Second Chance: How Melbourne United finally got their man

Replacing someone great is never easy. And Dean Vickerman has been a great coach in the NBL.

So, when it became clear that he was going to part ways with Melbourne United ahead of NBL27 despite having two years to run on his contract, it was time for United CEO, Nick Truelson, to revisit their contingency plans.

Every organisation has to prepare for unexpected scenarios and professional sports teams are no different. Melbourne United and Vickerman knew this day would come. In fact, in his latest four-year extension, there was a pre-agreed clause that allowed Vickerman an out should an amazing opportunity in Asia present itself. Both parties had agreed to review that at the end of NBL26 and that’s what happened.

Part of the reason United hired Jacob Chance as the lead assistant under Vickerman back in 2023 was with the future in mind. So, when it became clear that Vickerman would not return, Truelson wanted to ensure they considered both local and international candidates.

“We were always looking at coaches coming through and what was the global coaching looking like,” Truelson told NBL Media last week in an exclusive interview.

“Hats off to the NBL, there were more coaches coming in from outside of the NBL, but I like the fact that, and Dean was a big advocate for, let's also try and get Australian coaches where we can and continue to develop them.

“So, the process didn't really start til it needed to, but it was something that we were mindful could come up at any stage.”

Before Vickerman had decided the time was right to leave, Truelson actually felt like all signs were pointing to Vickerman returning. The Asian leagues hadn’t finished their seasons yet, meaning not all vacancies were known, which actually presented a bit of a timing challenge initially.

Once it became clear that there would be opportunities for Vickerman overseas, he and his agent were up front about it, but that didn’t stop Truelson from at least trying to sway the three-time NBL Coach of the Year to stay in Melbourne.

“Dean invited me over. We went and had a beer at his house, just the two of us, and it was good,” explained Truelson.

“We just spoke for an hour about where he thought he was at, the game, reminiscing on the nine incredible years he'd had with us. And it made me feel going away that this is a lifetime opportunity for Dean. And he'd done nine years at the Breakers and nine years at United, so I think in his mind it was like, ‘hey, maybe there's one more big challenge for me ahead'.

“And it was interesting on that, at the end I said, ‘well, if I can't get you to stay on at the club, who do you think would be a really good replacement?’. And Jacob was the name he mentioned straight up.

“So, it was already something we'd thought about.”

Chance, who had spent the last season as Head Coach of the Austin Spurs – San Antonio’s G League affiliate – only moved to the Spurs organisation nine months earlier, so Truelson knew it was going to be a big challenge to land him as they went through the start of their search and recruitment process.

Vickerman was already the coach when Truelson took over as CEO of Melbourne United five years ago, so this was his first time hiring a Head Coach in the NBL. Truelson knew that having clear criteria for their new coach that matched the club’s priorities, but also its culture and values, was paramount.  

And with a recent change of ownership, where Travis Knipe took the controlling stake from Aaron Sansoni, a committee consisting of Knipe, Truelson, COO Mark Boyd and High Performance Manager Steve McAdam was formed, with input from outgoing Assistant Coach Jack Fleming.

Before that committee even began to put together any kind of shortlist or sought applications, that criteria needed to be well-defined.

“What we loved was that we knew who we were as a club,” said Truelson.

“Really strong culture, big values driven club. We knew from a coaching point of view, you need someone who's not just a great people manager coach, who can also coach the X and O's, but also someone who off the court is unbelievable with you, your partners, your fans and really buying into who you are as a club.

“We've been so lucky to have someone like that. How can we [now] find someone who's going to tick a lot of those boxes for us, because we didn't want to go backwards. We need to fast-track what we're doing because we want to win NBL 27. We don't want this to be three or four years of getting someone, getting their feet under the desk and then trying to win.

“Jacob was someone of strong interest to us, but we said what a great opportunity for us to go as global as we can. And we were blown away by the amount of people who actually applied for it.”

It also didn’t hurt having Joe Ingles on the roster before all of this began. Truelson said Ingles was very helpful with insights on candidates, but also suggesting others they could proactively reach out to. Chris Goulding had some involvement as well.

Truelson was surprised by how much interest there was in the job and how quickly they heard from people. They got over 20 applicants in a short time and avoided the need to engage a recruitment agency to help with that process.

“We just got inundated from all over the world,” said Truelson.

