{"id":729433,"date":"2026-05-09T03:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T03:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/729433\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T03:00:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T03:00:17","slug":"nigerian-national-team-hires-david-fizdale-as-new-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/729433\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigerian National Team Hires David Fizdale As New Coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former NBA coach David Fizdale, who is currently an analyst for NBA TV, is the new head coach of Nigeria\u2019s men\u2019s national team, he tells Marc J. Spears of ESPN Andscape<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 51-year-old will be looking to lead the Nigerians to the 2028 Olympic games in Fizdale\u2019s hometown of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be fun and exciting calling timeouts and drawing plays up again as a head coach,\u201d Fizdale told ESPN Andscape in a phone interview. \u201cIt will be good to get back in that mindset of preparation and motivation. That is going to be fun and exciting as well. But the biggest fact is the nostalgia and what is driving me to get to L.A. What is driving me the most is helping Nigeria not only qualify and medal, but to do that in front of my family. That would be the most special thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fizdale spent several years as an assistant in Miami prior to landing his first head coaching job with Memphis. He also had a stint as head coach of New York. Overall, Fizdale compiled a 71-134 (.346 win percentage) regular season record across parts of four seasons with the Grizzlies and Knicks from 2016-19. His most recent coaching job came as the top assistant in Phoenix from 2023-25.<\/p>\n

According to Fizdale, current Knicks head coach Mike Brown \u2014 who previously led Nigeria\u2019s national team \u2014 helped convince him to take the job. Nigeria will play in the African qualifiers for the 2027 FIBA World Cup in early July, Spears notes.<\/p>\n

If the Nigerian national team is able to qualify for the 2027 World Cup or 2028 Olympics, the roster could be loaded with NBA talent. A source tells Spears that Desmond Bane<\/a>, OG Anunoby<\/a>, Onyeka Okongwu<\/a>, Gabe Vincent<\/a>, Mark Williams<\/a>, Zeke Nnaji<\/a>, Precious Achiuwa<\/a>, Josh Okogie<\/a>, Adem Bona<\/a> and Isaac Okoro<\/a> are among the candidates to potentially suit up for those events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NBA coach David Fizdale, who is currently an analyst for NBA TV, is the new head coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3795],"tags":[1262,7,11781,497,370,294,3891,6356,1011,293,177,4070,3357,6,741,493,10745,4714],"class_list":["post-729433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-memphis-grizzlies","tag-adem-bona","tag-basketball","tag-david-fizdale","tag-desmond-bane","tag-gabe-vincent","tag-grizzlies","tag-isaac-okoro","tag-josh-okogie","tag-mark-williams","tag-memphis","tag-memphis-grizzlies","tag-memphisgrizzlies","tag-mike-brown","tag-nba","tag-og-anunoby","tag-onyeka-okongwu","tag-precious-achiuwa","tag-zeke-nnaji"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116542388545887462","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}