The NBA has been focused on expansion into Europe in recent years and appears to be eyeing a new global league sooner rather than later. And a big reason for these ambitions is how much the game of basketball has taken off internationally this century.
One place where things are thriving more than ever is England, where Super League Basketball was formed in 2024 and quickly became the top-level men’s basketball competition across Great Britain.
Roy Rogers to be hired as head coach of Liverpool expansion team
Due to recent success, the league has expanded this offseason, adding a new team in Liverpool that will be coached by former Celtic, Roy Rogers. Rogers will be at the helm for the team’s inaugural season in 2026-27, and perhaps beyond.
Rogers retired from playing in 2004 and immediately became an assistant coach in the D League (now known as the G League) and has been an assistant coach in the NBA since 2008, most recently serving on the bench for the Trail Blazers since 2021.
Over his long, journeyman career as a player and coach, Rogers has forged some serious Celtics connections, as he was traded to the team in Boston after his rookie year in Vancouver. In the 1997 offseason, the Celtics traded Tony Massenburg and a second-round pick to the Grizzlies and acquired Rogers.
Rogers served as both player and coach for Celtics
But Rogers didn’t make much of a mark in Boston, playing in just nine games before becoming part of another big trade as the team dealt him along with Dee Brown, Chauncey Billups, and John Thomas to the Raptors in exchange for Kenny Anderson, Popeye Jones, and Zan Tabak just ahead of the 1998 All-Star break.
By 2000, Rogers was out of the league and spent a few years playing overseas before hanging it up and getting into coaching. But he would have another stint in Boston as he joined the Celtics as an assistant coach under Doc Rivers for the 2010-11 season.
The Celtics finished that season 56-26, good for third place in the Eastern Conference, but they were overmatched in the playoffs against the new-look big three in Miami. Rogers moved on after the season, thus ending his second Celtics tenure.
And Rogers has been bouncing around as an assistant ever since, before catching on in Portland for the last five seasons. Now, he gets his first chance as a head coach on a brand-new team in Liverpool. He gets to have his own team and try to break through in a league that’s still up and coming.
It’s a well-deserved opportunity for a guy who has been coaching for over 20 years now and finally has a chance to show what he can do in the big chair. If things go well enough, there’s no reason to think Rogers can’t become a hot name for an NBA head coaching position in the future.
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