For Chad Forcier: 25 years in the NBA, and now two rings
De Hoyos, Lazenby and the Forcier’s re-create the scene seven years later with the 2021 NBA championship trophy following Game 6 of the Milwaukee-Phoenix series (courtesy Chad Forcier)
Most coaches never get to experience the thrill of an NBA championship.
Chad Forcier has done it twice — once with the San Antonio Spurs in 2014, this year with the Milwaukee Bucks.
“I was so fortunate to have gone through it once with the Spurs,” says Forcier, a long-ago assistant coach at both Oregon State and the University of Portland. “To have a second shot at it with the Bucks … I’m not sure that ‘living a dream’ adequately describes it. I’m keenly aware of how many players and coaches never get to taste that. I feel very blessed.”
Forcier was on the bench alongside head coach Mike Budenholzer as Milwaukee took the Phoenix Suns in six games to secure the franchise’s first NBA title in a half-century. The city was agog over the prospects. An estimated 65,000 people jammed into the Deer District surrounding Fiserv Forum to watch Tuesday night’s Game 6 on a big screen outside the arena and then celebrate afterward.
“I didn’t get to walk by it or through it, but I was aware of it,” Forcier told me Friday in a conversation that stretched for more than an hour. “I saw some of it on TV. They showed video of it on the Jumbotron (during timeouts) in the arena. We had neighbor kids who stood in that mass of people and watched the game and got jostled around. It was an incredible scene — a sea of humanity.
“It’s something that unifies people across the city no matter the zip code or tax bracket. Everybody was out there together.”
Thursday’s Bucks Victory Parade through downtown Milwaukee attracted an estimated half-million people. Forcier rode in a double-decker tour bus with his girlfriend of eight years, Cassandra Lazenby, along with Chad’s 18-year-old daughter, Ellie, and Cassandra’s nephew, 23-year-old Zach de Hoyos — the latter whom served as a “ballboy” for the Bucks this season. Cassandra, Ellie and Zach had been aboard the Bucks’ charter flight to Phoenix with Chad and were on hand for the first two games of the championship series.
From left, Zach de Hoyos, Cassandra Lazenby, Chad Forcier and Ellie Forcier with the San Antonio Spurs 2014 NBA championship trophy (courtesy Chad Forcier)
“My favorite thing (about the parade) was sharing it with my family,” says Forcier, who coached at OSU under Eddie Payne from 1997-2000 and at Portland under Rob Chavez during the 2000-01 campaign. “That was the most gratifying part of it, to watch them out there with smiles on their faces.”
Forcier was happy for the Bucks players and enjoyed sharing the moment with the over-the-moon locals.
“Letting the players have their day in the sun, and letting the fans revel in the experience, was awesome,” says Forcier, 48. “When I absorb it all, what resonates most is the power of sports. I don’t know anything that unifies people in a city more than winning a championship. It didn’t matter the class or race or color or political affiliation, everybody wore a Bucks T-shirt. Everybody was out there on the streets having a good time, smiling and screaming for one thing — a sports team winning a championship. It’s so powerful for a community.”
Forcier was in the seventh of nine seasons with San Antonio when the Spurs beat the Miami Heat in five games to claim the 2014 NBA title. Forcier says that experience was different than the one with the 2020-21 Bucks “for a lot of reasons.” The ’13-’14 Spurs were led by veterans Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili along with a 22-year-old forward named Kawhi Leonard.
“Tim already had four championships and Tony and Manu three apiece,” says Forcier, whose brother Todd is strength and conditioning coach with the Trail Blazers. “It was a deeply experienced group. We were different this year (in Milwaukee). This group of players had never even been in the NBA Finals. The Bucks hadn’t won (a title) in my lifetime. It was uncharted waters.”
Compounding matters for the Bucks were the COVID-affected seasons of 2019-20 and 2020-21.
“In a lot of ways, it felt like we played four seasons,” Forcier says. “We’re almost finished with the (2019-20) season when COVID hits, and then we go through the ‘Bubble.’ We finish that, take a short recess and we’re going again by Christmas Day.
“Going through this season, with all the health protocols and suffocating restrictions and playing in empty arenas and not being able to see anybody, was so difficult. There was a ton of stress that came with that for all NBA teams. (In recent weeks) the Delta variant made it feel like the Grim Reaper was lurking over our shoulders. That added another layer of stress. You felt like you were competing against an extra opponent. “Right now, I’m exhausted. I can’t imagine how our players feel. To think about what they went through with physical and mental stress and what they put forward to get this job done … It’s been a long road.”
