Jazz Receive Permission To Interview Johnnie Bryant, Charles Lee, Will Hardy, Joe Mazzulla

[RealGM Wiretap]

The Utah Jazz received permission to interview several assistant coaches, sources told Tim MacMahon and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

The names include Knicks assistant Johnnie Bryant, Bucks assistant Charles Lee, and Celtics assistants Will Hardy and Joe Mazzulla.

The Jazz will also interview their own assistant Alex Jensen, in addition to Terry Stotts.

Jazz governor Ryan Smith and CEO Danny Ainge added that the list of candidates could expand, and that they did not feel any urgency to hire a coach before the draft or the start of free agency.

Via Tim MacMahon & Adrian Wojnarowski/ESPN

[jozef]

They should go after John Stockton.

Mark Jackson, Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, Isiah Thomas, they all have got coaching job in the NBA.

Now you have a local hero, who understands what every position needs to score. He played with threepoint shooter Jeff Hornacek, he defended threpoint shooters Mark Price, Mike Bibby etc. There is nothing what could surprise him. He ran a Jerry Sloan's system based on screens, now you see Steve Kerr's Golden State playing their best basketball (one level above any other team) while running similar stuff.

I lost my interest in the Jazz in Quinn Snyder's era. I know he worked hard and with passion but his wave offense was pretty boring to me.

Give John Stockton the head coach job. Sign Jeff Hornacek, Jacques Vaughn and Ty Corbin to assistant roles. There will be the Finals in 3 years for sure.

[Fido]

John Stockton has gotten a little on the looney side in recent years. While he would be a fan's nostalgic pick, it would be a disaster.

1) He has never had a coaching job outside of assisting with his kids while they were in school.

2) He has said he prefers to mind his own business, watch the Zags, go home and talk about the games. They stopped letting him come to the Gonzaga games while mask mandates were in place because he refused to comply. It became a problem because everyone else did but him--and then people started asking why the double-standard.

3) He went public with his statement of a blatant mistruth of “I think it’s highly recorded now, there’s 150 I believe now – it’s over 100 professional athletes dead, professional athletes, the prime of their life, dropping dead that are vaccinated, right on the pitch, right on the field, right on the court.” This was in his explanation of why he is strongly opposed to the Covid vaccine and doesn't believe people need it. Yet cannot name a single one of these dead athletes.

4) He wrote a letter to a federal judge to vouch for the character of a woman who reached a plea deal for invading the White House in January 2021 with a group of rioters. Her defense team collected 25 such letters hoping to convince the federal judge to give the woman probation rather than the 6 months in prison that she could face.

None of these position him in any way to have any public credibility. He is turning into an eccentric crazy man in retirement.