Charlotte Hornets promote their video coordinator to head coach of G League team

The new head coach of the Charlotte Hornets’ NBA G League team in Greensboro says it’s not a big jump from the video room to sitting courtside.

It’s the same career track that Hornets’ head coach James Borrego followed, says newly named Greensboro Swarm coach Jordan Surenkamp.

“Coach Borrego came from that background,” Surenkamp, 31, said Wednesday in a video session with reporters. “I was involved in coaches’ meetings each day. I was able to pull coaches aside and offer my input. I had my hand in everything.”

The G League is the top developmental league for the NBA, similar to Triple-A baseball and the American Hockey League.

The Hornets stayed within their organization for the Greensboro hire, as Surenkamp was head video coordinator the past two years in Charlotte. He pored through video of games and sat with the coaching staff each day.

Borrego served in a similar capacity several years ago before becoming an assistant coach of the San Antonio Spurs.

“When I had that job, I would ask myself, ‘As a head coach, how would I do things?’ ” Borrego recalled. “Video coordinator was a title for him. In reality, he has been a big part of building this program. Nobody spends more time watching games than Jordan.”

Surenkamp is the third head coach in the Swarm’s five-year history and will help bring in-person basketball back to Greensboro. The NBA G League operated in a bubble last season, due to COVID protocols, with all games played in Orlando.

Jay Hernandez, who coached the Swarm last year, remains on the Hornets’ staff as an assistant coach.

“I’ve been able to talk with him, too, about what to expect,” Surenkamp says.

Borrego says he and Surenkamp will continue working together closely, to maintain similar coaching philosophies in Greensboro and Charlotte.

“Jordan and I are on the same page,” Borrego says. “We’ll have a lot of communication, back and forth.”

Borrego says players will spend plenty of time on I-85, making the trip between Charlotte and Greensboro.

“We’re going to put our players there,” he says. “We’ll use the program even more this year than we did last year, and the year before.”

Surenkamp says he will work hard to become part of the Greensboro community.

“I will get out and get involved in the community,” he says. “Our team will be exciting, with guys you want to get behind. We will play hard every night.”

Surenkamp got his introduction to NBA coaching in 2017, with the Brooklyn Nets. His duties there included serving as head video coordinator for the Nets’ NBA G League team, the Long Island Nets.

He joined the Hornets in 2018 and became head video coordinator a year later.

Surenkamp grew up in a basketball hot spot — Indiana.

He graduated from Mooresville High, near Indianapolis, and played basketball at Wabash College, an NCAA Division III school whose sports teams are nicknamed the Little Giants.

After earning his bachelor’s degree, he earned a master’s degree in communication at South Alabama in 2015 and served as a graduate assistant coach with the basketball program there. Surenkamp remained at South Alabama for two seasons as director of basketball operations under head coach Matthew Graves.

From there, he moved to the Brooklyn Nets.

After a season in Orlando, the Swarm return to Greensboro for the 2021-22 campaign and will open Nov. 5 at home against Birmingham. They will play a 26-game schedule, with home contests at the Fieldhouse at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex.

This story was originally published September 15, 2021 at 9:34 AM.