Ettore Messina has officially been hired by the Spurs as released by the Spurs.
[RELEASE] Spurs hire Etorre Messina as an assistant coach: http://t.co/w5L2q4Q470 #GoSpursGo
— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) July 15, 2014
You may not know much about the 54-year old Italian who has coached in Italy, Russia, Spain, and was also a consultant for the Lakers during the 2011-2012 season, but he's a highly successful coach who last coached for CSKA Moscow. He has won four Euroleague championships as well as five Russian League championships, two Russian Cup championships, four Italian League championships and seven Italian Cup championships. He's not lacking in hardware and he is widely regarded as one of the greatest European coaches ever.
He was also Manu Ginobili's coach at Virtus Bologna where in 2001 they won the Italian League, Italian Cup, and the Euroleague titles together.
Sean Marks is moving into a front office position to make room for Messina on the bench.
The Spurs were ahead of the curve in bringing in international talent and still lead the league by far in number of international players on the roster, and now they're expanding the international scouting to coaching. This move certainly fits the culture of the Spurs and I for one am happy about the pickup. The future continues to look bright.