebuilding Nets team in 2016. He struggled through two years in Brooklyn before earning a surprise playoff berth in 2019, only to be fired midseason the following year.
After two stints as an assistant and backing out of the Hornets' head coaching job in 2022, Atkinson was hired by the Cavaliers in 2024 and quickly found success with a dominant 64-win campaign in year one.
8. Nick Nurse, 76ers
- Age: 57
- Experience: 7 seasons
- Record: 298-256
Nurse fought his way to the top in his coaching career, spending more than a decade coaching in Europe before securing an opportunity in the G League (then known as the D-League) before latching on as an assistant under Dwane Casey in 2013.
Nurse replaced Casey in 2018 and led the Raptors to their first championship in year one, only suffering one losing season in five years with Toronto. After he was fired by the Raptors in 2023, Nurse was hired to replace Doc Rivers in Philadelphia.
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