Chase Buford on learning from NBA greats, the joy of coaching and how the Kings will play

By Liam Santamaria

It has been an eventful past few months for Chase Buford.

In late June the 32-year-old was hired by the Sydney Kings to become their new head coach. The following month he won an NBA championship and in August, right before flying to Australia, Buford and his now fiancé got engaged.

Life, as they say, comes at you fast.

The couple have since made their way to Sydney and, having ticked off hotel quarantine, are currently managing lockdown from an Airbnb in Bondi.

From there Buford, the son of legendary NBA executive R.C. Buford, is beginning his new role with the Kings.

It’s a job that comes with big opportunities but, as previous Kings coaches can attest, also plenty of pressure. The high-profile club has pulled off a number of impressive signings over the off-season and are widely tipped to be one of the league’s best teams when the season tips off in November.

Despite being the youngest coach to lead an NBL team since the mid-nineties, Buford will have the task of bringing those pieces together.

The new Kings coach caught up with NBL Media this week for an in-depth conversation about his life in basketball, taking the Sydney job and how his new team will play.

This interview has been edited here for brevity and clarity. For the full conversation, click on the video link below.

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Hey mate… you and your fiancé have stepped straight out of quarantine into lockdown. How are you guys managing things in Sydney right now?

Yeah, everybody asks me how lockdown is but when you're stuck in a hotel room for two weeks, anything outside of that feels quite a bit like freedom. Luckily we've got an exemption to train with the guys so I've been able to get in the gym a few days and they've been great. It's been fun to connect with them and teach a little and watch them compete. It's been awesome.

 

Who have you been working with?

We've got seven guys in the gym right now. It's been good to get to know them a little bit; learn a bit about their games and their personalities. I'll tell you what, to a man they've all been so welcoming and just fun and easy to engage with. They've competed their butts off. It's been a really good first week or so. I can't wait to get more of the group in and continue down that path.

 

There's a lot of excitement about the Kings roster coming into this season. What excites you about the squad?

Oh, man, we’ve got heaps of talent. We're going to be deep at the bigs position, as has been well documented by yourself and a few others, but guards too. We’ve got a ton of players, up and down the board.

The way I like to play, positions don't matter as much as skills. We'll be able to incorporate a lot of these guys’ talents to better the unit as a whole, so to speak. We’ve got a really talented group one through twelve and beyond.

 

You guys are big, but you're also very mobile and versatile. You’ve got a lot of guys who have plenty of size but who like to operate facing the basket and on the perimeter. How will those skill-sets influence the way you play?

Yeah, facing the basket from the perimeter and driving hard is the way I want to play. Playing with a ton of space and giving guys room to go attack the basket, whether that's on drives, rolls, passes, whatever it is, we’ve got a lot of guys really capable of doing that. And, like you said, some big, athletic bodies that can really put some pressure on the rim as well as some guards who can really get in the mix and score and facilitate for others.

It's going to be hard on me to try to find a way to get everybody on the floor and make everybody happy, which will be tough. But I'm just really excited about the quality and quantity of talent we have in our group.

 

Do you guys have the best import trio in the NBL?

I don't want to comment or compare to other groups but we're really excited about the guys we’ve brought in.

Obviously Jalen (Adams) is someone I know well. He can score in bunches – as he's shown at the NBA level, in the G league and also in college – and, for us, he was our best perimeter defender. We asked him to go lock up the best guard on the other team pretty much every night. We ran a scheme defensively that's really tough on the guards – you’ve got to get through screens, we're not allowing you to switch a ton – and he really embraced that and competed. We’re super excited to have him.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Chase Buford and Jaylen Adams, reunited in Sydney ?<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL22?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL22</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/SydneyKings?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SydneyKings</a> <a href="https://t.co/5eW8aE9lxa">pic.twitter.com/5eW8aE9lxa</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1429348034668683265?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 22, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

RJ (Hunter) is another one I worked with briefly in Chicago. When we were looking at our roster, we identified shooting as an area we needed to bring in with one of our imports and he brings that in spades. He's going to space the floor wherever he stands. He's going to draw defenders to him and hopefully create some of that space I was talking about for others to go to work as well as adding a bunch of scoring from himself.

 

Speaking of Jaylen Adams… you guys were robbed of a G League Championship by COVID. (You were) 33-10, scoring 121 points per game, top five in the league in defensive efficiency… is the style that we saw that Wisconsin team play what Sydney fans can expect from the purple and gold this year?

Yeah, I think you'll see some similarities. As you grow up, and you get to be around more teams and experience different ways of playing, you get to see what you like and what you don't like.

It's funny, I worked with Coach Bud in Atlanta when I started my coaching career as an intern. We played an old Spurs-style motion offence with two bigs in the post and I got to see it evolve to where it has become, spacing out the floor and pulling those guys away. I really fell in love with coaching that style and playing that style. It's really fun to see the way guys can just play all the positions on the floor and be interchangeable and attack in that way.

Playing fast is something I've always believed in. We probably took it to an extreme in Wisconsin and I hope to bring that here as well and I think we have the guys to do it.

Defensively there are a lot of different ways you can get it done but competing and busting your tail on the defensive end is where it starts. Hopefully we'll have that in our group here.

