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Trail Blazers Announce Coaching Staff Additions

PORTLAND, Ore. (August 2, 2021) – The Portland Trail Blazers have hired Scott Brooks, Roy Rogers, Steve Hetzel, Edniesha Curry and Milt Palacio as assistant coaches and Parker Hines as video coordinator, adding to head coach Chauncey Billups’ staff, it was announced today by president of basketball operations Neil Olshey.

Brooks joins the Trail Blazers after serving as the head coach of the Washington Wizards for the last five seasons. In 12 seasons as a head coach with Oklahoma City (2008-15) and Washington, Brooks has a career record of 521-414 (.557). The 2010 NBA Coach of the Year, Brooks has led his teams to eight playoff berths, including a trip to the NBA Finals in 2012 and Western Conference Finals appearances in 2011 and 2014. He has four 50-win seasons to his credit, including a 60-22 mark with the Thunder during the 2012-13 season. Before becoming a head coach, Brooks worked as an assistant coach with Seattle/Oklahoma City (2007-08), Sacramento (2006-07) and Denver (2003-06).

A native of Lathrop, California, Brooks played collegiately at Texas Christian University, San Joaquin Delta College and UC Irvine before embarking on a 10-year NBA career with Philadelphia, Minnesota, Houston, Dallas, New York and Cleveland. Brooks won an NBA championship in 1994 as a member of the Houston Rockets.

Rogers arrives in Portland with 13 years of experience as an NBA assistant coach. He spent the 2020-21 season with the LA Clippers, where he worked alongside Billups and helped the team reach the Western Conference Finals. Rogers spent the 2019-20 season on the Chicago bench and before that spent three seasons with Houston, which included an appearance in the Western Conference Finals in 2018. He has also worked as an assistant coach with Washington (2014-16), Brooklyn (2013-14), Detroit (2011-12), Boston (2010-11) and New Jersey (2008-10). As a player, Rogers appeared in 137 games in three NBA seasons with Vancouver, Boston, Toronto and Denver. He played four seasons at Alabama from 1992-96 before being selected with the 22nd pick of the 1996 NBA Draft.

Hetzel has spent the last seven seasons as an assistant coach under Steve Clifford, first in Charlotte (2014-18) and most recently in Orlando (2018-21). He previously was the head coach of the Canton Charge of the NBA G League during the 2013-14 season. In his lone season in Canton, Hetzel led the Charge to a 28-22 record, finishing second in the East division. Prior to Canton, Hetzel spent four seasons as a player development coach with the Detroit Pistons (2009-13). He began his NBA career in the video room, first as an assistant video coordinator with San Antonio in the 2005-06 season and then as video coordinator for Cleveland for three seasons (2006-09). Hetzel graduated from Michigan State in 2005, where he served as a student manager for the men’s basketball team.

Curry joins the coaching staff from the University of Maine where she was an assistant coach with the men’s basketball team from 2018-21. She previously served as a player development and assistant coach for the Maine women’s basketball program from 2015-17. Curry is a graduate of the NBA Assistant Coaches’ Program where she gained experience working at the NBA Draft Combine and the NBA G League Showcase. In 2019, Curry served as a guest coach for San Antonio’s summer league team and assisted with Minnesota’s pre-draft workouts. She has also coached and done player development work internationally in Vietnam, China, Israel and Palestine. As a player, Curry played in the WNBA for Phoenix and Los Angeles along with teams overseas in Greece, Poland, Israel and Hungary from 2002-09. It is a return to the Pacific Northwest for Curry, who graduated from the University of Oregon, where she played the final two seasons of her college career.  

Palacio comes to the Trail Blazers after most recently spending two seasons as an assistant coach with the Long Island Nets of the NBA G League from 2018-20. Previously, Palacio served for one season as head coach of Durham United in the Canadian Basketball League (2016-17) and spent two seasons as the director of player development at the University of Idaho. A Los Angeles native and Colorado State alumnus, Palacio played seven seasons in the NBA with Vancouver, Boston, Phoenix, Cleveland, Toronto and Utah from 1999-2006 before playing six seasons overseas from 2007-13. Palacio has dual citizenship in Belize, where he played for the national team and now serves as its head coach.

Hines is hired as Portland’s video coordinator after spending the 2020-21 season as an assistant coach with the Austin Spurs of the NBA G League. He spent the four prior seasons with San Antonio, holding the roles of assistant video coordinator (2018-20), video coordinator quality assurance assistant (2017-18) and basketball operations quality assurance assistant (2016-17). Hines is a graduate of Augsburg University where he played guard from 2010-15.