Sports

Dunlap’s eager, cautious as he takes Bobcat reins

After the Bobcats finished last season with a 7-59 record and the worst winning percentage (.106) in NBA history, it would be easy for people to consider the job of head coach in Charlotte to be career suicide.

But the man who accepted the job of rebuilding the franchise from the bottom up, Mike Dunlap, sees it much differently.

“It’s a hell of an opportunity,” Dunlap told The Post by phone yesterday, a day after being introduced as the team’s newest head coach. “For me, I was a fit for this organization because they thought I could teach and develop, and take their very young team and make it better. That’s the bottom line.”

Dunlap has done plenty of teaching and developing throughout his extensive coaching career, which spans three decades and a variety of different jobs, including most recently serving as the top assistant on Steve Lavin’s staff at St. John’s, where he spent last season running the day-to-day operations of the program while Lavin recovered from prostate cancer surgery.

“I’m just gonna miss it,” Dunlap said of St. John’s. “Just the rhythm, and working with that staff. … They can tell you, I was happy working there every day.”

Although Dunlap has an extensive history as a Division I assistant, he also has plenty of head coaching experience at several different levels of the game. Some of those stops include a professional team in Australia, at Division III Cal Lutheran and at Division II Metro State in Denver, where he won a pair of national championships before being hired for George Karl’s staff with the Nuggets, where he was an assistant from 2006-08.

“By the journey I’ve taken, I’ve not limited myself to opportunities, whether it’s Australia, where I’ve coached professionally, or Division III, I’ve never been one to have a specific target,” Dunlap said. “I just wanted to learn the game, and be good to the game.

“It’s been a circuitous route to this chair, no doubt. … But I was willing to never get to this chair to be confident in my job, and I think that’s probably why it happened.”

Still, Dunlap knows the amount of work he has before him. The Bobcats were a mess last season, losing their final 23 games before also missing out on Kentucky star Anthony Davis in last month’s Draft Lottery, which saw them finish with the second pick in a draft with one franchise-changing talent.

“I don’t think anybody up top is expecting some kind of a magical turnaround,” Dunlap said. “I think they’re very realistic, and this is a starting point where they can use trades, they can use the draft, they can use free agency to improve their team over time. But I think everybody’s on the same page in saying that this is gonna take some time.”

tbontemps@nypost.com