Utah Jazz head coach Will Hardy may be regretting his decision to leave his assistant coaching position with the Boston Celtics to take the job with the Jazz in 2022. A clip of Hardy laying into his players during a timeout in the middle of their 30-point loss to the Thunder on Sunday went viral online.
It’s clear that he’s frustrated with the team’s consistent struggles and lack of effort.
*Warning NSFW content below*
Will Hardy being a little bit too vocal during a timeout pic.twitter.com/TF7MuQSPvV
— Kato Pariña (@KatoParinaSLC) December 8, 2025
Utah’s blowout loss to the reigning NBA champs brought their record to 8-15 on the season. What makes the situation worse is that no one would call this start disappointing for the Jazz. It’s pretty much what everybody expected out of them going into the year -- another 82 games of bad basketball with hopes of landing a top pick in the NBA Draft.
It’s been the same story throughout Hardy’s tenure as Jazz head coach, through no fault of his own. The front office has yet to give him a competitive roster to coach in his now four seasons in charge. Utah’s record under Hardy, 85-161, reflects the poorly constructed squads he’s had to coach since taking the job.
Will Hardy almost certainly would've been the coach of the Celtics if he didn't take the Jazz job
Ironically, there’s probably an alternate universe where Hardy’s been the coach of the Celtics for three plus years, with an NBA Championship under his belt. The 37-year-old signed on to join the Jazz in June of 2022, just months before Ime Udoka’s tenure in Boston came to a premature end.
Joe Mazzulla, who also interviewed for the Jazz job before it ultimately went to Hardy, became the interim coach in Boston before ultimately being appointed for the job full-time.
Had Hardy either passed on the chance to become a head coach (which he would probably never do) or lost out on the job to Mazzulla, there’s a good chance that it would’ve been him who got the interim nod with the Cs.
When asked about the process in January of 2024, Mazzulla told the media that Utah was right to pass him up for Hardy. Though he didn’t get the job, he shared that he was still thankful to go through the interview process, because it better prepared him for the next opportunity, which was Boston.
"I appreciate that I got to go through that [interview with the Jazz], especially doing it out of a different organization," Mazzulla explained. "You get to see how other organizations run things, what they're looking for. And you get to put yourself to a test. Going into that interview, they asked me a particular question that I wasn't quite ready to answer, and it was, 'Do you think that at a young age, you can run an organization?' I knew I could, but I didn't give the answer I needed to give to get the job."
Though there are always going to be doubters, most Celtics fans would tell you that they’re happy the events played out the way that they did, with Mazzulla, a Rhode Island native, leading the Celtics into the future.