TUALATIN, Ore. (AP) — Micah Nori was told by several NBA teams that he was their No. 2 choice to be head coach before the Portland Trail Blazers finally gave him his chance at No. 1.
A 28-year journey in the NBA culminated in Nori joining general manager Joe Cronin on Thursday at the Blazers' practice facility for his introductory news conference.
“I think for five of the interviews they said, ‘Micah you are our No. 2,’” Nori said, citing his recent experience interviewing for the New York Knicks in 2025. “‘You were phenomenal, but Mike Brown’s done it before. We’ve never seen you in that seat.’ When you slide over, everybody says it’s that 18 inches. Do I get discouraged? Absolutely not. You don’t stay in this thing for 28 years starting where I started (by getting discouraged).”
Nori, who spent the past five seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves, had interviewed for multiple head coach vacancies, including the Knicks last year, the Chicago Bulls earlier this month and the Los Angeles Lakers in 2024. He began his NBA career as an intern for the Toronto Raptors in 1998.
After nearly three decades of coming to Portland with the visiting team, he is eager to be on the other side.
“After 28 years of coming out here and seeing all the red, seeing all the noise, it’s just very tough to play (here),” Nori said. “I’m super excited to be a part of it, and I can promise you that every single night — and I don’t like promises and guarantees — but we will play hard for 48-plus, we’re going to play smart for 48-plus and we will play together for 48-plus.”
Nori addressed areas of improvement for the Blazers, including turnovers and 3-point percentage. He noted that next season will see the return of Damian Lillard, who is fourth on the list of the NBA's all-time 3-point shooters. Lillard sat out last season with an Achilles injury.
The Blazers made the playoffs this season for the first time in five seasons under interim coach Tiago Splitter, who was hired this month by the Bulls. Splitter coached Portland to a 42-40 record and a five-game loss to San Antonio in the first round of the playoffs.
Nori emphasized the opportunity he is getting to be a first-time head coach with a team that just made the playoffs.
“Things happen for a reason, my wife always tells me that,” Nori said. “And to sit here and say we have a playoff roster, adding a future Hall of Famer in this great city and this great fanbase, the support that we get. It’s an opportunity that I could not pass up, and I’m ecstatic to take. That’s why I get choked up, because it’s better than what I could have ever imagined.”
In the 2024 playoffs, Nori stepped into a role as in-game head coach after Minnesota’s Chris Finch suffered a knee injury. That experience showed Nori he was ready to be a head coach.
“I learned that I could do it. And I can do it at the highest level in a Western Conference playoff Game 7.” Nori said. “Now, I’m not going to lie, thank goodness for Anthony Edwards, Naz Reid and Karl-Anthony Towns. I helped a little bit, but they did 90% of it. But I learned that you can’t micromanage every single thing. You have to get good people around you and trust people.”
Nori also responded to criticism about his contract leveled by Detroit Pistons head coach J.B. Bickerstaff, the National Basketball Coaches Association president, who called the deal "a slap in the face to our value” in an interview with ESPN. The contract has just one guaranteed year and back-to-back team option years.
Nori, who sits on that board of the organization, said he had a conversation with Bickerstaff and it had no bearing on him.
Cronin rebuffed suggestions that the terms of the deal hurt Portland’s ability to get its preferred coach, saying the team hired the coach it wanted.
“To me, it’s done, it’s finished,” Nori said. “This is one of these things, you can have 8 million people watching this press conference; you can have 100,000. Next week, nobody’s really going to care about this press conference. What they will care about is what we do.”
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FILE - Micah Nori, the lead assistant coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves, directs play during the first half in Game 3 of the NBA basketball Western Conference finals against the Dallas Mavericks, May 26, 2024, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)
LA GUAIRA, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelans searched for survivors beneath collapsed buildings Thursday and rescue teams raced to northern areas rocked by a pair of powerful earthquakes that officials say killed at least 188 people and left more than 200 trapped.
More were feared dead from the 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes that struck Wednesday evening — among the strongest in Venezuela in more than a century and felt throughout the region. Some 1,500 people were injured, thousands were reported missing and buildings were evacuated as far away as Brazil’s Amazon.
In response to the devastation, the U.S. Treasury on Thursday moved to waive some sanctions until Oct. 23 to allow transactions related to earthquake relief efforts in Venezuela that would otherwise be prohibited.
Meanwhile, in cities across northern Venezuela, panicked residents poured into the streets and searched for the missing in the debris. Injured children, animals and civilians covered in dust and blood were pulled out of concrete rubble.
One mother sobbed and collapsed in grief as the bodies of her 3- and 10-year-old children were wrapped in blankets and carried away. Others screamed the names of missing loved ones. Some stood in silent shock.
The coastal region of La Guaira — north of the capital, Caracas — suffered some of the heaviest damage and casualties, and it’s there that the country’s main airport was damaged and closed, complicating aid efforts.
Retired schoolteacher Juan Alberto Mendaño climbed through wreckage in La Guaira and past a dead body when he spotted a woman who was trapped and signaling with her hand for help.
“May God rescue her as quickly as possible,” said Mendaño. “When we heard the scream, there was nothing we could do.”
Offers to send aid and supplied poured in from around the world, including from the United States, which seized Venezuela's then-president Nicolas Maduro at the beginning of the year in a surprise military operation.
The natural disaster is just the latest challenge for acting President Delcy Rodríguez, the former vice president who took office in January after Maduro's capture. Venezuela has been facing economic disarray for more than a decade, and many people reject the legitimacy of the political movement Rodriguez represents.
