The Utah Jazz announced on Sunday afternoon that head coach Quin Snyder has resigned, ending a tenure that lasted one day short of eight years.
Snyder’s time as the Jazz’s bench leader was marked by a rise from the bottom of the Western Conference standings when he arrived in 2014 to the top in 2021.
In all, Utah made the playoffs in Snyder’s last six seasons, although it never got past the second round, and its first-round loss to the Dallas Mavericks this spring brought about a bevy of questions regarding the future of the franchise.
Here is a look back at Snyder’s tenure with the Jazz.
- June 6, 2014: Quin Snyder was hired as the fifth head coach in Jazz franchise history, replacing Tyrone Corbin, who had been the head coach since legend Jerry Sloan resigned in February of 2011.
- 2017: In Snyder’s third season at the helm, the Jazz made the playoffs for the first time since 2012. Entering the postseason as the 5-seed in the West, Utah eliminated the LA Clippers in the first round — winning Game 7 on the road — before being swept by the mighty Golden State Warriors in the second round.
- 2018: Having lost All-Star Gordon Hayward to the Boston Celtics in the summer of 2017, the Jazz weren’t expected to return to the playoffs in 2018. For the first 47 games of the season it appeared that would be the case as they had just a 19-28 record, but they closed with an incredible 29-6 run and once again finished as the 5-seed, this time facing the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round.
Once again, the Jazz weren’t expected to win, but they eliminated the Thunder in six games and Snyder finished second in NBA Coach of the Year voting, while center Rudy Gobert won his first NBA Defensive Player of the Year award and Donovan Mitchell finished second in Rookie of the Year voting.
- March 11, 2020: The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, and Gobert became the first professional athlete in North America to test positive for it. That led to not only the NBA being shut down for a few months, but all sports leagues, and it was the driver for much of the country shutting down as well. In the days that followed, reports of discord between Gobert and Mitchell began to surface.
- September 1, 2020: In the NBA’s bubble in Orlando, the Jazz were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the Denver Nuggets after leading the series 3-1 when a shot from Mike Conley to win Game 7 rimmed out.
- 2021: The Jazz finished the 2020-21 regular season with the NBA’s best record at 52-20 as Gobert and Mitchell were named All-Stars for the second straight year, Gobert won his third DPOY award, Jordan Clarkson and Joe Ingles finished 1-2 in Sixth Man of the Year voting and Snyder finished third in Coach of the Year voting.
The Jazz beat the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the playoffs and led the Clippers 2-0 in the second round before losing four straight games and getting eliminated. In the sixth and final game, Utah led by a whopping 25 points in the third quarter before LA came back and won.
- 2022: With pressure on to advance past the second round of the playoffs, the Jazz couldn’t repeat their magical regular season run, finished fifth in the West and were matched up against the Dallas Mavericks in the first round. The Jazz won Game 1, lost the next two, miraculously won Game 4 and then lost Games 5 and 6 to get eliminated. All the while, reports began to surface that Snyder might not return to coach the team.
- May 31, 2022: ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Tim MacMahon reported that Snyder’s future with the organization remained “uncertain.”
- June 5, 2022: Snyder resigned as head coach of the Utah Jazz.