The 2013-14 Spurs roster was nearly identical to the one that had reached the NBA Finals the previous season. The 2020-21 Bucks ended up adding four players who made significant contributions — forwards Bobby Portis and P.J. Tucker and guards Jrue Holiday and Bryn Forbes.
“We had a core that had been together for a few years, but it pales in comparison to what we had in San Antonio,” Forcier says.
Donte DiVincenzo, a starting guard for the Bucks, went down with an ankle injury during the first-round series against Miami and was lost for the rest of the playoffs. Tucker moved into the starting lineup and ex-Trail Blazer Pat Connaughton took on a more important reserve role.
“Pat ultimately rose several levels in terms of development, and he did it on the fly,” Forcier says. “He did a whole bunch of things that don’t show up in stat sheets and made substantial contributions in many different ways to us winning in the midst of a two-month playoff run. Had he not been able to grow in the pressure cooker when the lights are hot, we probably don’t get the job done.”
Forcier has 20 years of NBA coaching experience, working for such as future Hall-of-Famers Rick Carlisle and Gregg Popovich — and that doesn’t count five years the Rainier, Wash., native served as a prodigal intern for George Karl with the Seattle SuperSonics in the 1990s. Among the assistant coaches during that period were Tim Grgurich, Terry Stotts and Dwane Casey. How important was that time to Forcier’s career?
“That’s the most important question you could ask,” he says. “That’s my foundation. It’s my core. I started as a 19-year-old sophomore (at Seattle Pacific). I got my foot in the door. I was mentored by Gurg. Terry and Dwane were on the staff. I was surrounded by excellence.
“I tried to be a sponge. I kept my mouth shut. I did whatever they’d let me do. First and foremost, I learned the the best teams get it done with defense. All those Seattle teams were disruptive at the defensive end. The offense was built off our defense. I learned the culture of hard work of Seattle. Putting in the sweat equity with players became my foundation.”
Forcier’s first real job came at age 24, when Eddie Payne hired him as an assistant. Forcier worked the final three seasons of Payne’s five-year run in Corvallis. During that time, the Beavers went 39-47 overall and 15-39 in Pac-10 play, and Payne was fired after the 1999-2000 campaign. After leaving Oregon State, Payne coached Division I basketball for 17 more years, 15 of them at South Carolina Upstate.
Payne, who retired in 2017 and had recently become a first-time grandfather, died on July 7 after suffering a stroke. He was three days short of his 70th birthday. Forcier and Payne had kept a relationship through the years.
“Every time I would come through Charlotte if we weren’t on a back-to-back, Eddie would make it a point to clear his schedule and drive up to meet me for dinner,” Forcier says. “We’d have a bottle of wine and a great meal and conversation. It was something that mattered to me. He was a great mentor. I admired and respected him so much.”
The Pilots went 11-17 during Forcier’s single season at UP, after which Chavez was fired following seven seasons on The Bluff.
“That was a growth year for me,” Forcier says. “We got beat up, but the previous summer, Rob had spent a ton of time with Tex Winter to digest and comprehend the ‘Triangle’ offense. He immersed himself in it as a student to understand the timing and the spacing. It gave me a chance to get exposed to something that I’ve carried with me through my career.”
In 2001, Carlisle hired Forcier to serve on his staff in Detroit. Forcier would spend six years coaching with Carlisle — two with the Pistons and four with the Indiana Pacers.
Carlisle was a rookie head coach in 2001-02, taking over a Detroit team that had gone 32-50 the previous season. The Pistons flipped it to 50-32, winning the Central Division and a playoff series the first year. They went 50-32 again and advanced to the Eastern Conference finals the next year. When Carlisle moved on to Indiana, he took Forcier with him. The first year, the Pacers went 61-21 and reached the East finals.
“It was a profound time in my life,” Forcier says. “Rick believed in the importance of defense, but had a real mind and eye for the game offensively. He was special in particular with how he thought about offensive organization and spacing and actions and how to put players in their best position to succeed and play to strengths. It was a six-year window in which I grew a ton as a coach.”
Forcier began a nine-year run with Popovich and San Antonio for the 2007-08 season. It came about in part because of a relationship Forcier struck up with Budenholzer — who spent 19 seasons as an aide with the Spurs — years earlier.