 

There are a lot of high-profile personalities in that Sydney organisation at an ownership and executive level. How have you enjoyed getting to know those guys? And also, you said when you first signed on with the Kings that their vision for the club kind of sung to you? What was it about their vision that you bought into?

To the first part of your question, their personalities are just so fun to be around. They aren't afraid of controversy and speaking their mind which I can relate with and I appreciate. They've been so welcoming to me and have put me in great positions to do well already and will continue to do so, I have no doubt.

As for the vision, when I talked to Paul (Smith) about potentially taking the job one big thing was he didn't want me here leaving in a year. Obviously they love Will (Weaver) and all he did but they felt like they'd grown and losing Will hurt their vision of program.

We want to grow the game of basketball in Sydney and they're committed to doing that through youth programs and through, hopefully, building a new facility possibly down the line. Just doing a lot of things to help the community become the ‘Hoops Capital’ of Australia. Grow a fan base in a grassroots-style organisation here in Sydney where we can hopefully help some kids develop and grow the game as much as we can.

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We've spoken a little bit about parts of your basketball journey. Let's go back way further than that. What was it like growing up in and around that San Antonio Spurs organisation?

To grow up around an environment and a culture like the Spurs have, it's hard not to have it rub off on you. They've done such a good job for twenty-plus years now at just maintaining excellence. They're obviously trying to find their foot in the next chapter as some of their stars have gone away. But they still have Pop (Gregg Popovich) there who understands what it takes to build an organisation and a culture the right way.

I don't think they've been ones who have chased success in the short term as much as they valued their organisational beliefs and the way they develop people and players.

It's also about taking care of people the right way. That's something that they do well and it doesn't always happen in the NBA. We're all chasing immediate success in a lot of areas of life but that's something that they really care about. And it's not just fluff, they mean it. They walk the walk, so to speak. It's something that I've been able to experience in some other cultures where I've been; at KU (Kansas University) and with Coach Bud in Milwaukee. But the Spurs probably do it at the best level I've ever seen.

 

Your dad is an absolute legend of the game, (famous for) building a culture and building an organisation. Did he teach you the game? A teenage Chase at the dinner table… were you guys talking hoops?

Yeah, we talked a lot of things. You know, he was on the road a ton, too. But he was always really invested in myself and my sports teams and my teammates. He did a bunch to help give us every chance to grow and learn the game. Obviously, I have a lot of respect for what he's been able to do over the years and I think he's pretty great.

He’s passionate about helping people. I've obviously been a big benefactor of that but to see how many GMs and Assistant GMs around the league have come up as interns. I mean, (Oklahoma City Thunder GM) Sam Presti used to babysit me! When he came through he had to earn his stripes and coach me. Obviously Sam's well past that now, he’s probably the current lead executive in many people's eyes. But it goes down the list. Dell Demps… on and on and on, I could name a million people who have come through his deal. Just like Pop’s coaches around the league, he's done that as well. It's been fun to see.

 

How about the guys at the Bucks… Coach Bud, Giannis (Antetokounmpo)… How have those guys influenced you over the last couple of years?

I think the word that comes to mind with both those guys is just consistency. Who they are doesn't change whether we've won or lost, whether you’re down 0-2 in the Finals, or whatever it is. They just continue to stay focused on the task at hand.

I mean, Giannis comes to work every day with a purpose. He doesn't just show up. He comes to get things done and he is efficient with his work. He cares a lot about other things. I'm sure he'd be the first to tell you: once he leaves the gym he ain’t thinking basketball, that's just not who he is. But when he comes in the gym, he works and you can see it in how much he's grown. Obviously his physical and natural gifts are special, but the way he's moulded his game to fit those gifts and grow in himself is impressive.

Bud’s the same way. He doesn't get too high or too low. He doesn't change a bunch schematically team to team. He’s just like, ‘we're going to be great at who we are’ and lean on that as much as anything.

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You've signed a multi-year deal with the Kings but what are your longer-term coaching goals?

You know, I'm just thrilled to be a head coach. I got a taste of it a couple of years ago (in the G League) and it was the most fun I've ever had. I had a great group of guys and they bought in and they competed. We had a blast up until COVID shortened the season. I don't think I want to be anywhere else in the short or long term, other than doing that. So wherever that leads me, as long as I can do that, that's what my goal is to do.

 

Awesome, man. Hey, speaking of COVID, you guys are going to have to do some jumping around this season. A number of teams are going to need to do that. Have you discussed that as a group already?

You’ve got to talk about it a little bit. Everybody knows the world we're living in. But I think, more than anything, it's just being adaptable. Being prepared to take whatever comes at you.

Hopefully vaccination rates continue to rise and some of these restrictions will be lifted. But whatever happens, we’ve just got to be ready. Ready to work and ready to compete and do what we need to do. Whether that's, hopefully, in Qudos Bank Arena and around the country, we're ready to pivot and do whatever we need to do to be the best team we can be.

 

Kings fans are excited about that, mate. We're all excited to have you here and excited about the roster that you’ve put together and can't wait to see it in action. Great to chat and best of luck for the season ahead.

Thanks, Liam. I appreciate you having me on.