Long Island Nets Announce Coaching and Basketball Operations Staff Additions

LONG ISLAND (October 1, 2017) – The Long Island Nets, the NBA G League affiliate of the Brooklyn Nets, have named Josh Oppenheimer, Damian Cotter and Ryan Forehan-Kelly as assistant coaches on head coach Ronald Nored’s staff.

Oppenheimer joins Long Island after serving as an assistant coach with the Houston Rockets during the 2016-17 season. Prior to his time with the Rockets, Oppenheimer spent three seasons (2013-16) as an assistant coach with the Milwaukee Bucks. He has also held coaching positions at Duquesne, Delaware, DePaul and Kent State on the collegiate level and owned his own skills training company, Excel Basketball. Oppenheimer played college basketball at the University of Rhode Island before transferring to Northern Arizona, where he earned All-Big Sky Conference honors for the 1989-90 season. He went on to play 10 seasons of professional basketball both in the U.S. and overseas, including six seasons in Israel, before beginning his coaching career.

Cotter enters his first season on the sidelines for the Long Island Nets. The Australian native most recently served as an assistant coach for Australia’s women's national team from 2013-16, with the team finishing fifth at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. He also served as the head coach of the Sydney Kings in Australia’s National Basketball League from 2014-15 after previously serving as one of the Kings’ assistant coaches. Cotter also coached the Australian under-19 men’s team for four seasons (2009-13), leading the group to a fourth place finish at the under-19 FIBA World Championship in 2013, and was the head coach of the New South Wales Institute of Sport basketball program from 2007-2014. Throughout the past year, Cotter has hosted player and coaching development clinics throughout Australia, Sri Lanka, Germany, France and most recently Singapore, where he held a clinic for FIBA and the World Association of Basketball Coaches.

Forehan-Kelly joins the LI Nets after spending last season with the Brooklyn Nets as a video seasonal assistant on head coach Kenny Atkinson’s staff. Prior to joining the Nets, Forehan-Kelly played professionally for 13 years on teams in Japan, Venezuela, China, France and Italy, along with playing two seasons (2008-10) in the NBA G League with the Los Angeles D-Fenders, now the South Bay Lakers. The Long Beach, Calif., native played four years (1998-2002) at the University of California, Berkeley, where he ranks sixth all-time in 3-point field goal percentage (.407).

The team has also named Rahsaan Robinson as strength and conditioning coach and Jordan Surenkamp as video coordinator. Robinson will join head athletic trainer Shanice Johnson on the team’s performance staff, while Surenkamp will round out Long Island’s basketball operations staff.