Chase Buford

Kansas men’s basketball assistant coach Chase Buford is leaving the team after one season, as head coach Bill Self said on Friday that Buford has accepted an assistant coach job with the NBA’s Denver Nuggets.

“It’s a great gig for him, and happy for him, and he did a really good job here,” Self said.

Buford, a former walk-on player under Self from 2007 to 2010, departs Self’s coaching staff after one year. His hiring as an analyst was officially announced on June 14, 2024, though his title soon shifted to assistant coach.

Buford previously served as the head coach of the Sydney Kings of Australia’s National Basketball League, with whom he won a pair of league championships, and in several positions in the NBA G League, including as the head coach of the Wisconsin Herd. He is the son of R.C. Buford, Self’s longtime friend who helped get Self his first role as a graduate assistant on KU’s staff.

He returns to the NBA after having previously worked as a scout and in the video department for the Atlanta Hawks, as well as in the role of coordinator of player development for the Chicago Bulls.

Now, he will join David Adelman’s staff in Denver. Adelman took over as Denver’s interim head coach after Michael Malone was fired late in the regular season and steered the Nuggets through their playoff run before earning the full-time role.

This is the third major staffing change of the offseason for KU. Self’s longtime assistant coach Norm Roberts retired and was replaced with past Jayhawk and former NBA head coach Jacque Vaughn. Fred Quartlebaum, who was serving as the director of basketball operations, left the program and was replaced by Lexi Price via an internal promotion.

Self will now have a new vacancy to fill alongside his other assistant coaches: Vaughn, Jeremy Case, Joe Dooley and Kurtis Townsend.

“I’m in the process of looking into some different things, but I haven’t done anything yet,” Self said. “I feel like I got the scope kind of narrowed down of what I think would be good for us, but I haven’t done anything yet.”