Duke basketball: Top five candidates to succeed Coach K
By Matt Johnson
4. Quin Snyder
Duke guard: 1985-1989
College head coaching experience: Missouri, 1999-06
NBA head coaching experience: Utah Jazz, 2014-present
Listen, I get it, he’s had his run-in with the NCAA, he plateaued at Missouri his last few years, and he’s not as known as some of the other candidates on this list. Quin Snyder was an ideal Duke basketball point guard for Coach K in the late 80s, forming a consistent Final Four squad with Danny Ferry (that’s right, there was a time when Christian Laettner wasn’t the big man on the team).
Snyder went straight from playing to coaching and, after his stint on the Duke staff, got picked up for the Missouri gig, where he went a respectable 126-91. He got the ax in 2006 and spent the next eight years coaching G League and international teams.
After a few years as an NBA assistant, he finally got hired as the head honcho of the Utah Jazz. He’s gone 263-201 in his six-plus years as the head man, and he’s built a consistent playoff team in the process. He obviously drafts well, (how did no one get Donovan Mitchell?), and over his time both in the league and overseas, he’s made some connections. In a time when impending NBA stars are walking through the door in threes and fours, it would perhaps behoove the Duke basketball program to have a guy in the know.