The Jazz have signed head coach Will Hardy to a contract extension, the group announced Monday in a press release.
In keeping with the Jazz, the brand new deal is a multiyear settlement that can maintain Hardy beneath membership management by way of 2031.
Staff proprietor Ryan Smith and CEO Danny Ainge each issued statements on the transfer, with Smith referring to Hardy as an “unimaginable chief” and a “robust ambassador” for the franchise.
“He has been an incredible companion to Danny, (common supervisor) Justin (Zanik), and me,” Smith stated. “There isn’t any one we might somewhat have main us to our final purpose of successful an NBA championship right here in Utah.”
“Will’s management has been invaluable to our program,” Ainge added. “He has established a imaginative and prescient for our gamers and a robust basis of core values, aggressive habits, and development mindset. He is without doubt one of the brightest younger coaches in our league, and we’re extremely lucky to have him.”
The Jazz employed Hardy to exchange Quin Snyder in 2022, making him the youngest head coach within the league on the time and reportedly giving him a five-year contract. Earlier than arriving in Utah, Hardy spent one season on Ime Udoka‘s teaching workers in Boston and was a longtime assistant beneath Gregg Popovich in San Antonio.
Hardy’s file throughout his three years as Utah’s head coach is underwhelming. The group has gone simply 85-161 (.346) throughout that stretch and hasn’t made the playoffs or the play-in match.
Nonetheless, the Jazz started tearing down their roster the yr Hardy arrived, buying and selling away Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell that offseason and parting methods with a number of extra veterans in subsequent seasons. Hardy saved Utah extra aggressive than anticipated in every of his first two years on the job, incomes Coach of the 12 months votes in 2023, earlier than the group bottomed out at 17-65 this previous season.
The brand new deal for Hardy suggests the Jazz just like the job he has performed through the membership’s retooling years and wish to give him an opportunity to see by way of the following phases of Utah’s rebuilding course of.
