In pursuit of NBA goal, Arizona assistant Ken Nakagawa leaving Wildcats for G League

Arizona basketball fans will see a familiar face leave the Wildcats this month as assistant coach Ken Nakagawa moves to the Salt Lake Stars, the NBA G League affiliate of the Utah Jazz. The change removes a member of coach Tommy Lloyd’s staff who has been closely involved in scouting, game preparation and player development since Lloyd arrived in Tucson. For Nakagawa, however, the move represents a long planned step toward his ultimate goal of working in the NBA.

Nakagawa joined Lloyd at Arizona in 2021, when Lloyd left his assistant coaching position at Gonzaga to take over the Wildcats. At the time, Nakagawa had been Gonzaga’s video coordinator. He came to Tucson as the Wildcats’ director of advanced scouting and was promoted to an assistant coaching position in 2024. His next job with Salt Lake will give him a similar coaching and evaluation role, but in a professional setting where rosters change constantly and players are competing for NBA opportunities.

His path to the G League began in Southern California. Nakagawa, a Los Angeles native, graduated from Long Beach State in 2016 and first entered coaching as a student manager under Dan Monson, who was then coaching the Beach. He later joined Mark Few’s Gonzaga program as a graduate assistant and advanced to video coordinator. By following those connections through the Monson and Few coaching trees, Nakagawa built a career that eventually brought him to one of college basketball’s most prominent programs.

One of the defining relationships from his Arizona tenure was with Benn Mathurin. When Mathurin returned to the Wildcats for the 2021 to 2022 season, he worked with Nakagawa on improving his NBA draft prospects. Mathurin had been viewed as a potential borderline first round selection if he left Arizona in 2021, but his additional season helped elevate him to lottery pick status in the 2022 NBA Draft. Nakagawa said Mathurin’s willingness to trust him from the beginning was meaningful, particularly because the two had not previously known one another.

Nakagawa also pointed to his work with center Motiejus Krivas last season as another especially rewarding part of his time in Tucson. More broadly, he said Arizona and Gonzaga gave him the chance to work every day around players capable of reaching the NBA, both in games and in practice. He credited Lloyd with opening those doors and said he would not have received the G League opportunity without the chance Lloyd gave him at Arizona.

His scouting work also included one of Arizona’s most significant recent victories. The Wildcats’ 71 to 67 upset at Connecticut early last season pushed Arizona into the national spotlight, and Nakagawa described the game plan as something he had particularly owned. The players executed it successfully, turning his preparation into a road win that became an important early statement for the program. Those responsibilities will continue in Salt Lake, although the professional environment will demand a different kind of adaptability.

G League teams regularly gain and lose players, often as athletes are called up, assigned, released or moved through the NBA system. That means Nakagawa will not only prepare for opponents whose lineups may shift frequently, but will also work with a changing group on his own team. He said flexibility and openness were recurring themes in conversations during his hiring process. Player development and scouting will remain central to his job, but the instability of professional rosters will make both responsibilities less predictable than they are in college basketball.

Nakagawa has spent years building experience beyond the college game as well. He worked with the Japanese Basketball Association in 2017 and 2018, joined Japan’s coaching staff for the FIBA Under 19 World Cup in 2021, and was part of the Uganda senior national team staff during the FIBA AfroBasket tournament in August 2025. He also attended a coaching retreat in Tucson led by former Arizona player Joseph Blair, who coached Rio Grande Valley last season. Blair and several assistants helped Nakagawa understand the daily demands of G League work after Nakagawa had already decided he wanted to pursue the opportunity.

The Salt Lake position may also give Nakagawa exposure to the Jazz, the Stars’ NBA parent club. Several former Wildcats have already coached in the G League, including Blair, Matt Brase, Miles Simon, Reggie Geary and Jason Terry. Isaiah Fox was on the Salt Lake staff last season, giving Nakagawa another Arizona connection as he enters the organization. He said former players who reached the NBA encouraged him to consider making the move, helping fuel his curiosity about the professional path.

Nakagawa said he has considered an NBA or G League career for several years, but this opportunity felt like the right moment even if it was not a perfect one. His departure closes a five year chapter with Arizona, where his influence extended well beyond the bench and into the preparation that helped players grow and the Wildcats compete on a national level. For Tucson fans, his move offers a chance to follow one of the program’s behind the scenes contributors as he takes the next step toward the league he has been working to reach.