Which NBA Head Coach Did Ray Romano Channel in ‘Running Point’ Season 2?

Ray Romano had two weeks to prep for his role as the head coach of the fictional LA Waves on Running Point season two, and not a lot of time to overthink it. So he reached for the closest reference point he could find.

The gig came together fast. Netflix needed to cast within two weeks. Romano had not seen the show, watched the first season, liked it, signed on. The catch was the prep. Romano takes character work seriously even when the work is comedy, and he had nothing to anchor the character to.

The only NBA coach who came to mind as a usable starting point was Gregg Popovich. Romano was honest about what he actually knew about the Spurs legend, which is not much. What he could see from a distance was a demeanor he could maybe work with. He used Popovich as the base and built his own thing on top.

The interest in playing a coach is not new. Romano told Rich he has spent the last decade trying to get a Jim Valvano biopic made. He watched Survive and Advance, which he calls his favorite sports documentary, and saw the obvious overlaps. Valvano is from Queens. He is Italian. Romano figures he looks a little like him, at least in the right light. They met Derek Whittenburg. They had the pieces moving. The movie business being what it is, the project never closed. Romano admits he is probably aged out of the role at this point. Then he mentions AI and lets it sit.

Rich pointed out that if the Running Point timing had landed a year earlier, Romano might have been in the running for the Knicks coaching job himself. They were knocking on pretty much everyone's door.

Romano is a Knicks fan and a New Yorker. He laughed and let the joke breathe before the segment moved on.

The through line is what the segment is really about. Romano keeps finding ways to put himself next to coaches, fictional or real, and the reasons keep being personal. The accent. The neighborhood. The face in the mirror. Popovich gets him into Running Point. Valvano is the one he has been chasing for ten years.