Steve

Clifford

Clifford is one of the league’s most respected coaches among his peers, and he led the Hornets to two playoff trips in a five-year run that ended in 2018. The exact terms of the deal are not known at this time, but youngsters like LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges (if he remains on the team) will get to learn the ropes from one of the best in the business. He’ll also get first crack at rookie center Mark Williams, who Charlotte selected with the No. 15 overall pick in Thursday night’s draft. Hopefully Clifford doesn’t pull a Kenny Atkinson and change his mind.

Clifford coached the Hornets from 2013-2018, finishing with a 196-214 record. Most recently, he coached Orlando from 2018-2021 before serving as an assistant in Brooklyn last season. Clifford is familiar with the organization, which may or may not be a good thing for Charlotte fans. It looks like it’ll come down to Clifford and Mike D’Antoni to fill the coaching vacancy.

Clifford spent three seasons in Orlando, with the two sides mutually deciding to part ways earlier this offseason. While he won’t be a part of Steve Nash’s coaching staff, the former head coach will be with the team periodically throughout the 2021-22 season. Clifford and Nash have worked together before, as the former was an assistant coach and the latter a player for the Lakers during the 2012-13 season.

Per Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the Pacers are putting a premium on coaches with previous head coaching experience after going through the debacle with Nate Bjorkgren this past season, and while these three will interview sometime this week, we’d expect more names to be added to the list throughout the summer. The Pacers are just starting their head coaching search, so we wouldn’t anticipate a definitive decision anytime soon.

The decision to mutually part ways was made after multiple meetings between Clifford and the front office, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. The Magic are in the early stages of a full-on rebuild, as evidenced by the decision to trade both Nikola Vucevic and Aaron Gordon at the deadline. Clifford, who led Orlando to the playoffs in each of his first two seasons with the team, departs with a record of 96 wins and 131 losses. Terry Stotts’ name has already emerged as a possible candidate for the job.

When it was originally reported that Clifford, who is asymptomatic, tested positive, the hope was that the original result was a false positive. Unfortunately that isn’t the case, and as a result Clifford will be sidelined until he can clear the league’s health and safety protocols. Assistant coach Tyrone Corbin will take over the head coaching duties in Clifford’s absence.

Clifford has already received his first vaccine shot and, according to the reports, he is currently asymptomatic. The hope is that the test registered a false positive but, as of Saturday afternoon, Clifford’s status for Sunday’s game against the Pacers is undecided. In addition to recording two negative tests, he would need league clearance in order to coach Sunday night.

With this news you can go ahead and fade all the Orlando guys in DFS for tomorrow’s slate of games. It’s also highly likely that Jonathan Isaac will have some strict and heavy minutes restrictions, assuming he’s cleared to play on Friday.

No surprise here, as Fultz was not cleared to take part in his first practice until Friday. “He looks good,” Clifford said of the point guard. “He’s not playing in the 5-on-5 yet. Just like with some of the other guys, we’re being careful. We want to try to stay injury-free and he understands that. But he did a good part of practice today, until we got to the contact.” Fultz has been plagued by health issues to begin his NBA career, so that’s even more reason for the Magic to exercise caution when it comes to working him back into the fold. He should be good to go once the games begin, and the hope is that he can pick up where he left off when the NBA season came to a halt.

Both Beyer and Price worked with Clifford when the latter was one of Stan Van Gundy’s lead assistants in Orlando. Beyer spent one season on the Warriors’ staff while Price has been Orlando’s player development coach since 2011. Clifford already hired Patrick Ewing, who also was a part of SVG’s staff in Orlando.