SAN ANTONIO — They've found a house, and the furniture has arrived. Their son is in a school they like, and they joke they've already tracked down the basics.

Namely, Italian restaurants.

So Ettore Messina is ready to start work this month, and the Spurs are thrilled. Maybe their best acquisition of the offseason is an assistant coach.

But Messina also was close to needing a home in Brooklyn, or a school in Utah. Had things gone differently, he might already be ordering ziti with LeBron James in Cleveland.

Instead, because of one game, because one play cruelly went the wrong way, someone else got a career break.

That's why, given what has happened in the past with the Spurs, Messina has come to the right place.

He wants everyone to know, right off, he's not in San Antonio for career advancement. Messina's relations with the Spurs go back to when he coached Manu Ginobili in Italy, and since then he's come to know and respect those in the organization.

“I'm not here temporarily,” he said. “I'm not here to use this to pursue something else. I'm here to work and learn, and I'm excited. I keep telling my wife, 'You don't get a chance every day to work with the NBA's coach of the year, executive of the year and defending champs.'”

The Spurs don't get a chance to add such an assistant every day, either. Compared to Messina, Becky Hammon is an intern.

In the spring of 1998, for example, before Gregg Popovich had ever won a single NBA playoff game, the Associated Press was already calling Messina “a rising star.”

He was 38 years old at the time, having guided Italy to the silver medal in the European championships with a smart mix of discipline and defense. Fluent in three languages, with his career just starting, Messina seemed to be a candidate to become a trailblazer in America.

But asked then about the possibility of becoming an NBA head coach, Messina told a reporter the best a European could hope for was to be an assistant.

And then?

“I think it might be more for a marketing reason in an area with, say,” Messina said, “lots of Italians.”

Last week he remembered the joke, and he laughed. Is San Antonio that spot?

Still, there was some truth in the humor. The NBA was slow to see value in international players, and the league has been slower to see value in international coaches.

So the years passed, and Messina kept winning, from Italy to Russia. He became a consultant for a year with the Lakers, then it was back to CSKA Moscow.

He'd long ago been named one of Euroleague's 10 best all-time coaches, and last May he earned another berth in the Euroleague Final Four. Before the semifinal, where Messina's CSKA would play David Blatt's Maccabi, a poll was taken of 45 European players.

They said, in effect, Messina and Blatt were the ones most likely to break the barrier and become the first European coach to get a chance as an NBA head coach.

So CSKA led by 15 points late in the third quarter. It led by four points with 20 seconds left. And it led by a point with 10 seconds left — when a CSKA player booted a simple pass.

One NBA coach who was in attendance said he later told Popovich this: The CSKA loss was worse than your Game 6.

“Maccabi long ago touched the sky and reached the moon,” Blatt said after that game, and the stars lined up for him. Already on the NBA's radar, he'd added magic to the résumé.

It's an odd way to do business. One play can decide a hire? Several NBA executives said this month they are convinced Blatt never would have been hired by Cleveland had he lost that game.

No one is sure Messina would have gotten the same bounce. Blatt is Boston-born and Princeton-educated; Messina was born in Sicily and raised in Venice. Maybe NBA franchises are still reluctant to hire a non-American to lead their team.

Still, Messina was linked to the Nets this past offseason, as well as to the Jazz. Both franchises went in other directions, and Utah's decision was telling. The Jazz hired Quin Snyder, who just two years ago was one of Messina's assistants with CSKA.

Then there's this: Had that last pass not been bobbled, would the Cavaliers have seen Messina as they eventually did Blatt?

Messina has long understood there's a barrier. Some NBA general managers might be concerned about language or style, some credibility.

But he thinks change is coming, just as it did for international players. And now, at 54, he's come to a franchise known for its assistants getting hired elsewhere.

And for getting over heartbreaking games.