Will Hardy gets brutally honest about what Jordan Clarkson means to him

Old friend Jordan Clarkson and the New York Knicks gave the Utah Jazz an old-fashioned beatdown last night. Clarkson got to show his old team the impact he has playing for a playoff contender, the first time he has done so since his earlier days with the Jazz. However, before the match, Will Hardy raved about the impact Clarkson had on him when he first joined the team.

Hardy couldn’t hold back when he talked about what it was like coaching Clarkson the past three seasons.

“He taught me a lot, not just tactics,” Hardy said. “JC is incredibly smart. We spent a lot of time together watching film, trying to understand how he sees it, and he taught me a lot.”

Hardy also reminisced about what life was like when Hardy first started coaching the team and how Clarkson helped him get used to being a head coach.

“I think my fondest memories are of JC approaching me as the new head coach,” Hardy said. “When I was hired, I was very young and a first-time head coach. I didn’t really have that many strong relationships with the guys on the team, and JC was one of the guys who accepted me from day one and helped me build credibility in the locker room.”

For years, many wondered why the Jazz didn’t trade Clarkson when it became clear the team planned to get younger. From what Hardy says here, it sounds like Clarkson really was a golden example for everyone in the Utah locker room, including him when he first got there.

Could their report explain why it took a while to say goodbye to Clarkson?

The casual Jazz fan will tell you that Utah held on to Clarkson for too long before parting ways with him, and they would be right. In retrospect, he should have been traded immediately after they traded Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell.

However, Hardy’s stories show that even if that may have been the right thing to do, Clarkson clearly wanted to lead a good environment and helped Hardy adjust to life as a head coach, which may have been difficult for Utah to throw away because that’s never a given with veterans, especially given the unfair reputation the Jazz have as a team that players don’t like to come play for.

It’s also times like these that guys like Clarkson will be fondly remembered by fans. Things didn’t end the way anyone in Utah would have wanted, but it was clear how positive an impact he had during his time as a Jazzman. If he manages to win a title before hanging it up for the same reason, no Jazz fan should be upset about it.