Quin Snyder’s return to Utah a nostalgic reminder of a bygone era
Quin Snyder, along with the team he now coaches, the Atlanta Hawks, arrived in Salt Lake City on Thursday, and the former Utah Jazz head coach immediately embarked on a journey down memory lane.
It was less than two years ago that Snyder resigned from his post coaching the Jazz in June of 2022, a position he held for eight years. Two years doesn’t seem like a long time, but leaving behind his life in Utah, where he and his family made so many memories, makes that era feel so much more distant in time.
“I drove up to our old house on Twickenham,” Snyder said. “Wanted to take a peek at (the house) we lived in when I first got here. Sent a couple of pictures to my kids. Just lots of fun memories.”
In between his drives down familiar streets and meals at familiar places, Snyder tried to stick to his normal routine (as normal as a routine can be for an NBA coach on the road). But he found himself drawn to the nostalgia.
Snyder and Hawks assistant coach Igor Kokoskov went out for coffee at Publik, just as they used to when Kokoskov was an assistant under Snyder in Utah from 2015 to 2018.
“It feels tremendous to be back,” Snyder said. “Just reminded of so many people that touched your life.”
On Friday, Snyder returned to the Delta Center for the first time since his resignation and it was a reminder of how many lives he touched but also of how different things are now.
A tribute video for Snyder played prior to tip-off and though Snyder was still the same slender, serious man, clad in all black, he’s older and more has a different demeanor than he did when he was the coach shepherding the Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert Jazz through its early years.
He now sports red-framed glasses that serve as a visible reminder of the team he now coaches and he walked into the Delta Center as a visitor to play against a roster that is unrecognizable to him, save Jordan Clarkson.
The Jazz have undergone a complete tear down and are in a rebuilding phase and there’s not a lot that resembles what the team was when Snyder was leading the charge. He’s different, the team is different and he’s facing a whole different set of coaching hurdles with the Hawks.
There aren’t any regrets or second guesses for Snyder. He left Utah believing that it was time for change — for both him and the team — and he was one of the first people to reach out to his successor, Will Hardy, when the rookie head coach was hired.
“I have great respect for him as a coach,” Hardy said. “He’s somebody that I’ve communicated with over the years. He’s always been very generous to me, very kind to me. And when the transition happened and I came in, he reached out and just sent me a very positive message about his experience in Utah and said he was very happy for me to be coming here.”
The two were briefly on the San Antonio Spurs staff together back in 2010, but that was enough to create mutual respect between Snyder and Hardy that has lasted 14 years and counting.
“He’s always been bright and he’s always been just a great human being,” Snyder said. “I’m happy for him and what he’s doing here. I think he’s a terrific coach and he’s not afraid to to be who he is, whether it’s tactically or schematically. I wish him well, and I’m glad you’ve got such a great coach here. I’ve got a lot of respect for him.”
Snyder is bound to come back to Utah many more times over the coming years. It’s hard to imagine that he will ever be away from basketball for very long — his self-imposed hiatus from basketball lasted less than a year before he took the Hawks job in Feb. 2023. There won’t be a tribute video every time and there won’t always be the same fanfare. But each time, Snyder will remember the life he built, the wins and the losses and Jazz fans will be reminded of an era of Jazz basketball won’t easily be forgotten.
