Phil Handy
American basketball player and coach (born 1971)
Philip Tony Handy (born August 24, 1971) is an American basketball coach who currently serves as an assistant coach for the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He previously served as an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks of the NBA, and player development trainer. He played college basketball for the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors, and then played professionally abroad before starting his career in coaching.
01Early life
Born in San Leandro, California, he grew up in Hayward - Union City, California.
02College career
After a year of junior college, Handy attended University of Hawaii from 1993 to 1995. During his tenure with the Rainbows he was a WAC champion, and first Team All defense selection.
03Professional career
Handy played for the Golden State Warriors and Portland Trail Blazers during the pre-season, in the Continental Basketball Association for the Omaha Racers, Grand Rapids Mackers (via dispersal draft from Omaha), La Crosse Bobcats (rights traded to Fort Wayne Fury on 12 October 1998) and internationally in France (SLUC Nancy Basket), Italy, Germany, Spain, Israel (Maccabi Hadera), England (Manchester Giants), and Australia (Melbourne Tigers and West Sydney Razorbacks). Never a crowd favourite Razorback fans took particular delight in chanting "You're useless Handy".
He obtained a CBA All-Rookie First Team (1995-96), and a British Basketball League championship with the Manchester Giants in the season 1999-2000.
04Coaching career
Handy has served as player development coach for the Los Angeles Lakers under Mike Brown. Still under Brown, he served as assistant coach with the Cleveland Cavaliers. He then moved to the Toronto Raptors as assistant for Nick Nurse. He then moved back to the Lakers under Frank Vogel.
Handy went to 6 consecutive NBA Finals, 4 with the Cleveland Cavaliers (2015, 2018), 1 with the Toronto Raptors (2019), and 1 with the Los Angeles Lakers (2020) winning championships in 2016, 2019, and 2020.
On November 15, 2024, Handy was announced to be one of the six new head coaches of the Unrivaled basketball league.
On July 9, 2025, the Dallas Mavericks hired Handy as part of their coaching staff under head coach Jason Kidd.
On August 31, 2026 the Philadelphia 76ers announced Handy has joined their coaching staff.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Phil Handy”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Phil Handy 2018.jpg by Rocky Padila, CC BY 3.0
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