BURNABY, B.C.—When Jerry Stackhouse’s illustrious NBA career was winding down, he did what anybody preparing to make a major life change would do: he made a plan. “I was going to transition right into coaching with Avery Johnson,” says Stackhouse, now 40. That was during the 2012–13 season, Stackhouse’s last, when Johnson held the reins as head coach of the Brooklyn Nets.
There was a problem, though: Johnson was let go midway through the season, and with him gone, the opportunity to nab an assistant-coaching job with the Nets vanished. “Threw a little monkey wrench in there,” Stackhouse says of what happened to the career path he’d mapped out for himself.
But as Stackhouse sees it, everything happens for a reason. Following his retirement, he spent a few years coaching at the grassroots level—working with Adidas Nations, leading the USA Select team at Eurocamp, and coaching for the AAU program he’d started in Atlanta in 2011. Raptors GM Masai Ujiri took notice and in July, Stackhouse signed on as an assistant coach in Toronto.
While Stackhouse freely admits he’d never imagined himself moving to Canada for his first NBA coaching job, so far Toronto is looking like a good fit. “I think the stars just lined up,” he says. As a two-time all-star with experience spanning eight different teams over 18 seasons in the NBA—he was drafted third overall by the 76ers in 1995—Stackhouse brings a unique perspective to the team’s coaching staff, a combination of smarts and instincts and, especially, toughness. “I’ve been out there,” he says, noting that Ujiri was looking to add a former player to the coaching staff. “We can come up with an idea that sounds great on paper, but I know what I feel and what I see when I’m out there on the court.”
Stackhouse is quick to point out that each of the team’s assistant coaches has his own unique offerings, and he’s learning from all of them. That humility seems to be a component of his notion that “you’ve gotta treat people right,” which is how he describes the source of his respect for head coach Dwane Casey. Back when Stackhouse was with the Mavericks, Casey was an assistant coach in Dallas, and he made an extra effort with the longtime shooting guard. “I was hurt, and he would get in the gym with me and shoot around,” says Stackhouse. “We just kind of built a relationship there.”
Treating people right—being generous with your time and your hard-won knowledge—is something Stackhouse is himself known for amongst the Raptors squad. James Johnson remembers Stackhouse’s generosity a few years ago in Atlanta, when the Hawks cut Johnson ahead of the season. Johnson was still in town for a few weeks, and Stackhouse called him up and invited him to his house, where they worked out every day. “I just think that that’s him. He really cares and he really knows his craft,” says Johnson, adding that Stackhouse’s grit is something the Raptors can emulate. “Stack gives the guards and the wing that toughness—you can listen to him because you know he’s been there and he’s done it.”
The respect Stackhouse commands on the court was evident at this week’s training camp in the Vancouver area. Every day after morning practice, you’d see him in some corner of the gym, working one-on-one with Cory Joseph or giving pointers to rookies. Shannon Scott, an undrafted guard out of Ohio State and one of the Raptors’ training camp invitees, noted that a crucial factor for a guy in his position is “to try and find a coach to get some shots with you. Stackhouse has done a great job with me,” he says.
Part of why Stackhouse might be a great fit for the Raptors is the team’s own makeup: a hard-working group that succeeds on collective effort rather than on the back of any one star. That kind of grind-it-out squad fits the mould Stackhouse sees as the most primed for success. “Our second unit was just as adept as our first unit,” he says of his 2005–06 Mavericks team, which reached the Finals versus the Miami Heat. “That’s how you can have a really good team.”
Stackhouse is putting in the work on his own end, picking up skills as he learns to coach at the NBA level. “There’s different things that you see that you don’t really pay attention to as a player,” he says of the behind-the-scenes machinations involved in leading an NBA team.
Eventually, Stackhouse would like to land a job as an NBA head coach. But this time, he’s keeping his plans loose. “I don’t really put a time frame on it,” he says. “I just want to keep working until somebody feels and says that I’m ready.” Right now, Stackhouse is relishing this opportunity with the Raptors. “I like our team,” he says. “I like our chances.”
