For Chad Forcier: 25 years in the NBA, and now two rings
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.
Cool Hand Luke, the ultimate underdog: ‘We like shocking people’
If anyone on Oregon State’s basketball roster can identify with the underdog, it’s Jared Lucas.
After scoring points at a prodigious rate — almost beyond comprehension — in four years at Los Altos High in Hacienda Heights, Calif., the sharpshooting guard was largely overlooked by Pac-12 schools.
When the media forecast OSU to finish 12th in the Pac-12 before the season, Lucas developed a chip on his shoulder the size of the Rock of Gibraltar.
“Cool Hand Luke” was as big a reason as any why the Beavers came from nowhere to claim the Pac-12 Tournament