Lindsey Harding will get her chance at a head coaching job in the NBA.
The Charlotte Hornets were granted permission on Monday to interview Harding, who is the head coach of the G League’s Stockton Kings, for their head coaching opening, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
If she got the job, Harding would be the first woman to be hired as a head coach in NBA history.
ESPN Sources: Charlotte has been granted permission to interview Sacramento’s G League coach Lindsey Harding for head coaching opening. Harding – a former No. 1 overall WNBA draft pick — was G League’s coach of the year for Stockton and advanced to Western Conference Finals. pic.twitter.com/PlAYLhW70m
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) April 8, 2024
Harding spent four seasons as an assistant coach with the Sacramento Kings before she was named their G League affiliate’s head coach last summer. The Stockton Kings became the first G League affiliate to be led by two women last year, too, after Anjali Ranadivé was promoted to the team’s general manager.
Harding was first selected by the Phoenix Mercury with the No. 1 overall pick of the WNBA Draft out of Duke in 2007. She played in the WNBA for nine seasons, helping lead the Atlanta Dream to the WNBA Finals in 2012. Shortly after retiring, Harding worked with both the Toronto Raptors and Philadelphia 76ers, the NBA’s Basketball Operations Associate Program and she led South Sudan’s first national women’s basketball team in 2021.
While no woman has ever been named head coach of an NBA franchise, some have come close. Former San Antonio Spurs assistant Becky Hammon interviewed for multiple NBA head coaching vacancies, though she was never offered a job in the league. Hammon, who was the first full-time female assistant coach in NBA history and served as the Spurs’ interim head coach on occasion, eventually jumped to the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces.
“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 told Yahoo Sports last year. “There is no path.”
“I’m a former player, but there’s no one that looks like me. 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 are searching for a replacement for head coach Steve Clifford, who announced earlier this month that he planned to step down from his role and transition into a front office position with the franchise later this summer. The 62-year-old is finishing his second season leading the team this spring.
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