What Chris Finch said about Micah Nori's one-year Blazers contract

The Portland Trail Blazers hired Minnesota Timberwolves lead assistant Micah Nori as their new head coach on Tuesday, and the contract structure immediately became the dominant talking point. Minnesota head coach Chris Finch pushed back on that directly.

Nori's deal contains just one guaranteed year, with Portland holding team options for the following two seasons. A standard first-time NBA head coaching contract runs four years. New Blazers owner Tom Dundon had drawn criticism throughout the search over the pay structure, with CBS Sports reporting early indications suggested the offer was well below market rate for the position.

"Early reports in the process indicated that the Blazers were offering far below the typical market average for an NBA head coach amid Dundon's controversial approach to spending on his franchises."

Finch addressed the coverage of his former assistant's deal while speaking to reporters at the 2026 NBA Draft on Tuesday.

"I thought it was a shame that a lot of the story about Micah's great opportunity was overshadowed by the nature of the deal that he signed," Finch said. "That's a personal decision, that's a business decision that's between him, the team, and the agent."

Finch says Nori's contract deserved less attention than his opportunity

"I just know this, there's 30 of these jobs. They're hard to get," Finch said. "And then I also know that you gotta bet on yourself in this world. Especially when you're an outsider. We consider ourselves a little bit of outsiders; we weren't raised in the game, we didn't play at North Carolina or Duke. So sometimes your path is just different, and you gotta take chances along the way."

Nori spent the past five seasons as Finch's lead assistant in Minnesota after previous stops in Toronto, Sacramento, Denver, and Detroit.

He had been a finalist for several head coaching jobs in recent years before Portland. 25 percent of NBA general managers reportedly voted him the best assistant in the league in the annual GM survey, the highest total across the entire league.

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