While the two most recent Utah Jazz seasons have yet to go as positive as one may have hoped, it’s become clear this roster has the right voice leading the charge at the top in head coach Will Hardy.
At least up until the trade deadline hits, the Jazz and Hardy have consistently managed to exceed expectations from what they entered the season with, and Utah’s coaching has a significant part to do with it. Especially when considering the monumental jump All-Star Lauri Markkanen has made since his arrival to Salt Lake City, this staff deserves its flowers.
Hardy recently got some strong credit to come his way within CBS Sports‘ latest head coaching rankings, breaking down the league’s top coaches from first to 30th. Hardy was stacked up among the best in the NBA, placing 7th in a tier named “The Wunderkinds,” right next to Oklahoma City Thunder HC Mark Daigneault.
When diving into his rationale of the placement, Sam Quinn of CBS Sports credits Hardy with building “enormously successful lineups out of spare parts,” and a future Coach of the Year candidate:
“The past two Utah Jazz seasons have been the story of a coach preventing a general manager from tanking. He turned Lauri Markkanen into a star. He’s built enormously successful lineups out of spare parts. He went 13-7 with his proper starting lineup, and then Danny Ainge traded Simone Fontecchio (and several important reserves) away, folding up yet another pleasantly surprising campaign… The Jazz are prepared for every game they play. He mixes and matches his players and finds unorthodox lineup combinations that outperform their talent. In a few years, the Jazz will be where the Thunder are: loaded with talent and draft picks and getting Hardy in the Coach of the Year mix.”
– Sam Quinn, CBS Sports
The top of the rankings was headlined by an undisputed number one in the Miami Heat’s Erik Spoelstra, with Nick Nurse and Rick Carlisle trailing behind in the top three.
Hardy is a clear ceiling raiser. We’ve seen in not just in a team context with elevating the Jazz to a few extra wins each season, but also individually in cases like Lauri Markkanen, and even Collin Sexton after last season’s resurgence. Hardy especially shines on the offensive side of the ball, as he led the 2022-23 roster to a top ten unit, and last year’s to close to league average despite the tank being in full force by season’s end.
For Hardy though, the route to being considered among the cream of the crop next to names like Spoelstra is very well attainable, but it’ll likely have to come alongside some roster improvements as well. The Jazz continue to exceed expectations, but a competitive season will need to come soon for the Utah head coach to continue finding praise his way.
Let’s see how Hardy takes on his third year in Salt Lake City during a season that we largely anticipate to be another rebuilding campaign.
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