Mike Dunlap has won championships as a coach in both the NCAA and NBA but is still more well known down under for the three seasons he spent as head coach with the Adelaide 36ers.
An assistant coach to Mike Budenholzer during the Milwaukee Bucks run to the NBA title, as well as the first college coach to really build their program utilising Australian talent.
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Dunlap helped develop a number of NBL talent, including Jesse Wagstaff, Mark Worthington, Luke Kendall, Rupert Sapwell and plenty of others, and he joins us in this episode to go through his career, learnings and memories of coaching in Australia.
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On his recent stint, being a part of the Perth Wildcats coaching staff (2:00)
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The technicalities of NBA coaches moving between teams (8:00)
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How he began his coaching career in Australia (10:00)
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How Dunlap developed an Aussie pipeline to US colleges well before Randy Bennett and St Mary’s (11:30)
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The grassroots coaching differences between Australia and the USA that make Aussie players hot commodities (13:30)
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Coaching the Adelaide 36ers from 1994-1996 (22:00)
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Dunlap addresses criticism of moving away from the older 36ers players at the time, like Phil Smyth, Mike McKay and Mark Davis, to develop younger talent like Brett Maher and Martin Cattalini (28:00)
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The real factor behind Adelaide being unable to retain Rob Rose (36:00)
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Joining the Denver Nuggets coaching staff (42:00)
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Dunlap’s approach to coaching and learning from others (45:00)
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Thoughts on NBA players resting (49:00)
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His time with the Milwaukee Bucks, coaching Giannis Antetokounmpo and winning an NBA championship (50:00)
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Being hired to coach the Charlotte Bobcats in the NBA by none other than Michael Jordan (56:00)
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The biggest learning moments and highlights of his coaching journey (101:00)
All of this and a whole lot more…