Kaleb Canales
In 2005, Canales was hired as a video intern for the Portland Trail Blazers, and was eventually hired as the team's video coordinator. In 2009, he was promoted to an assistant coach for the team. In 2010, Canales served as the Blazers' head coach during the NBA Summer League. He was promoted to interim head coach of the Trail Blazers after head coach Nate McMillan was dismissed on March 15, 2012. Canales became the youngest active head coach in the NBA and the first Mexican-American coach in NBA history.
1990 NBA Finals
The Trail Blazers last made the NBA Finals when they won the NBA championship in 1977. In between finals appearances, the Blazers made the playoffs every year except 1982, but most of the time were eliminated in the first or second round. Along the way, Portland built a core that would turn the team into title contenders, adding Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter and Jerome Kersey through the draft while signing or trading for players such as Buck Williams and Kevin Duckworth. The addition of Williams cost Portland once-promising center Sam Bowie, whose career had been curtailed by a series of leg injuries after being drafted second overall in the 1984 NBA draft. Early in the 1988–89 season, the Blazers fired head coach Mike Schuler and replaced him with assistant Rick Adelman, who would go on to win over 1,000 regular season games in 23 NBA seasons.