The Sacramento Kings search for a new head coach is in full swing, with candidates announced and interviews expected to begin this week. With seven candidates named so far, it seems only fitting to take some time to break down each candidate.
I’m joined by our good friend Jill Adge, who hosts The SportsEthos Sacramento Kings podcast. We highly recommend listening to Jill on any Kings topic, but specially when it comes to coaching searches. Jill has done overviews of candidates for the Kings next head coach, as well as deep dives on some of the candidates that I will link in their appropriate articles.
With that, let’s jump into our final candidate.
Will Hardy
Age: 34
Current Role: Assistant Coach, Boston Celtics
Resume: Worked his way up from video intern to Assistant Coach with San Antonio Spurs, Spurs assistant from 2016-2021, Celtics assistant 2021-present
From Jill:
Will Hardy is the wonder kid of the group, a young 34 years old. He spent 11 seasons with the Spurs, rising from intern in 2010 to video coordinator to assistant coach over a 6 year span before moving to Boston to be the right hand man for Ime Udoka. He is looking to be the next Spurs Video Coordinator to become a household name, to name a few: Mike Budenholzer, Sam Presti, and James Borrego.
Jill also did a deep dive on Will Hardy, which you can listen to here.
***
When the list of Kings coaching candidates was first announced, Will Hardy was the name I didn’t recognize. He’s young and has been in a few coaching searches before (he interviewed for the Thunder coaching job two years ago and interviewed for the Knicks job that eventually went to Tom Thibodeau) but still wasn’t a name I’d heard a lot. But doing even just a little bit of research, it’s easy to get excited about Hardy as a prospective coach.
Hardy entered the NBA as a video intern for the San Antonio Spurs, and rapidly worked his way up to an assistant coaching position under Gregg Popovich. The Boston Globe has a great story on how Hardy got his shot with the Spurs and how he rose through the ranks, I’d recommend giving it a quick read.
But what makes me excited about Hardy isn’t how he rose through the ranks, but what he’s done since becoming an assistant. After learning from Popovich for years, Hardy followed Ime Udoka to Boston. After a rough start to the year, Udoka and Hardy were able to turn around the season and now the Celtics are one of the favorites to emerge from the East in the playoffs.
It’s also worth noting that Hardy is widely considered to be a favorite to replace Popovich if he were to retire. Anyone that Popovich is eyeing as his successor is someone I am willing to trust with coaching my team.
As I wrote about Darvin Ham and Charles Lee, there’s a great unknown factor when hiring assistants. I’m a big fan of assistants who worked their way up through the ranks of a good organization like the Spurs, but there are still going to be unknowns. Despite those risks, I would be very happy if Hardy ends up being the Kings next head coach.
Previous: Mike Brown
I know nothing, but I have this strange feeling that he’s the pick.
I with you on this one. Want a young gun. Him, Lee, or Ham would be fine with me.
Cueing up Will to Win t-shirts.
i’ll buy at least 2!
Hoping for the final 2
Ham or Hardy
If these are the only candidates I go with the known commodity that is D”Antoni. Like the article said “Hiring assistants is tricky”.
The flipside to that is that if you get it right you have a franchise coach for years to come
Like Spoelstra
Like Mike Malone. Too Soon?
*sigh*
Either of the three lead assistants in Ham, Hardy or Lee would be great IMO. If one of them is the choice, I would be very happy.
Will Hardy might be brightest star to shine of the candidates – but with his younger profile, I see him as more of a swing for the fences choice – might be a home run, but he is the riskiest to strike out. This is SacTown – if he isn’t making it happen in 2 seasons, how confident and comfortable is everyone going to be about the inexperienced rookie newbie coach.
Whomever is hired is going to need time, patience and the confidence and cunning to flip the script. I like Ham and Lee over Hardy for this situation of the first-timers. Clifford and Brown in that order for the former Heads. The time line doesn’t fit for D’Antoni and Jackson doesn’t fit, period. (Why in the world would GM McNair risk the downside of Mark Jackson – it would spell his downfall if that blew up and this is Vivek’s Kings, it will be a trying two to three seasons no matter who accepts the
beatingjob.)Lee and Hardy have my interest… we need the next Spolestra
Badge Legend