“We were blown away by having NBA coaches, EuroLeague coaches, as well as coaches who were also in Asia at the time. So, it quickly became clear to us that we were going to have a great list.

“We then shortlisted to about five at that stage and Jacob was part of that, so we went through a pretty rigorous interview process initially. [When] we got to the end of that we were like, ‘Wow, we've got some great candidates here,’ with Jacob being one that we wanted to start pursuing further.”

Very quickly, United’s committee realised it was probably unlikely that they’d land Chance due to the opportunity he had in front of him with the Spurs organisation.  

He’d been with them for less than a year, but he’d already won G League Coach of the Month honours in November, led his team to the playoffs and then spent time on the NBA team’s bench during their post-season run to the NBA Finals.

At just 32 years of age, Truelson knew Chance had a great opportunity in front of him at ‘one of the best culturally run sporting teams in the world’, as he said.

With Chance not interested at that stage, it was decided that Goulding and Truelson would travel to Treviso in Italy to attend the Adidas Eurocamp, knowing there were some key coaches that would be in attendance that they could meet with.  

“That was an awesome five, six-day experience for Chris and me to get over there,” Truelson explained.  

“Great for Chris because as our captain, I wanted him to really feel a key part of the process and his knowledge of the game [was invaluable]. You could see him talking back and forth with the coaches over there.

“He got a lot out of it, but it was great for those coaches to see how serious we were that we were flying to the other side of the world, to find the best candidate we could to take us forward.”

One prominent name that Goulding and Truelson met with in Treviso was former NBA Head Coach, David Joerger. He was strongly rumoured to be not only in the mix, but a preferred candidate at one stage.

Joerger was then reported to be taking the Head Coaching role at Paris Basketball, but ultimately last week signed as the Associate Head Coach for the Denver Nuggets under David Adelman.

“Yeah, he was definitely one that we had strong interest in just because of his background, having been an NBA head coach for six years,” admitted Truelson.  

“So, Chris and I had some great discussions with him, and I really enjoyed watching the two of them chat about the game and how they both saw it. But it was pretty clear – and his agent was great, we worked closely with his agent – that there was probably more a European opportunity, but also [the] NBA was probably still where his heart laid.”

Having come back from Treviso empty-handed and now into mid-June, with NBL free agency well underway, you could excuse outsiders from thinking the pressure was starting to mount on Truelson and United.

They had a roster to build out, still no head coach in place, and seemingly back to square one. There was external noise starting to mount in the media, with people questioning how long they were taking.  

Internally, United’s committee was still really comfortable though, because the NBA season had just finished, the EuroLeague, EuroCup and European domestic leagues were just finishing, as were the Asian leagues.  

“We were all comfortable in the fact that there was going to be a lot of great coaches still become available,” Truelson said.  

“And after the initial amount of coaches we interviewed, some that we kept in the mix the whole way through, there was also another ten or 12 who put up their hands post their season's finishing, and a lot of them had EuroLeague experience, etc.  

“So, for us it was like being patient – it’s a little bit like now with your players, with your imports, being patient because summer league finishes, they're waiting on two ways, they don't get a two-way, the opportunity for a player to become available which you don't expect. It's the same with the coaching.

“We didn't want to rush the process for the sake of it. We wanted to stick to what our process was and we're glad we did. But we also just kept in touch with Jacob throughout that process as well.”

Chance remained close with the other Melbourne assistant coaches, even after he moved to Texas. They would send him messages during NBL26 and even into the off-season with photos of the upgrades at United’s headquarters. They would send him messages to say well done on the Spurs run to the NBA Finals.

And Chance would respond. They maintained a strong relationship and that didn’t hurt when it was time to think about re-engaging.

They had to wait a little bit longer than expected due to the Finals run but wanted to give Chance his space to enjoy that experience.

“Chris and Joe were big fans of Jacob as well and so we kept them in the loop, and then [understanding] where we were at, we were like ‘Wow, we're really comfortable, we've got some really good shortlisted coaches here, but let's see if we can have one more go at Chancey and see if we can get it done’,” explained Truelson.

“We had a really good discussion with him, with his agent and with his partner as well, and then the decision was made. He wanted to be a head coach and I think that was great for us. He's got Boomers aspirations as well and we were super thrilled.”  

Truelson, who was on a family holiday in Italy when the deal was struck, remembers waking up that next morning in Sicily, the sun came up and he just had a massive smile on his face because they’d finally got their man.

