Lakers to hire Lindsey Harding as team’s first female assistant coach

Lindsey Harding, last season’s G League coach of the year, will join JJ Redick’s first staff with the Lakers, The Times has learned from multiple people not authorized to discuss the negotiations.

Should she be hired, she’d be the first full-time female assistant in team history.

Harding, 40, played college basketball at Duke at the same time as Redick. She was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 WNBA draft and had a nine-season career in the WNBA with Minnesota, Washington, Atlanta, Las Vegas, New York and Phoenix.

She worked in Philadelphia while Redick was a player for the 76ers before moving to Sacramento, where she has been an assistant for the last five seasons, including her time in the G League when she coached the Stockton Kings.

She interviewed for the head coaching job in Charlotte earlier this summer. Harding will become one of four women currently holding assistant coaching positions in the league.

The Lakers’ staff will also include former head coaches Scott Brooks and Nate McMillan as well as former Lakers assistant Greg St. Jean. Former Charlotte and Orlando assistant Bob Beyer is also expected to be on the staff.

Kings assistant coach Lindsey Harding, center, reviews video with Domantas Sabonis, right, and Jeremy Lamb in 2022.

(José Luis Villegas / Associated Press)

Redick has been in Las Vegas with the Lakers for summer league and has been conducting interviews to fill out his staff, which he has said will have an emphasis on player development.

Harding was the first Black female head coach in G League history. Her coach-of-the-year award was voted on by league coaches and general managers.

The Lakers are still finalizing the player development department.

“The player development program we’re trying to build is, is holistic,” Redick said earlier this summer. “I think oftentimes when people talk about player development, they talk about ball handling, and shooting, and passing, and certainly the mechanics of playing basketball are an important part of player development. But it’s also tactical. It’s about reads, it’s about incorporating film, incorporating analytics. We will hopefully in the next few days or couple weeks hire a director of player development program that sees my vision.

“It’s nutrition. It’s how you take care of your body, your work in the weight room. There’s also, I think, a big part of player development, and it’s for someone who has lived in this league a long time, a big part of this is, is the mental development.”