Turnover on staff one of constants in Musselman’s brief tenure at Nevada
Eric Musselman is going to have an entirely new staff of assistants for the third-straight year.
Nevada men’s basketball coach worked alongside three new faces when he came to Reno before the 2015-16 season. He had to replace them all in 2016-17. And once again, he will have a trio of Nevadan greenhorns sitting next to him in 2017-18.
The school announced Wednesday that Ron Dupree, the lone carryover from last year’s staff, has accepted a job in the NBA. The team he will be working for, and the position he will hold, will be released “at a later date.”
“We wish Ronald, Jamila, Parker, and Sydney nothing but the best in their next chapter in the NBA,” Musselman said in a release. “They will be missed by the entire program, but Nevada basketball thanks you for all that you’ve done to continue to make this a winning program.”
Dupree was an assistant with Musselman at LSU for the 2014-15 season, then coming to Nevada last year as the Wolf Pack won 28 games (the second-most in program history), won first ever Mountain West regular-season and tournament titles, and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a decade.
After an outstanding career as a player at LSU, Dupree lasted six seasons in the NBA with Chicago, Detroit, Minnesota, Seattle and Toronto. He also played three seasons in the NBA Developmental League. Internationally, he played professionally in Germany, Argentina, Italy, and Israel.
He now joins a long list of staff members who have worked under Musselman and have moved on to the NBA ranks. That list includes Scott Brooks (head coach of the Washington Wizards), David Fizdale (head Coach of the Memphis Grizzlies), Brandon O’Connor (Los Angeles Clippers), Keith Smart (Memphis Grizzlies), Duane Ticknor (Sacramento Kings), Larry Lewis (Sacramento Kings), Mark Hughes (New York Knicks), Clay Moser (Los Angeles Lakers), Phil Handy (Cleveland Cavaliers), and Sammy Gelfand (Golden State Warriors).
Johnny Jones and Anthony Ruta are the other two assistants on Musselman’s current staff. Jones was relieved from his duties as the head coach at LSU in March after compiling a 90-72 record in five seasons with the Tigers. He fills the role of associate head coach that was left vacant when Dave Rice – former UNLV head coach – took an assistant job at Washington.
Ruta was promoted to assistant coach from the director of basketball operations position. He takes the spot left by Yanni Huffnagel’s departure.
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