Did you know this prospect’s dad is the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers?

The Nori family business is sports. It started out as baseball only, with Fred Nori playing in the Minor Leagues before embarking on a legendary career as a college coach. His son, Micah, played college baseball at Indiana and coached at Miami of Ohio. 

Micah’s son and Fred’s grandson, Dante, has carried on the family tradition as the Phillies’ No. 7 prospect, a first-round pick back in 2024. But years ago, Micah diversified the portfolio by taking an internship under Butch Carter and the NBA’s Toronto Raptors. That kicked off a decades-long career as an assistant coach with a number of teams until he received his first head coaching gig with the Portland Trail Blazers for the 2026-27 season.

While Micah and Dante have spent a lot of time rooting for each other from afar, the scheduling stars aligned in early November, as the Trail Blazers traveled to Phoenix to play the Suns while Dante was competing for the Surprise Saguaros in the Arizona Fall League. It was a home-and-home family reunion, with Micah getting to watch Dante in action at Scottsdale Stadium one day and Micah getting to see his father roam the sidelines for the first time in person the following night.

“One of my buddies on the team told me, ‘Hey, your dad comes out in November.’ I called him… ‘Hey you come out in November.’ He said, ‘No we don’t!’ He double-checked because the schedule had just come out,” Dante recalled, sitting in the Scottsdale visiting dugout with his dad following his game on Nov. 3. “Yeah it was going to line up … It worked out he was able to come out tonight, and I’ll be able to see him tomorrow.”

Micah saw Dante hit a double in the Saguaros’ 8-0 win, and Dante got to see Micah’s Trail Blazers beat the Phoenix Suns, 132-119, the next night, so it literally was a win-win, though just the rare opportunity to see each other in action was victory enough.

“I always cherish these moments when I get to see him,” Micah said, pointing out that the next time might be Spring Training during the NBA All-Star break or, as he hoped, late June after a long Trail Blazers playoff run. “Thank goodness for technology, you can watch every single game. You don’t feel too far removed, but it’s always very special to see him in person, for sure.”

Dante articulated after his Fall League game that it’s a two-way street, and that he was “fired up” to watch his dad as a full-time head coach for the first time live.

“It’s unbelievable. Every step … every move that he’s made has been a step toward the ultimate goal of being a head coach. He’s been doing it since before I was born. Just watching him grow coaching, I remember he woke me up with a call saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to be the Portland Trail Blazers head coach.’ I lost it with him. 

“He’s so proud of me all the time, for him to say that and finally reach the accomplishment of being a head coach, I lost it as well. It’s amazing to watch it.”

The morning of the Trail Blazers-Suns game, while watching Portland’s shootaround and rubbing elbows with the likes of star Damian Lillard, the 22-year-old outfielder was able to go a step further. 

“It’s sweet. It’s been a long time coming, you know, 20-plus years he’s been in the NBA, and to watch him get his first shot as a head coach, it’s great,” Dante said. “He’s always been so proud of me, and now it’s like, I get to be really proud of you.”

It’s clear this is a close family, even when their sports have taken them to opposite ends of the continent. It’s no wonder that Micah talks so positively about where his son is at this point in his career, and how instrumental his wife, Melissa, and daughter, Mia, have been to keep everything flowing in the right direction. He is, after all, known as the “Ted Lasso” of NBA coaches.

“First and foremost, you always want your children to do better than you,” Micah said. "I just look back and remember him when he was three or four years old, all the time … hitting tees, we’re setting up stuffed animals on ladders in the backyard, we’re talking about, ‘OK, hit this one to left-center, do this type of stuff.’ 

“You never have aspirations of your son being a first-round pick, let alone having these chances. You wouldn’t change it for the world. To see your child get to live out their dream, you’re just really thankful. You really appreciate all the hard work that he put in, that his mom, Melissa, took him while I was gone coaching basketball, taking him to all the practices, all the hitting lessons, and his sister, Mia, having to go and watch it all. I guess it takes a village. He’s had a ton of support, but that being said, he’s put in a lot of work to get to this point.”

Dante has long used his father as a sounding board. Early on, as an amateur, it was a lot of technical talk -- his dad does know the game, after all -- but that’s largely morphed into talking about mental approach, mindsets and dealing with the grind. That support system was really important for the Phillies center fielder when he missed much of the 2026 season with what ended up being diagnosed as a stress fracture in his hip, the first time he’d ever been injured.

“You can see in my call logs, I talk to both of [my parents], almost him a little too much,” Dante said. “They’re always there for me. You’re going through a stretch, the 0-for-10s, you call your dad and he’s going to tell you, ‘This is what you have to do. This is what I see. Keep going, it’s baseball, it’s going to happen.’ Obviously, you lean on them a lot.”

Both point to favorite moments of cheering each other on, even if it’s been from afar. Micah loved the whole Draft process, meeting with scouts, and hearing his son’s name called in the first round of the 2024 Draft, but his favorite on-field performance was Dante's all-World Baseball Classic tournament showing for Team Italy this past March. He couldn’t be there in person, his parents and wife were there to represent the Nori clan, but was hyped when he got updates that Dante had homered not once, but twice, against Brazil.

“As a dad, yes, but even more so as someone who is looking at your son like a prospect, to see that he fit right in, the moment was never too big, and it was like he was playing in his backyard, playing in high school, I think that was really the coolest moment for me on the field,” Micah said.

Dante pointed to a moment when his dad had to step in as an interim head coach while serving as an assistant for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Head coach Chris Finch suffered a knee injury late in 2024, and Nori took over during their postseason run, perhaps a glimpse of what was yet to come. 

“[Finch] goes down with an injury, he’s the interim head coach, watching him lead the Timberwolves to a Western Conference finals appearance,” Dante said. “They had to go win two in Denver, watching him take over that role was really special.”

Even with all of that mutual respect, there is room for the dad to act as coach and for some good old-fashioned ribbing, starting with who would beat who in a game of HORSE.

“I would kill him,” Micah said while watching Dante in AFL action. “He would probably say otherwise, but I would kill him. All he wants to do is shoot threes now, so I would just come in mid-range or off the glass, and he would have no chance.”

“We could argue about that,” Dante said after the game. “We haven’t played HORSE in forever. I’m curious to see how it is now.”

Dante went on to vote for himself as the better shooter.

“I think me, put me in the left corner,” he said.

“He’s a one-trick pony,” Micah responded.

“That’s all I could do,” Dante admitted. “That’s why I don’t play [anymore].”