Lindsey Harding is going to get her chance at a head coaching job in the NBA.
The Charlotte Hornets were granted permission to interview Harding, who is the head coach of the G League’s Stockton Kings, for their head coaching opening on Monday, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
If she were to get the job, Harding would be the first woman to be hired 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 last year, too, after Anjali Randivé was promoted to the team’s general manager.
Harding was first selected by the Phoenix Mercury with the No. 1 overall pick out of Duke in 2007. She played in the WNBA for nine seasons, and she helped 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.
No woman has ever been named a head coach of an NBA franchise, though 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, .
“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 . “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 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.
