NBA teams
Marc Stein, ESPN Senior Writer 9y

Texas Legends offer head-coaching job to Nick Van Exel

NBA, Dallas Mavericks

The Texas Legends of the NBA Developmental League have offered their head-coaching job to former NBA All-Star guard Nick Van Exel, according to NBA coaching sources.

Sources told ESPN.com that the Legends and Van Exel are in advanced talks on a contract expected to establish Van Exel as the full-time successor to his former NBA teammate Eduardo Najera, who has coached the Legends for the past three seasons.

"It's 95 percent done," said one coaching source.

Najera is moving to the scouting staff for the Dallas Mavericks, the Legends' parent club. Van Exel was a Legends assistant under Najera last season after previously holding assistant coaching positions with the Milwaukee Bucks and Atlanta Hawks.

The Legends' top job opened when former Mavericks assistant coach Monte Mathis landed a spot last week on the staff of new Orlando Magic coach Scott Skiles. The Mavericks had offered Mathis first crack at coaching the Legends after giving his spot on Rick Carlisle's bench to former Denver Nuggets interim coach Melvin Hunt.

The looming hiring of Van Exel, though, is more in line with the Legends' history of making splashy coaching hires. In the franchise's five-season history, under the direction of Mavericks president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson and fellow Legends executives Spud Webb and Malcolm Farmer, Texas has employed Nancy Lieberman, Del Harris and Najera as its three head coaches and made a run at Auburn's Bruce Pearl after he was dismissed by the University of Tennessee in March 2011.

Lieberman was the first woman to serve as head coach of a team under the NBA's umbrella. Najera later became the first Mexican-born coach of an NBA-owned team. In between them, Harris -- 74 at the time -- became the oldest head coach of a team under the NBA's auspices.

Van Exel broke into the NBA with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1993 as the 37th overall pick in the draft and would quickly flourish, helping Harris win NBA Coach of the Year honors in 1995 with his bold backcourt play. Van Exel earned All-Star honors with the Lakers in 1998 and enjoyed a short but highly successful stint as a Maverick from February 2002 through August 2003, providing Dallas with an offensive spark throughout its trip to the Western Conference finals in the 2003 playoffs.

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