NBA Rumors: Celtics to hire Spurs' Will Hardy as assistant coach

https://sports.yahoo.com/nba-rumors-celtics-hire-spurs-130116452.html



NBA Rumors: Celtics to hire Spurs' Will Hardy as assistant coach



Darren Hartwell
Mon, June 28, 2021, 6:01 AM·1 min read



The Boston Celtics are adding to their new coaching staff by reuniting Ime Udoka with one of his former colleagues.

The Celtics are finalizing a deal to hire San Antonio Spurs assistant Will Hardy to their coaching staff, The Athletic's Jay King reported Monday.


Hardy has been with the Spurs for 10 seasons, beginning in 2010 as a video intern before serving as video coordinator from 2013 to 2015 and taking a full-time assistant coach role in 2015.

Udoka spent seven seasons with the Spurs as an assistant coach from 2012 to 2019. Udoka and Hardy were two of head coach Gregg Popovich's top assistants alongside Becky Hammon before Udoka left for the Philadelphia 76ers in 2019.

Udoka and Hardy also were assistants at the 2019 FIBA World Cup for a Team USA squad featuring Celtics stars Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart.

Hardy reportedly interviewed for the New York Knicks' head coach opening last summer and has spent the last two seasons as Popovich's lead assistant. He has a local tie, as well: Hardy played basketball at Division III Williams College in Western Mass., where his Ephs went 30-2 and were the national runners-up during his senior season.

We could see more changes to the Celtics' coaching staff in the transition from Brad Stevens to Udoka, but Hardy's reported hiring is a great place to start.


Bob
MY NOTE:  A bumper harvest from the Pop tree already.  This does not necessarily mean that Jay Larranaga and other current assistant coaches are gone.  Brad already lost at least one coach, Jerome Wilson, to Detroit, and assistant coach Scott Morrison is interviewing for the head coaching job in Washington, so this might just be filling a hole and not a purge. Hardy has been Pop's lead assistant for the last 2 years. That's pretty good experience even if Pop didn't have some of his better teams those years.


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Looks like defense is back in Boston. Also like Brad putting people together that have worked together before. I'm sure Ime might have had a little say in all this as well. Good move.

db

Brad picks the Head Coach, Ime Udoka. The coach picks his assistants, not Brad. I'm sure they discussed it, but the new head coach wants his own people.

Because of that, many (if not all) of Brad's former assistants will be gone.

So Damon Stoudamire as an assistant coach? Looks like PP development plan is afoot. Damon, being a small point guard himself, can teach PP a bunch of tricks. Also, opportunity to teach guard skills to Nesmith and/or Langford as well.

Interesting!

gyso wrote:Brad picks the Head Coach, Ime Udoka.  The coach picks his assistants, not Brad.  I'm sure they discussed it, but the new head coach wants his own people.

Because of that, many (if not all) of Brad's former assistants will be gone.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/report-celtics-assistant-jay-larranaga-201427143.html


Report: Celtics assistant Jay Larranaga not expected to return


Michael Mulford
Tue, June 29, 2021, 1:14 PM



As new Celtics head coach Ime Udoka begins to build out his coaching staff, it seems a familiar face will not be a part of it.

Reported by Clevis Murray of The Athletic, longtime Celtics assistant Jay Larranaga is not expected to return to the Celtics next season on Udoka’s staff.

Clevis Murray
@ClevisMurray
Source: As of right now, longtime Celtics assistant coach Jay Larranaga isn’t expected to return to the team.

Larranaga had been with the team since 2012 and served on the coaching staffs of Doc Rivers & Brad Stevens.

He also interviewed to replace Rivers & Stevens.
12:09 PM · Jun 29, 2021


Larranaga has been a Celtics assistant since 2012 and as Murray noted, interviewed for the head job with Boston following the departure of Doc Rivers and promotion of Brad Stevens.

As for Udoka’s staff, the only addition so far is Spurs assistant Will Hardy. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Udoka is targeting 13-year NBA veteran and current University of the Pacific head coach Damon Stoudamire to join his staff.


