There is possible history being made in the ‘Queen City’.
Stockton Kings coach Lindsey Harding is scheduled to be interviewed by the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets for their head coaching position, ESPN’s senior NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski reported.
Sources close to the situation, per Wojnarowski, said that the Hornets had been granted permission on Monday to interview Harding for their head coaching vacancy. Harding, 39 years old, who in her first year at the helm, was voted the 2023-24 G League Coach of the Year. A league source also confirmed the news to The Athletic.
Harding would become the first woman ever to be hired as an NBA head coach if she was to land the job.
The Hornets announced last week that current head coach Steve Clifford will step down on Sunday, at the end of the season, prior to moving upstairs into an advisory role in the front office next year, with the team stating its expansive search for a new head coach was beginning immediately.
According to ESPN, the Hornets have also been granted permission to speak with Denver Nuggets assistant David Adelman, son of Hall of Fame coach Rick Adelman Sacramento Kings assistant Jordi Fernandez, Boston Celtics assistant Charles Lee and Phoenix Suns assistant Kevin Young.
The Hornets refused to comment at this time to CNN on their potential coaching candidates. CNN has reached out to Harding and the Stockton Kings for comment.
While Harding would become the first woman to become an NBA head coach if Charlotte were to hire her, she is not the first to be interviewed.
Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon, who was hired as the first full-time female assistant coach in NBA history when she joined the San Antonio Spurs under Gregg Popovich, interviewed for several NBA head coaching positions before eventually heading to the WNBA where she has found overwhelming success, winning back-to-back championships in 2022 and 2023.
Harding coaches the NBA’s Sacramento Kings’ affiliate team in the G League, the NBA’s official minor league. She just concluded her first season in the role and led the team to the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference before falling in the conference finals to the Oklahoma City Blue.
She was named G League Coach of the Year, becoming the first ever woman to win the award, with Stockton going a league-best 24-10 in the regular season.
Harding was hired as Stockton’s head coach in June 2023, at the same time as Anjali Ranadivé was named general manager of the team. The hirings were the first time in G League history that two women led a G League affiliate.
Before her current job, Harding had been an assistant coach and player development coach with Stockton’s parent franchise for four seasons. She has also worked as a player development coach and a scout for the Philadelphia 76ers and has international coaching experience, having led South Sudan’s women’s national team in 2021 before moving on to currently coach Mexico’s women’s national team.
Prior to going into coaching, Harding had a successful playing career. She was drafted with the first overall pick of the 2007 WNBA draft after a standout career at Duke where she was named 2007 Naismith College Player of the Year and had her No. 10 jersey retired.
She played in 270 games in the WNBA over her nine-year career, while also playing internationally in Turkey, Lithuania, Russia and featuring at the 2016 Olympics Games for the Belarus women’s national team.
