What, if anything, have we learned about Will Hardy after two tanking seasons?

Two years ago, everything changed for the Utah Jazz and a big part of that change was the coaching change that brought in first-time head coach — and at the time the youngest head coach in the NBA — Will Hardy.

Though Hardy has been working in the NBA since 2010 and had been an assistant coach since 2016 (first in San Antonio, then in Boston) there wasn’t much known about his coaching style and how he would fare at the helm of a team. Unfortunately, two years in, there are still a lot of unknowns, which makes it very hard to evaluate Hardy.

Will Hardy — Pass

It’s no secret that the Utah Jazz have been prioritizing youth with an eye on the future rather than the current success of the team. Though the Jazz front office has made it clear that they want Will Hardy to coach to win, they’ve also made it nearly impossible for that to happen. Through trades, resting players and manipulating the roster, the Jazz decision-makers have created an environment in which it’s not easy to flex his coaching muscles.

Hardy signed on to be the coach of the Jazz knowing that the team would be going through a rebuild and knowing that development would be a large part of the job for the early years in Utah. And so far, Hardy has passed with flying colors in what he has been tasked with.

There are a lot of areas in which Hardy has proven to be an excellent communicator and leader for the Jazz. Most obviously, he unlocked Lauri Markkanen, letting the Finnish player flourish in a larger role than he’d ever had before. He’s asked players like Jordan Clarkson and Collin Sexton to change their games and take on different roles. He’s given opportunity to young players and those who have proven themselves in practice, he’s earned the trust of his players by showing that he cares about them as people first and players second, and he’s kept spirits high even through two losing seasons.

There are certainly things that we have learned about Hardy throughout his first two years as a head coach that are going to be important in the future. He does not mince words, he does not sugarcoat things, and he will not stand by and watch players go through the motions. Even if the deck is stacked against the players and they know they don’t have the chance to win, he expects them to play hard and care.

Hardy expects his players to recognize the privilege they have when they step on the court, and he expects a certain level of effort despite any other circumstances. He doesn’t hold players to standards that are unrealistic or berate them for inevitable mistakes, but he does hold them accountable. He employs some tough love for the players who can handle it and makes sure that everyone knows where they stand.

But if we’re talking about what kind of a coach is Hardy when it comes down to game-planning and outsmarting the competition or exploiting the weaknesses of an opposing team, we can’t do much in the way of evaluating him. That’s through no fault of Hardy’s. And there have been glimpses of what he might be like when he’s allowed to really coach, particularly the first half of his first season, when he had a more filled out roster and racked up a number of surprising wins. But the front office quickly made changes to the roster, putting one arm behind Hardy’s back through the latter half of that season.

There will come a time when Hardy’s coaching chops will be tested — when he’s given a roster of players and is expected to succeed in the win column rather than tread water. It’s easy to say that Hardy has been great for the development of some of the Jazz’s players and that he’s been great in the role he’s been tasked with. But, for now, it would be wrong to make any kind of declarations about if Hardy is a good or bad coach because he frankly has not been given the opportunity to do the job to its full extent.