Tuomas Iisalo says new Grizzlies assistant Julius Thomas will serve as his offensive right-hand man after their successful stops together in Bonn and Paris.
Julius Thomas, who took over Paris Basketball as its interim head coach in March, has joined the Memphis Grizzlies as an assistant under Tuomas Iisalo.
Iisalo announced the hire during Monday's media day session at FedExForum, one day before Memphis opens training camp at Belmont University in Nashville. Thomas is 29.
He will work mostly on the offensive side as Iisalo's right-hand man.
Thomas Reunites With Iisalo in Memphis
Iisalo has worked with Thomas at two previous stops and pointed to his familiarity with the offensive system as an immediate benefit.
"We have added one assistant coach to the staff, which is Julius Thomas," Iisalo said, "who worked as an assistant for me first in Bonn in Germany and then in Paris and was the interim head coach last year in EuroLeague, the youngest EuroLeague head coach in history, and he will work mostly on the offensive side as kind of my right-hand man with that. He has extensive knowledge of that system. His biggest challenge is, again, similar to when I came over, just learning the NBA, understanding the schedule and what you're able to do in a very short amount of time and all the cultural differences that go between those two."
"But very happy [we] were able to get him and also very happy with the development of the rest of the staff," Iisalo continued. "We don't talk about it often because it's like similar, like I think it was Belichick used to say, we're not in the business of collecting talent, we're trying to build a team. The same applies also to our staff. If I think about our coaches retreat a year ago and this year, it's like night and day difference, because we're viewing the game now through the same framework, and that's the first step."
Thomas Followed Iisalo From Bonn to Paris
Thomas first worked for Iisalo at Telekom Baskets Bonn. Iisalo coached Bonn from 2021 to 2023 and won the 2023 Basketball Champions League there, the first German team to win the competition. He was named German league coach of the year in 2022 and 2023.
Iisalo moved to Paris Basketball in 2023, and Thomas went with him. Six Bonn players made the same move.
Paris went 22-1 in the EuroCup, the first team to win 22 games in a season in the competition. It swept JL Bourg in the finals in April 2024 and earned a place in the EuroLeague. Iisalo was the EuroCup Coach of the Year.
Iisalo left for Memphis that summer as Taylor Jenkins' lead assistant. He became the first Finnish-born coach in the NBA, according to The Associated Press.
Thomas stayed in Paris and worked under Tiago Splitter during the 2024-25 season, when Paris won the French league title. Splitter later served as Portland's interim coach in 2025-26 and has since been named head coach of the Chicago Bulls.
Thomas Became One of EuroLeague's Youngest Head Coaches
Paris parted ways with Francesco Tabellini on March 23, 2026, and named Thomas interim head coach for the rest of the season.
Paris was 12-21 in the EuroLeague at the time, 17th in the standings, and 16-7 in the French league.
EuroLeague said Thomas, then 28, was the youngest active head coach in the competition. It also said he would become the second-youngest head coach in EuroLeague history when he coached his first game, behind Gašper Potočnik, who was 27 years, 11 months, and 19 days old when he coached Union Olimpija on Dec. 10, 2008.
Grizzlies Continue Building Around Iisalo
Iisalo is heading into his second training camp as the Grizzlies' head coach. Memphis fired Jenkins on March 28, 2025, and Iisalo went 4-5 as interim coach before a first-round sweep by Oklahoma City.
The Grizzlies removed the interim tag that May, and Memphis went 25-57 last season.
Memphis drafted Cameron Boozer third overall in June, and Cedric Coward made the All-Rookie First Team last season.
The first preseason test comes Oct. 5 in Atlanta.
