A former first-overall draft pick is among the candidates for the Hornets’ vacant head coaching job.
Lindsey Harding, the top pick in the 2007 WNBA draft and the current head coach of the Kings’ G League team, is among the list of names that the team has received permission to speak with, ESPN reported.
The Hornets were given permission to speak with Harding on Monday.
Harding gestures for her team to pick up the pace during a
Western Conference Final Playoff game between the Oklahoma
City Blue and the Stockton Kings. Dan Rogers/Special to the Stockton Record / USA TODAY NETWORK
Harding took the Stockton Kings to the Western Conference finals in her first season as head coach, earning G League Coach of the Year honors in the process.
She spent four seasons as an assistant with the Sacramento Kings before being given the head coach position in Stockton last summer.
She was part of a historic moment for the G League when Stockton became the first team in the league to be led by two women — Anjali Ranadivé had been the club’s general manager before she stepped down in January.
Harding played nine seasons in the WNBA with stops in Phoenix and Atlanta, which she helped lead to the WNBA Finals in 2012, before getting into the coaching space following her retirement.
If she were to be hired by the Hornets, it would mark the first time that an NBA franchise hired a woman to be its head coach.
Harding discussed the uniqueness that her journey would entail if she ever were to become an NBA head coach someday when she spoke with Yahoo Sports last year.
“You see men who played at the highest level become a coach, you see men who have never played or came from the video room become head coaches,” Harding said. “There is no path.”
“I’m a former player, but there’s no one that looks like me,” she continued. “First off, for a Black woman to be in the front bench — that’s a whole new kind of path there. Then just as a woman in general, to be a head coach [it’s different]. So that’s what I’m trying to do. What we’re doing, is just taking it one day at a time and creating that path.”
The Hornets have also received permission to interview Nuggets assistant David Adelman, Kings assistant Jordi Fernandez, Celtics assistant Charles Lee and Suns assistant Kevin Young, according to ESPN.
Charlotte is replacing Steve Clifford, who will move into a front office position following the season, as head coach.
