Meet Hawks Coach Lloyd Pierce ’98

The move is a bet for both sides. But Pierce invests himself 100 percent in the game.

Meet Hawks Coach Lloyd Pierce ’98
Illustration by Sean McCabe

In his college days, he was Leaping Lloyd—a shut-down defender who could rocket to the rim with rare explosiveness. If Steve Nash ’96 was lobbing up alley-oops in Toso Pavilion in the mid-’90s, it was almost certainly Lloyd Pierce ’98—a 6-foot-3 guard—soaring to pull them down.

“He was probably the best athlete we ever had while I was at Santa Clara,” says his old head coach Dick Davey, who spent 35 years with the program.

These days the 42-year-old Pierce looks as lean as ever, but he can’t tell you how much of that fabled 40-inch vertical leap remains. “You’ve got to actually try it to know,” he says. “I’m more of a tread mill, elliptical, core-strength guy now.”

But in his post-playing career, Pierce is still flying high. In May, after a decade as an assistant in the NBA, mostly recently with the Philadelphia 76ers, Pierce was named head coach of the Atlanta Hawks. “This is a day I’ve been working toward for a long time,” he said when the news broke.

The move is a bet for both sides. Pierce gives up his place with the soaring Sixers, a star-laden squad knocking on greatness, to take the helm of a team that finished last in the NBA’s eastern division. But Pierce says he was impressed with all aspects of the Hawks’ organization—from its players to its facilities to its room to improve under the league’s salary cap.

And he’s keenly aware that the world’s best basketball league doesn’t come knocking with such opportunities often. “There are 30 head coaching job in the NBA,” he says. “To be part of that elite group … It’s humbling.”

Mentor at Santa Clara—and to Steph Curry

The Hawks, meanwhile, are putting their faith in an untested head coaching talent, though one whom GM Travis Schlenk says checks all the boxes—leadership, defensive chops, and ability to connect with young players.

It’s a bet that has the endorsement of one of the league’s megastars. “I think it’s a great thing for the Hawks and it’s a great hire,” the Warriors’ Steph Curry said after the decision.

Philadelphia 76ers V Golden State Warriors
It’s the Philadelphia 76ers versus Golden State Warriors on the court—but Lloyd Pierce, right, helped mentor superstar Steph Curry when they were on the same team. / Photo by Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images

Pierce was an assistant with the Warriors early in Curry’s career, and the future two-time NBA MVP made a point of reaching out to him for extra drills. “He invests his entire self into the game,” Curry said. “He’s a player’s coach and he’s going to try to put the guys in the right positions and really care about them.”

Pierce’s talent for building rapport hardly seemed likely when the San Jose high school star first arrived at Santa Clara on a recruiting visit and barely uttered a word.

On the night before his last day on campus, a desperate Coach Davey pulled guard Marlon Garnett ’97 aside to ask for help getting Pierce to break his silence. “He said, ‘Marlon … you’ve got to get this kid to talk,’” Garnett says with a laugh. “‘If he doesn’t talk, we can’t sign him.’”

By the time Pierce graduated, his old muteness long forgotten, he had become a leader who instinctively mentored others: on the court, in the locker room, or on the team bus. At the post-season banquet his senior year, he gave a speech that was supposed to go ten minutes. Instead, Davey says, it neared an hour. “There were some things that just needed to be said,” Pierce recalled a few years later.

After graduating, Pierce went on to play in Germany, Mexico, Australia, and Turkey, returning to SCU in the off-season to work out and help the team. It was there, he says, that Davey first put the idea of coaching in his head.

Be Authentic

Lloyd Pierce served on Dick Davey’s staff for four years, taking in the details and logistics of his new job and finding satisfaction in sharing hard-won lessons from his own playing days. After Davey’s departure in 2007, he decided to try for new challenges, landing with the Cleveland Cavaliers and, in turn, the Warriors, Memphis Grizzlies, and finally the Sixers, the accolades growing with each stop. “S/O my great friend Lloyd Pierce coaching for Philly in summer league. He’s really good and is climbing that ladder. #LaFamilia,” LeBron James wrote on Facebook in 2014.

Early on, Nash—at the height of his NBA stardom—gave Pierce advice in handling players: Be authentic, the key to gaining trust and buy-in. It is an approach that’s central to Pierce’s success. “What they feel from him is this genuineness,” says Garnett, who sees it as up close as anyone.

As his own pro playing career began to wind down, Garnett—who Davey calls the greatest shooter he ever coached—began attending the NBA’s summer league season to scope out coaching opportunities. Pierce was impressed by Garnett’s drive and helped him make connections, which led to jobs with the San Antonio Spurs and the Phoenix Suns.

A week after his appointment in Atlanta, Pierce brought Garnett to the Hawks as assistant coach. “It was an easy hire for me once I got the head job here,” he says.

He’ll need some good help to lean on. Not only is he taking on the new job. In August 2018 he became a first-time dad with wife Melissa. Lloyd Pierce is still reaching new heights.


SAM SCOTT ’96 is an award-winning writer who has covered everything from high tech and AI to basketball and rock and roll.

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