Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Back when they were members of Gregg Popovich's Spurs coaching staff, Mitch Johnson and Will Hardy had a blast as teammates in the assistants' pickup basketball games. "We never got to play one-on-one (basketball)," Johnson said. "That would be a very slow, painful matchup."
Johnson's quip reflects the bond the young coaches share. In his second season as leader of the Spurs, Johnson counts Hardy, who is in his fifth season guiding the Utah Jazz, as one of his best friends in the profession. "I hope he loses only the (three) games we play (against each other)," Johnson said. "He's a good person."
The Spurs and Jazz play again for the final time this season Nov. 15 at the Delta Center. The friendship between the coaches began in 2016 after Johnson joined the Spurs as an asxsistant with the Austin Spurs in the G League following a one-year stint as an assistant at the University of Portland. When the Spurs promoted Johnson to Popovich's staff in 2019, Hardy, who joined the Spurs before the 2015-16 season, helped show him the ropes. "Will Hardy and Chip Engelland were the two guys that took me under their wings and definitely helped me with the unwritten rules and the lay of the land," Johnson said.
The respect Smart immediately had for Udoka, because of his direct and sometimes harsh approach, was mutual. In many ways, the two of them are alike. They take pride in their toughness, their defiance, their resilience and, above all, their insatiable desire to win. So, once they had a chance to reunite in Houston five years after their only season together and finish what they started, it was a no-brainer for both. The pair, reunited, face their old team, the Celtics, Monday night. With the Rockets at 6-1 and Smart serving as a key reserve so far, the reunion is going well. “I thought he was a perfect fit who addresses a lot of what we were missing,” Udoka said in a one-on-one interview with The Athletic late last week. “I thought we lacked a little depth at point guard, and he brings that defensive identity. We still have high-level defenders, but he brings that edge and toughness and tone-setting that Dillon (Brooks) brought to us before he left the building.”
“He’s not a conventional coach. He can be very controversial. He challenges norms that most coaches wouldn’t challenge, especially against certain players,” Smart said. “That’s the beauty of who he is as a coach and who he is as a person. It’s not a facade. It’s real. I grew up around that my whole life, so it wasn’t anything new to me.”
Advertisement
“There are some guys who have that defensive mentality, but it’s rare to have a guy who comes into the game and impacts it the way he does on that side of the ball,” Udoka said. “You saw it with Dillon, you saw it with Pat (Beverley). There are certain guys you have to prepare for because of what they do defensively. He’s one of them.” “(Udoka’s) mentality matched mine,” Smart added. “He allowed me to be me without any persecution.”
In 2021, Smart was a beloved figure among Boston fans and an unquestioned leader in the locker room. If Udoka was going to be true to himself and establish his no-nonsense persona as head coach, he’d have to hold Smart to the same standard he held everyone else. But when first-year coaches handle these situations the wrong way, they can alienate players in irreparable ways. Udoka decided to meet with Smart one-on-one and explain why he needed to suspend him for Boston’s preseason finale and how crucial it would be for their relationship to be even stronger coming away from this one incident. “My main rule is being on time and respecting everyone’s time,” Udoka said. “After I let him know my decision, we sat down and had a good talk, and that set the tone for who we were gonna be as a team and what kind of example I wanted him to set for everybody else. That’s just how I am. I’m an equal opportunist, whether it’s the starters, the bench guys or whoever it is.”
Rob Fodor, the Dallas Mavericks’ newest shooting coach, once went seven years without picking up a basketball. “I was done. Never gonna go back,” he told The Dallas Morning News.
The Detroit native, who still holds the program record for assists at Division II Hillsdale College in Michigan, pivoted from the hardwood to the golf course after a series of injuries derailed his plan of playing professionally in Europe. Fodor was minding his business on a South Carolina driving range when a couple of men approached him to inquire about his former pastime. “Hey Rob, we heard you play basketball,” Fodor recalled the men saying. Without looking up from his swing stance, Fodor told them: “You guys heard wrong.”
They doubled down on their belief the next day and convinced him to play them 2-on-1 inside a high school gym, where Fodor “tortured them for a while,” as he describes it. Two decades later, Fodor, 65, has joined Dusty May’s staff to transform the Mavericks into an efficient perimeter shooting team. He has the track record: As the Miami Heat’s first full-time shooting coach, he helped the team reach its seventh-highest total for 3-point field goals made in a season.
Advertisement
“I’m a giver and a loyalty person, so I had to figure out what’s the best way for me to take care of my soul,” Fodor said. “What’s going to make me the happiest? Next thing you know, here I am a Dallas Maverick. I don’t think anybody expected that. Neither did I and I’m as happy as can be.”
The Mavericks have several players who could benefit from a boost in their 3-point shooting. Fodor is helping Morez Johnson Jr. develop a wider base and higher release point. He wants Caleb Martin to shoot with decisiveness and speed. He’s also working with Zaccharie Risacher and Naji Marshall, who aims to shoot 45% from three this season, an admirable goal given his career mark of 30%. He’s struggled in his first three games with an early clip of 27.3%, but he’s seen improvement during practices. “He fixed my whole swag,” Marshall said during training camp. “That’s why I’m so confident saying that 45%. That guy is unbelievable. I work with him every day because I found out how much of a GOAT he was. I just appreciate him as well.”
Dallas ranked 29th in the NBA last season in 3-pointers made per game (11.0), 27th in 3-point attempts (31.9) and 26th in 3-point percentage (34.4%). The early returns on are in, despite a small sample size. Through six games, Dallas is tied for seventh in total 3-pointers made (78), 16th in 3-point percentage (34.8%) and tied for 17th 3-pointers per game (13.0). The Mavericks head coach hired Fodor as a consultant for Michigan during last year’s NCAA championship run. The two coaches share connections across the basketball world, including May’s son, Jack, who served as a video intern in Miami the last two years. The Heat also held training camp practices at Florida Atlantic, where May coached from 2018 to 2024. “He brings just a wisdom of the game of basketball and a different perspective because he’s an artist,” May said. “He’s a different thinker.”
Fred Katz: Jose Alvarado went through practice today, Mike Brown said. Brown said he did not know what Alvarado's status would be for tomorrow's game against the Nets.