Lakers to hire Lindsey Harding as team’s 1st female assistant coach
Harding – the G League Coach of the Year with Stockton last season – has made a steady climb on to an NBA bench after retiring from a nine-year WNBA playing career.
LAS VEGAS — The Lakers are hiring Lindsey Harding, the reigning G League Coach of the Year, as an assistant coach to new head coach JJ Redick. She will be the first female full-time assistant coach in franchise history.
The hiring, which was first reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, comes after Nate McMillan, Scott Brooks and Greg St. Jean were added to Redick’s staff.
None of the hirings have been officially announced by the team, but McMillan, Brooks and St. Jean have been courtside for the Lakers’ Las Vegas Summer League games.
Harding, 39, was the head coach of the Stockton Kings, the Sacramento Kings’ G League affiliate, last season. She led Stockton to a G League-best 24-10 record during the regular season and was the first woman to win G League Coach of the Year.
Harding spent four seasons as an assistant coach/player development coach for the Kings before becoming Stockton’s head coach.
She’s also been the head coach of the Mexico women’s national team and also coached the South Sudan women’s national team, which participated in the FIBA AfroBasket qualifier, becoming the country’s first team to enter a women’s tournament.
Harding was a player development coach for the Philadelphia 76ers before joining the Kings. In 2018-19, she became the NBA’s first Black female pro personnel scout while working for the 76ers. Redick played for Philadelphia from 2017-19.
The No. 1 pick in the 2007 WNBA Draft, Harding averaged 9.8 points, four assists, 2.9 rebounds and 1.1 steals in 270 career WNBA games for Minnesota (2007-08), Washington (2009-10), Atlanta (2011-12), the Sparks (2013-14), New York (2016) and Phoenix (2016). She also played internationally in Turkey, Lithuania, Russia.
Harding played at Duke from 2002-07, earning the 2007 Naismith College Player of the Year award. Redick played at Duke from 2002-06 before his 15-year NBA career.
Duke retired Harding’s No. 10 and she was enshrined into the Duke Athletics Hall of Fame in 2018.