What Will Hardy focuses on most during NBA offseason

When the Utah Jazz’s 2023-24 season concluded, there was a pretty good understanding about what the players and the front office needed to do during the next few months.
There were clear goals for some of the Jazz’s younger players, like Walker Kessler, Keyonte George and Taylor Hendricks, and the front office needed to focus their efforts on the draft before turning their attention to an extension for Lauri Markkanen.
But what was Will Hardy’s role in the offseason? And, how did the Jazz head coach intend on using the summer to prepare for the 2024-25 season? Well, just after the conclusion of last season, Hardy detailed his plans.
First on the agenda for Hardy was getting the players prepared for their offseason workout programs — a detailed and customized plan of action for every individual player. Of course, Hardy worked closely with his staff and the player development coaches to create these offseason programs, but he also looked for input from the players.
“Give them an opportunity to have conversations with me about their own goals and things that they see and feel so that we can set ourselves up for the best summer possible,” Hardy said.
Then, when it comes time for the workouts, Hardy is heavily hands-on. During the regular season, most of the player development is conducted with assistant coaches that are assigned to each player, and although there are times when Hardy is able to have one-on-one sessions with players to discuss nuances and specifics, those are few and far between during the grind of the 82-game schedule.
In the offseason though, Hardy takes advantage of the extended time he has to work out with his players.
“It’s a chance for me to dig into the minutiae,” Hardy said. “In the season, I’m big picture — I’m thinking about the team, I’m thinking about the next game, I’m thinking about, sort of, holistic things for our program. But to get to be on the court and work with Keyonte on some footwork or Taylor on some footwork. I sprinkle it in during the season when I can, but that’s not my role during the actual regular season. So it gives me an opportunity to do some things and coach in a way that I don’t get to when we’re playing games.”
While the workouts are a key part of the offseason for the players and for Hardy, the Jazz head coach believes that spending time with the players away from the gym is one of the most important pieces to his offseason work.
Again, there is obviously rapport and relationships that are built and nurtured during the regular season, but because of the restrictions of the schedule, the summer provides more downtime, which means more time for conversations, shared meals and other activities.
“It’s a big deal for me in the offseason. I think building a foundation of like a personal relationship is really important for coaches and players because we get in these moments in the season where it’s emotional for all of us,” Hardy said. “There’s fatigue, and sometimes there’s conversations that are uncomfortable, there’s moments that can be heated. And if you have a foundation of a personal relationship underneath all of that, then there’s never a misunderstanding of is this personal or not.”
Hardy doesn’t want for players to come into the gym, hear him yelling at them, go through heated exchanges during a game and ultimately believe that Hardy doesn’t see the players as people. Building better relationships during the offseason is a way for Hardy to stop that line of thinking before it begins.
“It allows you to coach them in a way where they know and believe that I care about them as human beings and the part that I’m coaching them hard on is just about basketball,” he said. “The offseason is a really good time to do those things.”
Working with the players directly is only a piece of Hardy’s offseason work. He also spends a lot of time rewatching games from the previous season and digging into trends and issues, and overall trying to find ways for the coaching staff to improve on their tactics and schemes.
Hardy entered the offseason with a long and wide-ranging list of things that he wanted to do deep dives on in order to improve. A small sample would include defensive efficiency and finding ways to grow in a positive direction; what needs to change for guards to be more effective when defending on the perimeter; analyzing player technique on both sides of the ball; looking at zone defensive possessions versus man-to-man defensive possessions and finding out when one was more impactful than the other; reviewing pick-and-roll and off-ball actions to see if a better balance can be struck; and having honest evaluation of how Hardy’s plays, actions and schemes match with the team personnel.
“I need to be honest with myself about who we have on the roster and try to put them in a situation to be successful,” Hardy said. “Each season, I have some thematic things that I believe in as a coach. But in terms of the actual X’s and O’s part of it, it’s always been built around who we have on the team and trying to accentuate their strengths. I think I have a better understanding, especially the young players now … and so I’ve got to try to set things up in a way that they can be successful.”
That requires not only analysis but also reflection for Hardy. And, with some of the roster once again changing, the evolution of how the team plays will continue beyond whatever plans are made in the offseason.
But there are things that Hardy believes can carry over, no matter how many new or familiar players are on the Jazz roster. Even so, Hardy went into the offseason hoping to evaluate even the things that he believes he did well and seeing if there are ways to do them more effectively.
“I do think that there’s a way to identify things that, no matter who’s on the team, we have to improve,” Hardy said. “So like, how are we going to teach it better? How are we going to teach it differently? Or, are there new methods we want to use in terms of our practice schedule or shoot-around schedule or how we show the team film?
“You know, we tried some different things toward the end the year that I thought were pretty effective. So it’s not just about X’s and O’s. There’s a lot of programmatic stuff that I can work on as well that will be executed regardless of who’s on the team.”