11:00am: According to Haynes (via Twitter), the Jazz have actually exercised their fifth-year option on Hardy, which would mean he’s now under contract through the 2026/27 season.
10:23am: The Jazz have exercised a team option on head coach Will Hardy‘s contract, according to a press release issued by the club.
A former assistant in San Antonio and Boston, Hardy was hired by Utah in 2022 to replace Quin Snyder. The Jazz have a regular season record of just 68-96 (.415) since then and haven’t made the playoffs under Hardy, but the team exceeded expectations in the first halves of both seasons before the front office traded away veterans at the February deadline.
The Jazz – who traded away stars Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert to jump-start a rebuild during the same offseason that Hardy was hired – are evaluating the head coach’s performance based on the job he has done developing young talent and establishing a positive culture within the organization. By those measures, his first two years have been a success, according to general manager Justin Zanik.
“Will has done a great job of guiding our program and instilling the right values and competitive habits with our young group,” Zanik said in a statement announcing the decision. “The organization looks forward to developing with Will as we strive for long-term success through strategic and deliberate growth.”
Reporting at the time of Hardy’s hiring indicated that he was signing a five-year contract; tweets from Chris Haynes and Michael Scotto today indicate that the option being exercised is Utah’s fourth-year option for 2025/26. It’s possible Hardy actually signed a four-year contract and the details were reported incorrectly back in 2022; the team may also hold another option for the ’26/27 season.
Either way, Hardy is under contract in Utah for at least the next two seasons. If the club’s young core continues to take promising steps forward in 2024/25, it seems relatively safe to assume he’ll be extended beyond 2026.
Hardy is the NBA’s second-youngest active head coach, Scotto notes, having been born just five months before Joe Mazzulla of the Celtics.
Good stuff! Once the Jazz give the green light then we’ll know what kind of coach he really is. Although, he’s shown he can win in the first half of the last two years.
Hardy should take all the money he can. Tremendous young coach, but history has proven that no coaching careers survive a losing record over the first 3 seasons, much less the first 4, 5, or 6 seasons. Ask Steven Silas, who went from hottest young HC prospect when he started the rebuild in Houston to receiving zero HC interviews since leaving after year 3.
No matter the great work the HC does in a long rebuild, teams always discard them. The losing was unavoidable, but a new HC is needed to wash away the memories.
Hardy was recruited on the basis of the Jazz being competitive again by year 3. It’s clear the Jazz are at least 2 years, and probably 3, behind schedule. It’s on Danny Ainge that Hardy will be an assistant coach on some other team when the Jazz start winning again.
Not sure why you think year 3 is the magic number? Never heard that from any of their front office.
3 years for a “rebuild” is the standard in any pro sport. Keep in mind, in a “rebuild” you’re not starting from nothing, but with assets of value that you want to convert to superior assets in the future. By year 3, if your team is still deliberately losing, you’ve failed.
Ainge started with exceptionally valuable assets, including 2 young superstars who had just signed max contracts. He also had a supporting cast that had finished with the best record in the league the previous year. To persuade ownership to undergo a rebuild, as well as Hardy to be HC, Ainge had to present a plan for how all those assets would be converted to a viable core by year 3. Obviously, that did not happen.
Consider the alternative that Ainge had to promise a better version of. Gobert, Mitchell, Bogdonavich, O’Neal and Connelly could have been retained, and supplemented with 3 of the Jazz’ own FRP’s, and the standard MLE’s. Utah might not have won a Chip, but they’d have been a playoff team for these past 3 years and the foreseeable future. The GM’s job in this scenario is to change a team from “good” to great.
3 years of suffering later, there is no indication that Ainge’s current “plan” will ever lead to a “good” team, much less a Chip contender. In fact, Ainge has recently been quoted as saying there is no sure way to trade draft picks for starters.
Do hou really think Utah ownership would have agreed to a “rebuild” knowing this result?