Hernando Planells Jr. brings deep coaching résumé back to SlamBall's Buzzsaw

Buzzsaw is not asking Hernando Planells Jr. to learn SlamBall on the fly. It is putting a 24-year coaching veteran back on a bench he already knows, after he spent the 2002 and 2003 seasons with the Bouncers. SlamBall’s own history page places him with one of the league’s original teams and calls him one of its most respected coaches, which is exactly the kind of resume that gives a franchise a clear identity before the first bounce.

Planells’ background stretches well beyond one league or one level. He has been a head coach at Williams Jessup University, an assistant at the University of Illinois and Duke University, and he has spent time with the Maine Celtics in the NBA G League and the Ryukyu Golden Kings in Japan. He also scouted for Marty Blake, the NBA’s longtime director of scouting. The profile’s sharpest number is 12, the total of former players he says were drafted by WNBA teams. That is the kind of track record that suggests he has spent years doing more than drawing up plays. He has built players, sized up talent and managed rosters.

That fits SlamBall’s demands. The league returned in Las Vegas in 2023 with eight teams and seven-man rosters, and league play was carried on ESPN starting July 21, 2023. In a sport where the margin for error is measured in seconds and collisions are part of the job description, a coach who has worked across college, pro, scouting and development settings has a real edge. Planells was also named SlamBall Coach of the Week during that 2023 season, a small but telling sign that his return was more than ceremonial.

Buzzsaw’s roster choices reflect that same logic. The team used the second overall pick in the 2023 draft on Tyquan Scott, a 6-foot-7, 245-pound stopper, a size profile that signals contact first and questions later. The rest of the draft class, Jamaal Barnes, Ralph Bellamy, DeVonte Pratt, Malik Abdul-Haqq and Raymond Taylor, gave Buzzsaw more athletic options around the rim and in transition. The current roster page lists Planells as head coach, Sandy Fletcher Jr. as assistant coach, and Terrell Howard, Tyquan Scott, Ralph Bellamy, Malik Abdul-Haqq and Raymond Taylor among the names he is working with now.

That is the Planells blueprint in plain view: physical enough to survive SlamBall, experienced enough to trust in tight rotations, and broad enough in his basketball background to make every possession feel planned, not improvised.