Ex-Jazz assistant Natt clinging to Kings job

ESPN.com last week identified former Washington and Sacramento coach Eddie Jordan and two current NBA assistant coaches, Tom Thibodeau in Boston and New York’s Phil Weber, as “names you hear on the coaching grapevine as possible successors” with current Kings interim head coach coach Kenny Natt’s departure “expected at season’s end.”
In Sacramento, however, they’re not writing off the ex-Jazz guard and former Jazz assistant coach quite so fast.
According to today’s Sacramento Bee, “sources close to the team say the Kings long ago began internal discussions about potential coaching candidates beyond Natt. A coaching search likely would include familiar names, among them (Jordan), former Detroit and Minnesota coach Flip Saunders and (Thibodeau).”
But, the Bee also reported, Natt is being given “a legitimate chance to establish himself as a viable candidate,” and “the interim coach also could have a significant economic advantage” as “the cheapest option” for the cost-cutting club.
Natt, who remains in high regard in Utah and took time out of his schedule last Saturday to attend the funeral of Jazz owner Larry H. Miller prior to that night’s Jazz-Kings game, will learn by May 1 whether or not his one-year contract option for next season (worth just less than $2 million) will be exercised.

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