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The Charlotte Hornets will have a new head coach next season.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Steve Clifford informed his players and assistants on Wednesday morning that he will be stepping down as head coach at the end of this season. He is reportedly “working to finalize a front office role with the franchise.”
At 18-57 entering Wednesday night’s game against the Portland Trail Blazers, the Hornets have already been eliminated from postseason contention and will miss the playoffs for the eighth year in a row.
Wojnarowski noted that Charlotte’s new executive vice president of basketball operations Jeff Peterson and co-owners Rick Schnall and Gabe Plotkin were still open to bringing back Clifford as head coach next season despite the team’s struggles this year, but it was Clifford who “decided he wasn’t prepared to commit to the year-round grind of head coaching for the 2024-2025 season.”
The 62-year-old reportedly “didn’t want to hinder the franchise’s ability to compete for the top young coaches available in the marketplace,” so his decision will allow the Hornets to get a head-start on their coaching search. The Washington Wizards and Brooklyn Nets are currently being led by interim head coaches, so those teams will also be in the market for new head coaches this offseason.
Wojnarowski reported that the assistant coaches around the NBA believed to be candidates for the Charlotte job include Sacramento’s Jordi Fernandez, Boston’s Charles Lee, Miami’s Chris Quinn and Phoenix’s Kevin Young, among others.
Clifford took over as head coach of the Hornets before the 2022-23 season, marking his second tenure in Charlotte after he previously coached the team from 2013 to 2018.
The team finished 27-55 last season, and it’s been hard for the squad to improve this year amid injuries to key players. Most notably, star point guard LaMelo Ball appeared in just 22 games before being shut down for the season due to an ankle injury.
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