PHOENIX SUNS

Raptors G League coach Patrick Mutombo to join Phoenix Suns

Jun 28, 2022, 10:19 AM | Updated: 10:20 am

Denver Nuggets assistant coach Patrick Mutombo talks to the team during practice July 8, 2014 at Pepsi Center before the start of summer league play. (Photo by John Leyba/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

(Photo by John Leyba/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

BY ARIZONA SPORTS

Raptors 905 head coach Patrick Mutombo is joining the Phoenix Suns as an assistant on Monty Williams’ staff, the team announced Tuesday.

Additionally, Randy Ayers will transition from assistant coach to coaching advisor.

“Randy has been instrumental to our success the past three seasons and he will continue to play an important role in his new position,” head coach Monty Williams said in a release. “This move will allow him to be closer to and spend more time with his family while remaining an invaluable member of our coaching staff.

“I’m grateful for everything Randy has contributed, on and off the court, since joining me on my first day as a head coach in New Orleans.”

Mutombo had been head coach for Toronto’s G League team since December 2020. He had been on the NBA squad’s staff as an assistant from 2016-20 under former head coach Dwane Casey and current Raptors head coach Nick Nurse.

With the club, he has helped with one of the NBA’s most successful developmental programs, which has invested time via the G League to grow current NBA players such as Pascal Siakam, Norman Powell, Chris Boucher and, most recently, Gary Payton II.

Prior to that job, Mutombo was an assistant with the G League’s Austin Spurs squad from 2015-16, where he nearly crossed over with Williams. Mutombo departed in September 2016 just as Williams took a job as assistant vice president of basketball operations with the San Antonio Spurs.

Mutombo was on the Denver Nuggets’ coaching staff from 2012-15 that was led by George Karl for a season and then Brian Shaw. He joined that staff after getting into coaching as an assistant for Metro State from 2011-12.

The forward played at Metro State from 1999-2003 and won two Division II titles under current Milwaukee Bucks assistant Mike Dunlap — a one-time Charlotte Bobcats head coach who in 2008-09 was an assistant for the Arizona Wildcats.

Mutombo played professionally across Europe from 2003-09 before ending his career with the D-League’s Bakersfield Jam in 2009-10.

He is not related to former NBA All-Star Dikembe Mutombo.

He is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and moved to Belgium as a 13-year-old before his college career in the United States.