When Forcier was at OSU, he served three summers working Pete Newell’s Big Man’s Camp in Honolulu. Budenholzer, by then coaching for the Spurs, was an observer at the camp and struck up a friendship with Forcier. In 2007, when PJ Carlesimo left Popovich’s staff to become Seattle’s head coach, ‘Pop’ hired Forcier.
“Were it not for my relationship with ‘Bud,’ I’d not have had the open door to San Antonio,” Forcier says.
It resulted in what Forcier calls “by far the most impactful stretch of my professional career.” When he started with the Spurs, Forcier was only 33 but already had 11 years affiliation with NBA teams, including his time as an intern with the Sonics.
“I was at a place in my career where I had enough experience that my philosophies were starting to solidify,” Forcier says. “It cemented some things I believed, but also opened my eyes to brand new things.
“I learned from Pop that defense was the foundation to a winning team, among other things. The basketball piece is obvious, but what I took away the most was his intuitive sense of human beings — players, coaching staff, security guards, interns, what have you. His intuition with how to lead a group and his value system in terms of what he wanted his culture to be about and how much character values mattered. … to be a part of a culture like that and to understand a value system that was completely committed was first and foremost in my development.”
Popovich often paid homage to his team leader.
“I truly heard Pop say this 1,000 times — he would repeat it 100 times a year — ‘Thank you, Tim Duncan,’ ” Forcier says. “For the organization to have the fortune to have a Hall of Famer with the humility and grace and characteristics of who Tim was as a person and a leader … without that, things become significantly harder to make happen.”
In 2016, Forcier left the Spurs to become the No. 1 assistant under Frank Vogel in Orlando. The Magic went 29-53 and 25-57, and Vogel and his staff were fired after the 2017-18 season.
“It didn’t work out the way I hoped,” Forcier says. “You hope to be a part of building long-term sustainable success. When things don’t work out for a variety of reasons, that’s disappointing. I didn’t think I’d leave after two seasons and have myself and my family back into the ice-cold world of professional coaching.
“When you get spit back out on the street by a new management group, that’s not pleasant. It’s cold, scary and stressful. But I don’t regard it as a failure. That’s just the way it goes.”
Forcier was then hired as the lead assistant to J.B. Bickerstaff in Memphis. Forcier had coached Bickerstaff for one season at Oregon State before he transferred to Minnesota for his final two college seasons as a player.
“J.B. and I had maintained a great relationship,” Forcier says. “I was excited for the opportunity to have a substantial role again and to go with somebody I had cared so much about and knew so well. The Grizzlies were in a rebuild, but I was optimistic we’d be pretty good. There are various twists and turns that you don’t see coming.”
They finished 33-49, and Bickerstaff was fired at season’s end. There was some irony to what happened next. Taylor Jenkins, hired as Bickerstaff’s successor, had been working on Budenholzer’s staff in Milwaukee. That opened a spot that Forcier would fill.
Budenholzer doesn’t rank his assistants, but it was Forcier who probably got more TV air time than any during the NBA Finals as he shouted instructions to Milwaukee players along the sidelines.
“That was just because Phoenix happened to be one of the teams I was responsible for in terms of preparation during the regular season,” Forcier says. “Bud had me sitting with him so I had quicker access to do some of the responsibilities.”
Forcier has had a chance to work with two of the great big men in recent times — Duncan and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
“Giannis is a different player than Tim and a different personality, but I see some common characteristics that are major links to their success and leadership,” Forcier says. “In general, both are quiet personalities. Giannis is a little bit more outgoing than Tim, but he mostly comes into the gym and brings a level of seriousness to work every day. He is so intense and focused when he walks in to do his work.
“They are both relentless competitors with a great work ethic. They have a thirst to be the absolute best. They leave no stone unturned to figure out how to win and be the very best at what they’re doing.”
Forcier has never interviewed for an NBA head coaching job. He would like for that to happen.
“I’ve wanted that for awhile,” he says. “I’d hoped to have an opportunity to be a head coach, but it hasn’t come my way.”
Forcier still hopes it will some day. In the meanwhile, he is very happy in Milwaukee.
“I feel profoundly fortunate to be here,” he says. “That isn’t just because we won a championship. This organization is first class. They are committed to winning. They spend money on everything they need to do to let us become our competitive best. They treat our families first class. The human beings here — not just the players, but who you work with — are outstanding.
“It has been a privilege to work (in Milwaukee). It’s a place where you like to be.”
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