Bob
MY NOTE: Bad news for Romeo and Tacko, since they were Larranaga's pet projects (Romeo with his shooting and Tacko with, well, everything).

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He is a smart guy, I hope he catches on somewhere and gets a shot at coaching in the future

I wonder what will happen with Jamie Young. He worked his way up from a video guy to the bench in the last few years. A really nice guy.

RosalieTCeltics wrote:He is a smart guy, I hope he catches on somewhere and gets a shot at coaching in the future

I wonder what will happen with Jamie Young. He worked his way up from a video guy to the bench in the last few years. A really nice guy.

Jay Larranaga worked for Doc before, maybe he's the missing piece for Philly!!

gyso wrote:

RosalieTCeltics wrote:He is a smart guy, I hope he catches on somewhere and gets a shot at coaching in the future

I wonder what will happen with Jamie Young. He worked his way up from a video guy to the bench in the last few years. A really nice guy.

Jay Larranaga worked for Doc before, maybe he's the missing piece for Philly!!  

And maybe this time he WILL end up replacing Doc. (It’s just business) :>)

Ktron wrote:

gyso wrote:

RosalieTCeltics wrote:He is a smart guy, I hope he catches on somewhere and gets a shot at coaching in the future

I wonder what will happen with Jamie Young. He worked his way up from a video guy to the bench in the last few years. A really nice guy.

Jay Larranaga worked for Doc before, maybe he's the missing piece for Philly!!  

And maybe this time he WILL end up replacing Doc. (It’s just business) :>)

Bob


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Adam Himmelsbach @AdamHimmelsbach
about 25 minutes ago
New: Longtime Celtics assistants Jay Larranaga and Jamie Young told the Globe that they will not be returning to Boston next season. A league source said assistant Joe Mazzulla is expected to be retained.


Bob


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I wonder they will land. Young was with the team longer than Laranaga, worked his way up from the video dept  I used to see him almost every day when the Celtics trained in Waltham,  A really nice guy.  He has kids so this is a big move for him.  I really know hardly anything about Jay Laranaga, other than his dad is a big coach in Florida (or was, not sure if he still is)  I wonder what will happen to Turner

You never think about it, but one or two moves can affect the lives of so many people  There was talk that they were going to expand the management level also, just like when Stevens got here and expanded the coaching crew.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/celtics-assistant-coach-hardy-205209205.html



Who is new Celtics assistant coach Will Hardy?



Asher Low
Mon, July 5, 2021, 1:52 PM





New Celtics head coach Ime Udoka has begun to build his staff and one of his one of his top assistants will be someone with over a decade of experience within the NBA in Will Hardy.

Hardy comes to Boston by way of the Spurs organization, a place where he learned under the legendary Gregg Popovich. He began as many future NBA coaches do in the video room as the team’s video coordinator from 2013-2015 after finishing up his playing career at Williams College. The Virginia native also served as head coach of the Spurs NBA Summer League squad from 2015-2018. Hardy has spent the last four seasons as an assistant coach on San Antonio’s bench.

His relationship with Udoka can be traced to the 2019 FIBA World Cup where he was on the coaching staff alongside the new Celtics head coach.

In a 2020 coaches panel, Hardy touched on what he learned from working in San Antonio.

“What helped me in San Antonio was access, transparency. They let me be in film sessions. There’s pretty much an open-door policy with the assistants that you work with,” Hardy told the online conference. “Brett Brown, when I worked with him in the video room, I sat in his office all day and almost watching him go through his process, asking him questions, he’d ask me questions, and starting to learn how he was getting to his answers. How he was evaluating a team we were going to play and how he was figuring out what he was going to do for the game plan. So I try to do that for any of the video guys that work for us now.”

Hardy is looking to help build the culture in Boston through hard, consistent work.

“If you’re not actually doing all those things every day, then your culture is nothing,” said Hardy. “So it’s always been about being selfless. Coach Pop says all the time, ‘Get over yourself. It ain’t about you.’ No one person is bigger than this and that goes from him all the way down.”


Bob



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