Holly MacKenzie of The Score reports that Marc Iavaroni, an assistant with the Raptors last season, a head coach for a season in Memphis, and one of Mike D'Antoni's top assistants at the inception of 'Seven Seconds or Less' in Phoenix, will be joining coach Vinny Del Negro's nascent coaching star in LA.
I spoke briefly with GM Neil Olshey during half time of the Clippers-Spurs summer league game, and he's excited about Iavaroni. A former power forward in the league, Olshey pointed to his prior work with Amare Stoudemire and Andrea Bargnani.
On the surface, it appears that the Clippers may be going with an "offensive coordinator" (Iavaroni), "defensive coordinator" (Demopolous) approach. (As far as I know, Demopolous' situation remains officially up in the air, but as we've discussed before, it's hard to imagine the guy running the summer league team not winding up on the staff when all is said and done.) Demopolous has a reputation from college and in Portland as a defensive guru; Iavaroni cut his teeth in the most inventive offensive system to hit the NBA in years. Iavaroni had a tough time trying to translate D'Antnoi's system to a less talented team in Memphis. But it should be noted that, if he was responsible for Toronto's offense last season, they were a very efficient offensive team. It was their league worst defense that was their downfall.