Alabama men’s basketball coach Nate Oats has reportedly finished building his staff for the 2024-25 season, as the Crimson Tide tries to return to the Final Four. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Oats is hiring Brian Adams from the NBA’s Detroit Piston as an assistant coach.
Adams will replace Austin Claunch, who left to take the head job at Texas-San Antonio, on the Tide’s staff. He had joined the Pistons staff mid-season in 2023-24, after working under Doc Rivers with the Philadelphia 76ers and Los Angeles Clippers organizations.
Beyond Claunch’s departure, Oats avoided significant losses from the staff that took UA to the Final Four for the first time in program history. Adams’ fellow assistant coaches, Ryan Pannone and Preston Murphy, will both return.
Adams began his coaching career at Harvard, and made a stop at Marist College. He then worked as an assistant for the Agua Caliente Clippers (now the San Diego Clippers), LA’s G-League affiliate.
He served in that role until 2018, when he took over as the team’s head coach. After that, he moved over to Philadelphia, where he worked as a player development coach.
Before joining Monty Williams’ staff in Detroit, Adams had been working as head coach of a team in Taiwan.
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