Who is Micah Nori? Middletown native is Trail Blazers' new head coach
· Yahoo Sports
The Portland Trail Blazers hired Minnesota Timberwolves assistant coach Micah Nori as their new NBA head coach, the team announced on June 23.
Nori, a longtime NBA assistant, is a Middletown, Ohio, native who played baseball at Fenwick High School and for the Middies.
Visit mchezo.life for more information.
After playing baseball at Indiana University, Nori worked as a graduate assistant at Miami University and earned his master's degree from MU.
Nori, a Minnesota assistant since 2021, has also been an assistant coach for the Toronto Raptors, Sacramento Kings, Denver Nuggets and Detroit Pistons since 2009.
When Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch was injured during the fourth quarter of his team's Game 4 win in the 2024 NBA playoffs against the Phoenix Suns, Nori assumed coaching duties on the Minnesota bench to help the team close out the series and advance.
What to know about Nori:
Nori was born April 8, 1974, the day Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's Major League Baseball home run record
Four days before Nori's date of birth, Aaron tied Ruth's record in Cincinnati, with a homer off of the Reds' Jack Billingham.
Nori played multiple sports in high school but went on to play baseball as a captain and middle infielder for the Hoosiers.
Nori told Minnpost.com's Britt Robson that injuries and a self-professed lack of athleticism kept him from pursuing professional baseball after he starred at IU, finishing with a .305 batting average, 20 home runs, 127 RBIs, 116 runs, 35 doubles and 18 stolen bases.
He became the Hoosiers' hitting coach in 2005.
Fellow Middletown native and former Hoosier Butch Carter helped launch Nori's NBA coaching career
Nori went to Oxford, Ohio, after IU and was ready to take a job as a high school athletic director when Carter called.
Nori's father, Fred, was Carter's football coach in high school. Fred Nori, a baseball star for the Hoosiers in the 1960s who played in the New York Mets' organization, got his master's degree at Xavier University and later served as an assistant at IU, XU and MU. Fred Nori was a longtime baseball coach for the Middies and Fenwick as well.
Micah Nori lived with Carter and sat behind him on the bench for two years in Toronto. He spent about 10 years as an advance scout, and his first job as an NBA assistant was on the Raptors' coaching staff.
Like Nori, Timberwolves head coach Finch is from Ohio
Finch grew up in Cambridge, the same hometown as John Glenn, longtime NFL coach Dom Capers and Stony Brook head coach and former Ohio University great Geno Ford.
Finch and Nori met in Denver, when Finch was associate head coach in 2016-17 and Nori was an assistant. They stayed in touch when Finch left to join the New Orleans Pelicans in 2017, and Finch hired Nori as his lead assistant when he became the Timberwolves' head coach in 2021.
Micah's younger brother, Brady Nori, starred for the RedHawks' baseball team
Brady, who played for the Middies and graduated from Middletown in 1997, played first base at MU, and led all RedHawks batters at the 2001 Mid-American Conference (MAC) baseball tournament with a .480 batting average.
As a senior, Brady also broke the MAC single-season record for at-bats, surpassing the previous record of 235.
Brady was a Butler County Sports Hall of Fame class of 2023 inductee.
Micah's son, Dante Nori, was a 2024 first-round pick of the Philadelphia Phillies
Through 236 plate appearances this season for the Phillies' Double-A affiliate in Reading, Dante batted .245 with 12 stolen bases.
Dante also played for Italy in the 2026 World Baseball Classic.
Micah talked about Dante during a 2024 appearance on MLB Network's "Hot Stove."
As a senior outfielder at Michigan's Northville High School, Nori walked twice and struck out once in a 6-2 loss to Moeller in the 2024 PBR Ohio High School Invitational.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Micah Nori, Middletown, Ohio native, is Trail Blazers' new head coach