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In Suns coach Igor Kokoskov’s return to Salt Lake City, the former Jazz assistant calls Quin Snyder ‘my life mentor, not just basketball mentor’

Yes, Suns head coach Igor Kokoskov spent the past three seasons with the Utah Jazz. But his relationship with Quin Snyder actually goes back a couple decades.

They met when Snyder was an assistant at his alma mater, Duke, and Kokoskov was a young Serbian coach taking a tour of American collegiate programs. They hit it off to such a degree, Snyder said, that he immediately vowed if he ever got a chance to become a head coach, he intended to hire his new colleague — something he did both at the University of Missouri and with the Jazz.