The new era in Grizzlies basketball has officially started.
Tuomas Iisalo was named head coach of the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday, the organization announced, after serving as the interim coach for the club into the first round of the NBA playoffs.
“I have full confidence in Tuomas serving as head coach of the Memphis Grizzlies going forward,” Grizzlies president of basketball operations Zachary Kleiman said.
“Tuomas’s teams at every level have been disciplined, tenacious and connected on both ends of the floor, consistently exceeding expectations. We look forward to the same in Memphis.”
The 42-year-old from Helsinki becomes the NBA’s first head coach from Finland after going 4-5 to finish the regular season and guiding Memphis to Round 1 of the Western Conference Playoff, where they were swept by the top seeded Oklahoma City Thunder.
Iisalo had been forced into a challenging situation, facing a hard schedule late in the season with little time to make changes. The team had only a few practices under his direction.
“We had 15 games and two practices, and I tried to do my best in those,” Iisalo said after the team’s elimination.
Later, regarding the marathon and frantic pace of the season, he added: “That’s a ratio that makes it very difficult. We were in a situation that there were no drastic changes that we needed to make or could be made in that situation.”
After this season ended, the short-term leadership of Iisalo seemed to gain traction and a vote of confidence from several Grizzlies, including star Ja Morant.
Embed from Getty Images“I feel like Tuomas is a good coach,” Morant said in the team’s exit interviews. “For me, going into my film sessions with him and just talking about the game of basketball, seeing and hearing that he sees the same thing I see out there on the floor.
“I wouldn’t say it’s been surprising, but it’s been very exciting.”
Isalo was brought on as an assistant coach by the Grizzlies last July and took over the reins on March 28 as the team’s interim coach when head coach Taylor Jenkins was shown the door in a surprising turn of events after six years on the job, despite the team’s 44-29 record.
The Grizzlies lost to Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors in their play-in opener but defeated the shorthanded Dallas Mavericks in a winner-take-all showdown for the eighth and final West playoff berth.
Following the Grizzlies’ 48-34 regular-season record, Iisalo will look to build around a nucleus of Morant, Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr. as he molds and takes control of a team that has made the playoffs four of the past five years.
Iisalo coached Paris Basketball to the 2023-24 EuroCup championship and took the EuroCup Coach of the Year award in his first season leading the French squad. He was the architect of the top scoring attack in event history as Paris went 20-1 to capture the crown.
A Paris 25-game winning streak across competitions still stands as the longest ever in the French League.
Iisalo has plenty of coaching experience overseas. Iisalo, who played 14 pro seasons in Finland and won the 2009 Finnish Cup with Espoon Honka, started his head coaching career with Tapiolan Honka in 2014 and later coached from 2016-21 with Germany’s Crailsheim Merlins.
Iisalo won Bundesliga Coach of the Year awards in 2022 and 2023 while guiding Germany’s Telekom Baskets Bonn and was named 2023 Champions League Coach of the Year after sparking Bonn to a 2023 Champions League title.