Venezuelan authorities said they were diverting rescue teams from other parts of the country to La Guaira, which is no stranger to natural disasters; a 1999 mudslide there, considered one of the country’s worst natural disasters, killed thousands.
Rodríguez appealed to businesses Thursday to make heavy construction equipment available for rescue operations, while a United Nations spokesperson said search and rescue teams were just hours away.
“We're here for the families, and we extend our solidarity to them. We hope to rescue as many living people as possible,” said Rodríguez, who referred to La Guaira as a “disaster zone.”
Jorge Rodriguez, the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly and brother of the acting president, gave updated figures for the numbers of dead, trapped and injured.
While Venezuela sits near multiple fault lines, its position straddling the South American and Caribbean plates makes strong earthquakes much less common than in other parts of Latin America.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the first earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.2, hit west of Moron on the Caribbean coast, about 170 kilometers (105 miles) west of Caracas. It had a depth of 22 kilometers (about 14 miles). Just a minute later, USGS reported a second 7.5 magnitude earthquake, with a depth of 10 kilometers (about 6 miles) and an epicenter 16 kilometers (10 miles) southwest of Moron.
The one-two punch of the quakes, combined with the shallow seismic movements, amplified the destruction, said Marcos Ferreira, a geophysicist and researcher at the Geological Survey of Brazil.
“It is as if I am screaming and then someone starts screaming, too. That amplifies the vibration and adds to the potential hazard,” Ferreira said.
During the quakes, people ran from swaying buildings. Many were stunned Thursday morning as they saw buildings reduced to skeletons, furniture hanging out of windows and helicopters circling overhead.
In La Guaira, Cristian Carreño stared at his charred apartment building tilting precariously to one side.
“I lost everything,” he said. “There are people still inside, I imagine, that couldn’t get out. It’s incredibly devastating.”
Dayana Delgado, mother of three children, said she was desperate because her 8-year-old son was missing. Delgado asked where the heavy machinery was that government officials had promised, pointing out that neighbors were the ones digging through the rubble.
“I want to know where my child is, if he’s trapped or in a shelter,” she said.
Authorities warned people against returning to homes with structural damage. In downtown Caracas, hundreds spent the night huddled in parks, parking lots and other open spaces.
“We were afraid the buildings would collapse on us,” said María Cristina Díaz, a 41-year-old janitor. “My mother, my daughter and I were cold. We didn’t sleep a wink.”
Parts of the capital lost power and cellphone service, Rodríguez said. Subway services were suspended and natural gas was shut off, she said. Classes will also be canceled for several days, and the Ministry of Education said some school buildings would be used as shelters and donation centers.
Families began posting missing-person flyers with photos of loved ones, while others shared handwritten lists of names as they searched for those still unaccounted for. Venezuelans living abroad struggled to make contact with relatives.
Shortly after U.N. officials in Venezuela called on the government to lift social media restrictions so people can get potentially life-saving information, Venezuelans in the country were able to access X. The site had been blocked by Maduro since August 2024, in an attempt to suppress the exchange of information among those who rejected his claim of victory in the July presidential election.
Rodríguez declared a state of emergency in an address to the nation late Wednesday. She said the government was creating a $200 million reconstruction fund for damaged hospitals and homes.
Leaders from Mexico, Qatar, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Canada and more expressed solidarity with and vowed to send aid to Venezuela. A number of shipments were already on the way Thursday. Aid included emergency and military personnel, canine and search teams, medical supplies, water purifiers, airplanes and drones.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who spoke to Rodríguez following the quake, said the United States was “immediately” deploying search and rescue teams, medical resources other assistance, though he acknowledged the closure of Venezuela's main airport created logistical challenges.
“We have a whole-of-government response. It’ll be big; it’ll be fast; and it’ll be effective,” Rubio said.
Janetsky reported from Mexico City. Associated Press journalists Regina Garcia Cano, Mauricio Savarese, Anna-Catherine Brigida, Danica Coto, Clara Preve, and Alexandra Olson contributed to this report.
A resident stands in a damaged building a day after an earthquake struck La Guaira, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Javier Campos)
A man walks over the fallen walls of his home in Moron, near the epicenter of two earthquakes that struck Venezuela the day before, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacinto Oliveros)
Buildings damaged by an earthquake stand in Catia La Mar, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)
Neighbors carry a man rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building the day after earthquakes struck La Guaira, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)
An injured woman walks in La Guaira, Venezuela, a day after an earthquake struck the area, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)
Damaged buildings stand a day after earthquakes struck La Guaira, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Juan Pablo Arraez)
Neighbors helps a man evacuate his damaged home after an earthquake in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, June 24, 2026.(AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)
A vehicle is trapped in a fissure caused by an earthquake in La Guaira, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP PhotoJavier Campos)
Residents walk among the rubble of building damaged in earthquakes the previous day in Catia La Mar, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)
Patients lie outside a hospital evacuated after it was damaged in an earthquake in Catia La Mar, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)
People camp on a sports court following an earthquake in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026 (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)
Rescue workers search through the rubble of a collapsed building after an earthquake in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Rescue workers search through the rubble after an earthquake in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, June 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Javier Campos)
People stay outside their homes after an earthquake in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, June 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
People sleep outside their homes following an earthquake in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026 (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)
A boy comforts his mother after an earthquake in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, June 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)
A man holding a dog cries after an earthquake in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, June 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Javier Campos)
Rescue workers search through the rubble after an earthquake in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, June 24, 2026.(AP Photo/Javier Campos)
Rescue workers search through the rubble of a collapsed building after earthquake in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, June 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Rescue worker carry an injured man after an earthquake in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, June 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
