Penny Hardaway, the former NBA guard and current Memphis Tigers head coach, recently interviewed for the Orlando Magic’s open head coaching job, and according to reports, he impressed and became a serious candidate. But on Tuesday, he told Stadium’s Jeff Goodman that he was staying at Memphis:
Just got off the phone with Memphis coach Penny Hardaway — who told me he is staying with the Tigers.
“I couldn’t step away from what I started. One day it would be a dream to coach in the NBA, and the Orlando Magic, but we still unfinished business at Memphis.”
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) June 30, 2021
He also took to his Instagram, posting a video indicating that he was staying at Memphis.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CQuV8SKphxz/
“One day, in the future, I’d love to coach in the NBA,” Hardaway said. “And wouldn’t that be great to work for the Orlando Magic? But today isn’t that day. Today I’m here with my players, the fans, the city working as hard as I can to bring us a national championship. That’s what I set out to do and that’s what I want to do.”
Hardaway would have been an interesting hire for Orlando. Not only is he a franchise legend, but he’s a coach who has succeeded working with young players and connecting with the current generation. For an Orlando team that fired Steve Clifford and traded Nikola Vucevic last year, Hardaway could have theoretically came in and played a major role in guiding them through a rebuild.
By his own admission, this isn’t going to be the end of Hardaway flirting with the NBA. At 49 years old, he’s still young in the coaching game. He could make the leap after several more years at Memphis and still enter the NBA with several years of coaching left in him.
