Igor Kokoškov

Igor Stefan Kokoškov (Serbian Cyrillic: Игор Стефан Кокошков; born 17 December 1971) is a Serbian professional basketball coach. He had spent 19 years in the NBA as an assistant coach, with a brief stint as head coach for the Phoenix Suns for a full season. He spent a season in Turkey with Fenerbahçe, before returning to the NBA to become an assistant coach for the Dallas Mavericks in 2021. Kokoškov was the first European to be a full-time assistant coach in NCAA Division I college basketball, and the first non-American to hold such a position in the NBA. In 2004, he became the first non-American assistant coach to win an NBA championship, and the first to serve on an NBA All-Star Game coaching staff. He is also the first coach born and raised outside of North America to be hired as a head coach in the NBA. He won EuroBasket 2017, while working as the head coach of the Slovenian men's national team.

Early career Kokoškov, a graduate of the University of Belgrade, coached various club teams in Belgrade early in his coaching career and was on the staff of the Yugoslav men's and junior national teams. At the age of 24, Kokoškov became the youngest coach in Yugoslavian basketball history, shortly after suffering serious injuries sustained during a 1990 automobile accident, which ended a promising basketball playing career. His savvy, ambitious nature and command of the English language were factors when he was hired by the University of Missouri Tigers, as a part of their full-time men's basketball coaching staff in 1999, making him the first European to hold such a position in NCAA Division I men's college basketball.

NBA assistant (2000–2018) In 2000, Kokoškov became the first non-American to be hired as a full-time assistant coach in the NBA, by the Los Angeles Clipper