NBA coaching market starting to take shape for offseason

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The red swarming Steve Clifford’s eyes betrayed his calm exterior as the Hornets’ 62-year-old head coach explained his decision Wednesday afternoon to step down at season’s end. “This has been going on for weeks as we’ve discussed things,” Clifford told the assembled media at Spectrum Center. “I just don’t see myself in these next few months having the right energy level. I’m just like you. Your best days start when you feel good. Driving in, if you’re feeling not at your best, you’re not going to have a great day. You’ve got to get up. And one thing about this is that you’re dealing with the best players in the world, and the motivation starts with yourself every day.”

Clifford had already gathered his assistants early that morning to reveal the news, league sources told Yahoo Sports, and then needed to collect himself before addressing the players and support staff on hand inside the Hornets’ practice gym shortly thereafter. There are few coaches who live and breathe the teaching element of basketball as much as Clifford, someone who watches tape to the point All-Star guard LaMelo Ball, when healthy, even began adapting Clifford’s postgame cliche of needing to check the film before answering any particular question. But with Clifford, it always rang genuine and pure. Even with the myriad injuries that sidelined Ball and other players throughout these past two seasons in Charlotte, after Kenny Atkinson spurned the Hornets’ job and the franchise returned to its previous head coach, Charlotte staffers have all praised Clifford’s dogged approach and day-to-day investment in his program as well as the people throughout his building.

There was a team option in Clifford’s contract for 2024-25, as first reported by The Charlotte Observer, and it seems the Hornets’ fresh leadership under governors Rick Schnall and Gabe Plotkin, plus newly minted basketball operations chief Jeff Peterson, would have welcomed Clifford to remain on the club’s sideline. Beginning this transition this week, though, enables the Hornets to sync their coaching staff with a…

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Publish date : 2024-04-05 14:44:00

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