Tiago Splitter - Assistant coach
Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2025 3:24 pm
Coach Billups, and some of the players,´statements yesterday had a massive tidbit that has gone way under the radar, the signing of Tiago Splitter as an assistant coach. Most of us remember Splitter as a solid Brazilian big who had a long but unillustrious NBA career. ´
A little over a year ago I was promoting Thomas Iusalo as a potential Billups replacement given his innovative style and success with Paris Basketball. Then Memphis went out and hired him and in less than a season he´s their head coach. Opportunity lost.
Well it turns out Tiago Splitter took over the Paris Basketball team, and without making any major additons, had them amog the better teams in their first season in the Euroleague. He took a lot of the basics of Iusalo´s offense, added to it and then implemented a new defense. The crazy thing about the D is that he had them morphing from man to zone in the middle of a possesion.
Some quotes, all copied from Blazersedge, regarding his impact on the team thus far:
”I expect for us again to play faster,” Billups said. “Not only that, but even in the halfcourt, some of the cutting patterns and things like that will be totally different — not as much standing around or just run the pick-n-roll and the other three guys are just kinda standing and watching the entire time. … We’ll be better about that and not being as predictable.”
“The way we’re playing this year is going to be a lot faster,” Henderson said. “We always talked about how we wanted to play fast, but there was never really any construction around it, so we were kinda just free-roaming a little bit. But I feel like this year with [St. Andrews] and Tiago and [Billups] as the head of the snake, I think it’s going to be a lot of fun, a lot of unexpected cuts, and I’m gonna be able to know where everybody’s at. We’re all gonna be moving in unison.”
“For players who tend to get stuck in the corner, this offense is really great to get you involved, to make you feel like you’re involved,” Blazers wing Matisse Thybulle added. “Ultimately, with any offense, that’s the goal: keeping guys engaged. And offenses just have a tendency to have certain players get stuck in spots on the court where they don’t feel like they’re a part of things, and then that creates all types of problems, whether it’s engagement, buy-in or effort on defense. Not that those are things were necessarily worried about, but the fact that everyone’s gonna be more involved, everyone’s gonna be more of a threat, I think it’s going to be exciting for guys like myself and Toumani [Camara], defensive players who sometimes tend to get lost in the corners.”
I continue to be very optimistic about this team. I can see us being this season´s Rockets and not only making the play-in but the playoffs. Recall that last year I was the most pessimistic person in the record predictions thread so its not like I am prone to unbridled optimism. If Scoot is back by December and has really improved as much as everyone says, I see us winning 50-55 games.
A little over a year ago I was promoting Thomas Iusalo as a potential Billups replacement given his innovative style and success with Paris Basketball. Then Memphis went out and hired him and in less than a season he´s their head coach. Opportunity lost.
Well it turns out Tiago Splitter took over the Paris Basketball team, and without making any major additons, had them amog the better teams in their first season in the Euroleague. He took a lot of the basics of Iusalo´s offense, added to it and then implemented a new defense. The crazy thing about the D is that he had them morphing from man to zone in the middle of a possesion.
Some quotes, all copied from Blazersedge, regarding his impact on the team thus far:
”I expect for us again to play faster,” Billups said. “Not only that, but even in the halfcourt, some of the cutting patterns and things like that will be totally different — not as much standing around or just run the pick-n-roll and the other three guys are just kinda standing and watching the entire time. … We’ll be better about that and not being as predictable.”
“The way we’re playing this year is going to be a lot faster,” Henderson said. “We always talked about how we wanted to play fast, but there was never really any construction around it, so we were kinda just free-roaming a little bit. But I feel like this year with [St. Andrews] and Tiago and [Billups] as the head of the snake, I think it’s going to be a lot of fun, a lot of unexpected cuts, and I’m gonna be able to know where everybody’s at. We’re all gonna be moving in unison.”
“For players who tend to get stuck in the corner, this offense is really great to get you involved, to make you feel like you’re involved,” Blazers wing Matisse Thybulle added. “Ultimately, with any offense, that’s the goal: keeping guys engaged. And offenses just have a tendency to have certain players get stuck in spots on the court where they don’t feel like they’re a part of things, and then that creates all types of problems, whether it’s engagement, buy-in or effort on defense. Not that those are things were necessarily worried about, but the fact that everyone’s gonna be more involved, everyone’s gonna be more of a threat, I think it’s going to be exciting for guys like myself and Toumani [Camara], defensive players who sometimes tend to get lost in the corners.”
I continue to be very optimistic about this team. I can see us being this season´s Rockets and not only making the play-in but the playoffs. Recall that last year I was the most pessimistic person in the record predictions thread so its not like I am prone to unbridled optimism. If Scoot is back by December and has really improved as much as everyone says, I see us winning 50-55 games.