associate head coach for the San Antonio Spurs<\/a> \u2014 is getting the job over, among other candidates, longtime coaches Billy Donovan and Jeff Van Gundy. The 41-year-old Sweeney will replace Jamahl Mosley \u2014 another former Mavs assistant \u2014 who was let go by the Magic after five seasons and three consecutive first-round playoff exits. Mosley has since been hired as coach of the New Orleans Pelicans.<\/p>\nSweeney is expected to remain with the Spurs through the end of their season. The Spurs play Oklahoma City in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals on Saturday night, and if they win would meet the New York Knicks next week in the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n
Sweeney is a defensive guru, widely considered one of the brightest young coaches in the league on that side of the ball. In his lone season with the Spurs, he turned what was a porous defense a year ago into one of the league\u2019s most airtight \u2014 his scheme centered around Victor Wembanyama, the unanimous winner of the Defensive Player of the Year award this season.<\/p>\n
Sweeney is technically set to become a first-time head coach, just as Mosley was when Orlando hired him in 2021. Sweeney is 41 and in his 13th season as an assistant; Mosley was 42 and had spent 15 years as an assistant when Orlando hired him.<\/p>\n
Sweeney does have some experience. He had two separate, brief stints filling in for then-Dallas coach Jason Kidd because of illness and the health and safety protocols put into place during the COVID-19 pandemic. And he\u2019s said in the past that he may have coached more Summer League games than anyone in NBA history.<\/p>\n
But this fall, when the Magic start their season, Sweeney will be coaching for real.<\/p>\n
He started in the NBA as a video coordinator for the then-New Jersey Nets, and has since had assistant stints with the Nets, Milwaukee, Detroit, Dallas and San Antonio. Sweeney was among the handful of assistants who seemed to perpetually be interviewed for top jobs in recent years, but never got the offer \u2014 until now.<\/p>\n
Sweeney also spent time with Luka Doncic as part of Slovenia\u2019s coaching staff for the Paris Games in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sweeney will become the 15th coach in Magic history \u2014 16th if counting Donovan, who briefly accepted an offer to take over in Orlando and leave the University of Florida in 2007, then changed his mind about a week later.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orlando Magic are set to hire former Dallas assistant Sean\u00a0Sweeney as their new leading man on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":747365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3782],"tags":[1297,7,307,152,3954,6,308,87234,87094,92006,92005],"class_list":["post-747364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-article","tag-basketball","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-minnesotatimberwolves","tag-nba","tag-timberwolves","tag-tp-luka-doncic","tag-tp-jason-kidd","tag-tp-nba-finals","tag-tp-nba-playoffs"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116659928705490132","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747364","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=747364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/747365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}