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Rick Higgins has always wanted to be a coach and he’s been lucky for a number of years, having realized that dream. He’s been on the coaching staffs of the Charlotte Hornets, Orlando Magic, Houston Rockets and the Utah Jazz.
But, this time is a little different. This week, after two seasons as a Jazz assistant coach, Higgins was named head coach of the Salt Lake City Stars, his first head coaching post.
“It means a lot to me,” Higgins said. “It’s a role I’ve always wanted to be in. So, the best way I could put it is it’s just really exciting and just really grateful.”
As the Jazz head into the 2025 draft with four picks and an already very young roster, the G League team is going to be instrumental in how these players develop. Higgins is already intimately familiar with the partnership of the two teams having helped players who have bounced between the two from the Jazz’s side of things, but now he’ll be in charge of the opportunities and development of those players when they are assigned to the Stars.
“So much of it excites me, and I feel like a lot of it, I don’t even know yet,” he said. “But the primary thing that excites me about it is I’m going to get to have a much bigger impact on a larger group of people than I did in my previous role.”
Rather than being assigned to be the development coach for one or a small group of players, he’ll have a hand in the full development plans for the entirety of the G League team, as well as players that will going in between the teams.
Having been influenced largely by NBA head coaches Steve Clifford and Stephen Silas, Higgins came to the Jazz as a coach with a history of development and is hoping to put his own mark on how growth and improvement can be fostered in an NBA system.
As far as a guiding principle goes, Higgins said that his mother made sure he was never able to get away with giving just 80 or 90%. He wants his players to feel the same way, that they have to give their all to every drill, every practice, every possession.
With that in mind, there are a couple of ways that he wants to influence the culture of the Stars.
“The first one I would say, is I want a culture where everybody...has a growth mindset and is always taking intentional effort towards bettering themselves, day-in and day-out, because that is our entire purpose as an organization,” Higgins said. “Then number two, is a culture of togetherness, of a family, of maintaining the same ‘show love,’ principles that I’ve been living here for two years with Will (Hardy).”
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