Former NBA champion Jason Terry will be joining the Utah Jazz’s coaching staff, team sources told the Deseret News on Saturday.
Last season, Terry was the head coach of the NBA G League’s Grand Rapids Gold, the Denver Nuggets’ affiliate team.
Prior to coaching in the G League, Terry was an assistant coach at the University of Arizona following a 19-year NBA career that included winning an NBA title with the Dirk Nowitzki-led Dallas Mavericks in 2011.
Terry interviewed with the Jazz in early June for the vacant head coaching position before the team hired Will Hardy to the position after Quin Snyder stepped down.
Hardy is continuing to fill out the Jazz coaching staff with Terry as the latest addition. The Jazz coaching bench will also include Evan Bradds, who was on the Boston Celtics coaching staff with Hardy last season, and holdovers from the Snyder regime Alex Jensen, Irv Roland, Lamar Skeeter and Bryan Bailey.
Team sources have indicated that there are still more coaching hires to be made, including for a lead assistant to work under Hardy.
Though there are many who believed Hardy would seek out a more veteran coach with NBA head coaching experience to step in as his right-hand-man, that doesn’t seem to be the feeling internally with the Jazz.
The success of Ime Udoka and Hardy in Boston seems to be a perfect blueprint for Hardy as far as putting together a successful coaching staff.
Though there has been at least one veteran NBA head coach interview for the lead assistant position, interviews are still ongoing and include a number of outside candidates who do not have head coaching experience.