After serving one season (2023-24) as an assistant on the bench of head coach Ime Udoka, Tiago Splitter is leaving the Houston Rockets to become head coach at Paris Basketball.
Before his year in Houston, Splitter was an assistant in Brooklyn, where he worked alongside Udoka in the 2020-21 season. Prior to that, when Udoka was an assistant to Gregg Popovich for seven seasons in San Antonio, several of those teams featured Splitter as a player. That run included the Spurs’ 2014 NBA championship.
Splitter became one of the more accomplished international big men of his generation, and he used that experience to help guide rising Turkish star Alperen Sengun in his third NBA season.
Splitter, 39, was part of a Houston coaching staff that clearly prioritized youth and energy alongside the 46-year-old Udoka. Other young assistants on the 2023-24 Rockets bench included Ben Sullivan, Garrett Jackson, Mike Moser, Royal Ivey, and Cam Hodges.
Udoka hasn’t announced his coaching staff for the upcoming 2024-25 season, so it isn’t yet clear if an external hire will replace Splitter or if he could potentially be replaced from within.
Asked Alperen Sengun about how coach Tiago Splitter has helped him:
"Tiago helps me a lot. I improve my left hand with him. He's a champion. He's teaching me a lot of things about his experience, mentality, games, off the court, everything."
📺 https://t.co/qJwFZ9k0g2 pic.twitter.com/txAMAB01yH
— Jackson Gatlin (@JTGatlin) November 16, 2023
