Dawn Staley is a candidate for the Portland Trail Blazers’ head coaching position, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania.

Staley, also the USA Basketball head coach, is currently in Puerto Rico coaching Team USA in the AmeriCup Tournament. The news broke during USA’s opening game against the Dominican Republic, so Staley was not immediately available for comment.

According to Charania, the other candidates for the Trail Blazers’ opening are Spurs assistant Becky Hammon, Clippers assistant Chauncey Billups, Nets assistant Mike D’Antonio, and Spurs executive Brent Barry. Based on that list, it appears the Trail Blazers are considering an unconventional hire - only D’Antonio has previous NBA head coaching experience (16 seasons with five teams). Barry has never been a coach, and Billups is in his first year as an assistant. Hammon has been an assistant coach with the Spurs for seven seasons. She was the second female assistant coach in NBA history, following current South Carolina associate head coach Lisa Boyer. In a game earlier this season, Hammon became the first female acting head coach after head coach Gregg Popovich was ejected. Previously, Hammon was reportedly a candidate for the Knicks’ head coaching job.

The NBA has been receptive to female coaches. In addition to Hammon, Duke coach Kara Lawson was an assistant with Boston, Southern Cal head coach Lindsay Gottlieb was an assistant with Cleveland, and Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey was a Memphis assistant. In all, Wikipedia lists 14 women who have served as NBA assistants, and it is believed to be a matter of when, not if, Hammon lands a head coaching job.

Staley’s name was also floated last summer as a candidate for the head coaching position for her hometown 76ers, a job that ultimately went to Doc Rivers. That felt more like a trial balloon - as I wrote at the time the 76ers were close to contending for a title and needed a proven championship coach, not a gamble on an unproven coach. This seems more serious. The Trail Blazers are further away from contending, but still a winning team that appears to be looking outside the box to find a new approach that will keep Damian Lillard happy.

Staley has said a number of times that she is not interested in coaching in the WNBA. During her season wrap-up in mid-April, Staley was asked about the rumors, some serious, some idle speculation, that she could make the jump to the NBA.

“No ounce of me really wants to coach outside of college,” she said. “I don’t. I don’t know why. My level of interest has never been to coach in the WNBA or to coach in the NBA or coach on the men’s side. I don’t know why my competitiveness won’t allow me to go there. It may be because I think there is too much work to be done in our game, women’s basketball. There is a lot of work that needs to be done. I do think about making sure that the players I coach on this level will take great care of the WNBA so it’s around another 25 years. It has to come from people who have been a part of the WNBA. I do believe that once you’ve played it, once you’ve experienced not having to go overseas and you can play in the WNBA, you want every kid that you coach to experience that, to have the option of doing that. I feel like I’m one of a few WNBA coaches that coach on this level that can take care of our game in that way.”

I have reached out for further comment and will update if anything becomes available.

Update - Saturday night South Carolina provided the following statement: “The Portland Trailblazers have contacted Athletics Director Ray Tanner to let the school know of the team’s interest in speaking to Coach Staley about their head coaching position.”