Nate Tibbetts Hired as Coach of Tulsa 66ers, Oklahoma City Thunder Affiliate

Nate Tibbetts was named the new head coach of the Tulsa 66ers, Oklahoma City's D-League affiliate.  In Tibbetts, Tulsa's getting a great, up-and-coming coach that knows the minor league system, knows how to evaluate talent and will be able to help that team out tremendously.

Tibbetts joins the 66ers after spending the past four seasons with the Sioux Falls Skyforce of the NBA Development League. After two seasons as an assistant with the Skyforce, Tibbetts was promoted to Head Coach prior the 2007-08 season. In two seasons at the helm of the Skyforce, Tibbetts guided Sioux Falls to a 53-47 (.530) mark including a playoff berth during the 2007-08 season.

Tibbetts also went to school at the University of South Dakota, so he had some ties to the area, leading me to believe that there is some long term interest from Oklahoma City to lure him to Tulsa.  Rumor is, he was offered that job last season as well, but declined.

What does this mean Sioux Falls?  I'm not sure.  They have a pretty good assistant in Tony Fritz who would be great for the job (he's assisted on a lot of great minor league teams for the last eight years or so).  

If not Fritz, former Tulsa coach Paul Woolpert might be a candidate, as he has coached in Sioux Falls, Mo McHone, currently an adviser to Austin who coached Sioux Falls before Tibbetts toook over, Randy Livingston, who was an assistant with Idaho last season and recently had his jersey retired by Sioux Falls and of course, my favorite candidate, Mike Sanders, who has six years of NBA assistant experience to go along with plenty of years of minor league head coaching experience and a lengthy NBA career.