OKC Thunder: 5 dark horse head coach candidates

Brent Barry  – former player, TV Analysts – back with Spurs

If you’ve caught yourself sighing at certain former players who are terrible at dissecting games on TV join the club. While Brent Barry was known during his playing days as a perimeter sniper he went on to become a fan favorite as a broadcaster.

For those of you who became big fans of ‘The Starters” which is now a podcast “No Dunks” on The Athletic, it was Barry who made the NBA network aware of the crew. For the real purists, the Starters wasn’t their original name either it was ‘The Basketball Jones’.

Likewise, he was great on-air whether it was as a play by play analyst or in-studio with the Game Time crew. Much like Stan Van Gundy became the go-to coach on NBA TV this summer Brent was that guy for years.

Not surprisingly his former club and coach figured out his talent wasn’t being fully exercised. I’m speaking of the San Antonio Spurs and Gregg Popovich as they came calling and Barry took them up on their offer to become the vice president of basketball operations.

During his playing days, it took a few years for Barry to find his right fit.  That occurred in his fifth year playing for this fourth team – the SuperSonics where he played five years.

His next team was the Spurs where he played for four seasons and won two titles. While Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Kawhi Leonard became the best-known Spurs, Brent Barry was a cerebral and reliable player who Gregg Popovich could rely on to think through the play or nail a triple given his career 40.5 percent efficiency.

Since Bones is a front-office executive It’s unlikely he has any desire to be a coach although the natural comparison would be Steve Kerr.