Truelson credits Knipe, Boyd and McAdam as playing a huge part in that. Fleming was also a key part of the process as a coach sitting in on all the interviews.

“It was just great to bounce off each other and then making sure we kept the senior players involved as well. Because as you know, it's such an important one for all of them and they probably had the biggest smiles today seeing Jacob walk in.”

Chance arrived in Melbourne last Thursday morning and was greeted like a family member who had returned home. And that’s because he is exactly that.  

He knows the club, its staff, the facilities (albeit some have been upgraded) and a lot of the coaching staff remain from when he was there in NBL25. There were big smiles all around and then he got straight to work.

It was like he was always destined for this role.  

So then why the hesitation initially back in May? What changed for Chance between May and July to get him to take the job?

“I think there's a few things,” Truelson said.  

“I think part of it is the NBA landscape is always shifting and it was interesting you saw some of his assistant coaches being interviewed for NBA head coaching roles. There's a bit of a holding pattern on how long, where does that leave me, etc.

“I suppose it was the certainty of we want you to come back for four years. We want to give you that opportunity to lead the team. He was really enthused by Travis coming in as the new owner with his vision of what he wanted to do.

“The upgrades were already done here at Hoop City for the players. So, I think he saw that as ‘Wow, we've got an exciting new opportunity’, and lucky enough he'd been with us too.

“So, I think there was always that pullback that he'd had a wonderful time at the Wildcats and down in Tassie of course. But he had such strong bonds and relationships here. It ended up being [that] the best thing for his future was to come back here.”

With the process behind him now, Truelson has had time to reflect on how it went. He believes they were really measured in their approach to the coaching search. They wanted to be as respectful as possible for everybody in the process, which includes the candidates, their agents and their families, understanding that many candidates were looking at multiple jobs at once.  

And Truelson likes that they wasn’t fazed by the fact that it was taking time. And while he feels a sense of irony that the person they earmarked initially as their preferred candidate ended up being the one, he’s grateful to have met so many incredible coaches from all over the world through the process.

And having a newly extended contact list of people who would like to stay in touch with Melbourne United going forward doesn’t hurt either.

But with all that said, Truelson is supremely confident that they’ve found the right guy to steer the club for the foreseeable future and get United back to contending for championships.

“I think Jacob's drive is something that really attracted us to him,” Truelson reflected.  

“His work ethic, his relationships. You can see that whether it's with the Boomers, what he was able to do with the Spurs; his networks are incredible.  

“I think about relationships I have with agents. His are so broad. Hearing the guys [talking about] when he was at Summer League, [he] couldn't walk ten metres without someone stopping him.

“So, I think globally he's seen as this emerging coach, thirty-two years of age, has aspirations of being a Boomers coach. Just seeing how strong his relationships are, not just with the players but with the front office. It's all about how are we then building around him and making sure he's got the best opportunity to succeed.

“We all want to try and win NBL27, but we also know that we've got a good amount of time while he's here, to hopefully win multiple championships.”

Since Chance’s hiring was announced, Melbourne has been busy filling out their roster for NBL27, bringing Luke Travers back to the NBL, landing Josh Oduro and Sean Macdonald, re-signing Tom Wilson, and then making headlines with Cole Anthony.

He’s also brought across Keegan Crawford from the Wildcats to join his coaching staff, who is another up-and-coming young coach with a great basketball mind. And Truelson knows that having Chance as the Head Coach made a huge difference in being able to attract some of those names.

“His relationship with Luke Travers going back to Wildcats and of course here and through the Boomers,” Truelson said of Chance.  

“Oduro was a really good example where, and he quoted about it, where he played against Jacob's team and he actually was sitting there thinking wow I'd love to be coached by that guy. So, he has that aura around him of people get attracted to him.

“He knows the way we play traditionally and knowing that he came in with half our roster, especially our local core, pretty done. I'm excited by the fact that he knows how he'd like us to play, the style of play. We've just got that one key piece and if we can bring in a high scoring point guard, I think it rounds us off really well because I think our depth is there.

“I think we're a lot bigger team than we were last year. The flexibility of the team is something that's probably a big advantage we're going to have over other teams. We're excited to come together.”

Melbourne United tips off their pre-season schedule against the B.League United select team this Sunday at Courtside in Port Melbourne.