The former No. 1 overall draft pick is one of the Hornets’ candidates for the vacant head coaching position.
Lindsey Harding, the top pick in the 2007 WNBA Draft and current head coach of the Kings’ G League team, is among the list of names the team has been cleared to speak. ESPN reported.
The Hornets were granted permission to speak with Harding on Monday.
Harding gestures for his team to pick up the pace during the game
Western Conference playoff final game between Oklahoma
City Blue and Stockton Kings. Dan Rogers/Stockton Records Special Feature/USA TODAY NETWORK
Harding led the Stockton Kings to the Western Conference Finals in his 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 taking the head coaching job in Stockton last summer.
She was part of a historic moment for the G League when Stockton became the league’s first team led by two women. Anjali Ranadivé was the club’s general manager until he resigned in January.
Harding played nine seasons in the WNBA with Phoenix and Atlanta, helping them reach the 2012 WNBA Finals, before joining the coaching world after retiring.
If she is hired by the Hornets, it would be the first time an NBA franchise has hired a woman as a head coach.
Harding spoke about the idiosyncrasies her journey would entail if she someday became an NBA head coach. She spoke with Yahoo Sports last year.
“You see players who have played at the highest level become coaches, and you see players who have never played or come from the video room become head coaches,” Harding said. “There’s no way.”
“I’m a former player and there’s no one who looks like me,” she continued. “First of all, it’s a whole new kind of path for a Black woman to be on the front bench. And as a regular woman, to be a head coach. [it’s different]. That’s what I’m trying to do. All we do is take it one day at a time and navigate our way through it. ”
According to ESPN, the Hornets also received permission to interview Nuggets assistant David Adelman, Kings assistant Jordi Fernandez, Celtics assistant Charles Lee and Suns assistant Kevin Young.
Charlotte will replace Steve Clifford as head coach, who will move to a front office position after the season.
