SALT LAKE CITY - JANUARY 31: Jarron Collins of the Utah Jazz reads to students during a Read to Achieve event January 31, 2006 at Meadowlark Elementary school in Salt Lake City, Utah. Copyright 2006 NBAE (Photo By Kent Horner/NBAE via Getty Images)
Utah Jazz alumni: Jarron Collins, Tyrone Corbin coaching update
Utah Jazz alumni Jarron Collins and Tyrone Corbin continue their shuffle around the Association’s ever-turning coaching carousel.
As ever, the NBA’s coaching carousel continues to turn. For a litany of teams not participating in postseason play, coaching searches are l’ordre du jour in the Association. To that end, one former Utah Jazz player is looking for his seat alongside the league’s 29 other head coaches.
According to reports, Jarron Collins, who spent eight years in the pivot for the Jazz, is set to interview for the Atlanta Hawks coaching vacancy. The big man is currently serving as an assistant to Golden State Warriors headman Steve Kerr.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski was the first to report on his candidacy in the ATL.
The Hawks’ vacancy was created when the team and its previous coach, Mike Budenholzer, mutually agreed to part ways last week. Coach Bud is expected to be a lead candidate for several of the coaching vacancies league-wide.
For his part, Collins has a growing reputation as one of the league’s best coaching minds. New Orleans Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry, who joined Collins on Kerr’s staff during the 2014-15 campaign, is just one of a plethora of basketball people to sing his praises.
Before he hit the coaching ranks, Collins spent more than a decade on the hardwood as a player. In nearly 500 games with the Jazz from 2001-09, the Stanford grad averaged 4.3 points and 3.1 rebounds per game.
Corbin out in Phoenix
Of course, as the carousel giveth, so too does it taketh away.
Earlier this month, former Jazzman Jeff Hornacek was relieved of his duties as coach of the New York Knicks. Now, Tyrone Corbin — who spent several years with the Jazz organization as both a coach and a player — has been axed in the Valley of the Sun, per ESPN’s Chris Haynes.
Corbin was brought to the Phoenix Suns in 2016 by another former Jazzman, Earl Watson, to serve on his staff. Watson was fired earlier this season after an 0-3 start and, just last week, interim coach Jay Triano was also released.
The 55-year-old Corbin previously spent 14 years with the Jazz; three as a player (from 1991-94) and more than a decade as a coach (he was an assistant from 2004-11, after which he spent more than three-plus seasons as the team’s head coach from 2011-14).
Under his direction, the Jazz compiled a record of 112-146. They reached the playoffs in 2012, but were swept in the first round by the San Antonio Spurs.
