PORTLAND, Ore. — The relationship between new Trail Blazers head coach Micah Nori and franchise icon Damian Lillard got off to an inauspicious start.It was in June, during one of Nori’s interviews with the Blazers, when Nori was tasked with making a presentation of how he would run the Blazers. Plays. Substitution patterns. Rotations. Lineup combinations. The Blazers wanted to hear his whole pitch.Thirty minutes before the interview, general manager Joe Cronin informed Nori that Lillard, the star who will be returning to the team after missing last season rehabilitating his torn left Achilles, would be sitting in on the interview.As the franchise’s all-time leading scorer listened, Nori gave his presentation, which included starting Jrue Holiday and Scoot Henderson at guard. Nori had not been given any inside information or health updates on Lillard, so he had Lillard coming off the bench and playing around 24 minutes.The room went silent, until Lillard broke the tension.“Huh,” Nori remembered Lillard saying. “Twenty-four minutes?”Nori, who is hailed for his ability to connect with players using a joking and colloquial style, shot back.“I haven’t seen you dribble in 14 months, b—-!” Nori remembered saying.Lillard, whose dedicated rehab led him to consider a return to the lineup in April’s playoffs, assured Nouri, with stone-faced seriousness, that he was 100-percent healthy.“I’m fine. I’m fine,” Nori remembered Lillard saying sternly.Nori told him an old story about Jason Kidd in college at California. Where an assistant told the head coach that Kidd was tired and needed a break, the head coach said, I know … so quit looking at him. The point of the story: Kidd was so valuable that the coaches didn’t want to take him out, and by not looking at him, they couldn’t see he was tired.“I told him that was how it was going to be with him, and so we shared a good laugh,” Nori said.Later that night, Nori said Lillard texted him.“He said I had him shook a little bit, with him coming off the bench,” Nori said.Nori put Lillard at ease. He told him he would start. And he told him at the end of games, he would be in his familiar spot: as the closer.“I said I can promise you, that if you can walk, you will start,” Nori said. “And I said, don’t worry, at the end of the game, we’re going to put you in diagonal-fist, just like (former Blazers assistant) Jay (Triano) did, and do a little knockoff, and you’ll get to your step-back going left. Don’t worry.”The two shared another laugh and a relationship started to bud. Since then, Nori said Lillard has texted nearly every day.Opportunity too good to passNori said he is not phased by the negative reaction to his signing a contract with just one guaranteed season. The most noted criticism came from the National Basketball Coaches Association, and its president, Detroit coach JB Bickerstaff.“I spoke to JB today … and the way that I took that comment was that he is the president of 285 coaches, and he is defending his union,” Nori said. “I sit on the board of that coach’s group, and then we had a very good conversation, and we’re fine. I’m fine with what he said.”Nori, who has been up for seven head-coaching positions in his career, said he looked at Portland as a chance to get his foot in the door.“The way I look at this, it’s an opportunity,” Nori said. “ Every decision that I’ve made (in 28 years in NBA), never once did money come into play or the years … I look at the opportunities, knowing that if I am successful, then all those other things will take care of itself.”Throughout his introductory news conference Thursday, Nori mentioned how fortunate he is and how unique it is that he inherits a winning team on an upward trajectory. Taking over a team that went 42-40, and will be adding Lillard to the mix, is an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.“And the way I look at it, we talk about opportunities. Number one: Do I believe that I can do the job? Yes, I do. Do I believe in this roster? Do I believe in a Jrue Holiday, Deni Avdija, and Dame Lillard, and Sidy Cissoko, and Donovan (Clingan) and Scoot (Henderson) … and the list goes on and on. Yes, I do,” Nori said.“Do I believe in (GM) Joe (Cronin)? Absolutely. Look at the roster that we’ve been in the playoffs, we are adding Dame, and where we can go in the future as far as flexibility, and what he’s done in roster management.“And then (new owner) Tom (Dundon), do I believe in Tom? Do I trust Tom?” Nori said. “I base it on what he’s told me in the conversations that we’ve had, and all I do is I can go on what his track record shows. And I know that seven days ago, he lifted a cup with the Carolina Hurricanes with the only coach that he’s had in eight years as owner of that team. So again, the contract, those things will all take care of itself. Somewhere down the road, we’re not gonna get into the amount of monies and all that – that’s nobody’s business – but as far as I’m concerned, the contract is signed. It’s in a drawer. I’ve never seen anybody, player or coach, bring their contract out onto the floor and say, OK, well, your contract is this, we will give you five more points.”Added Cronin: “Micah and I, and Tom, agreed to take a chance on each other. We believe in him. He believes in us. Going into this six months ago I said we were going to approach this with a shared risk and we tried to find that balance. The terms of the contract … to us, it doesn’t really matter. We are in this together and we are going to support Micah with all the resources and players and all the ability to win that he needs. To us, (the contract) is just a technicality of sharing some risk.”So, is last name NOR-EE? Or NOR-EYE?Throughout his NBA career, Nori’s last name has been pronounced Nor-ee.But while conducting interviews of people from his hometown – Middletown, Ohio – they pronounced his last name as Nor-Eye.“It’s funny, because a lot of people will say Nor-eye, and that’s kind of what it was our whole life,” Nori said. “But Nor-ee is the actual, proper way to say it. And honestly, my dad used to always say Nor-eye, even though his parents said Nor-ee, and I used to say Nor-eye.”He figures Nor-eye was used because it was easier when the family made reservations, or needed to give their name over the phone … Nor-eye … N-O-R-I.“So half the family says Nor-eye, half says Nor-ee.…But all the Italians I have come across — Danillo Ganillari, Andrea Bargnani, Maurizo Gherardini — they all get pissed off, saying ‘It’s NOR-EE!’ But in Middletown, it’s Nor-eye.”One-on-onesNori said one of his first missions will be to fly out to players and introduce himself. He has already met Matisse Thybulle, Avdija and Cissoko (Avdija and Cissoko were in attendance at his news conference), but he said he wants to meet each player and start establishing a relationship.“You have to go see people. You just do,” Nori said. “Just to let them know they are important. People talk about connections and relationships, and to me, that means go out of your way to extend the first hello to them instead of just waiting for it to happen at some point.”Nori has coached one current Blazers player before: Jerami Grant arrived in Detroit for the 2020-21 season, when Nori was in his third year as the offensive coordinator under Dwane Casey.Filling out his staffNori said for his own coaching staff he will consider all of Portland’s holdover assistant coaches, but he will begin putting out feelers to see if he can lure other coaches. Some notable assistants with ties to Nori include Dallas assistant Triano, who gave Nori his first assistant coaching job in Toronto, and Chicago assistant Wes Unseld Jr., who became a close friend when both were on the NBA’s advance scouting circuit.