Duke’s Nolan Smith will join Louisville staff, sources say. Who Jon Scheyer could hire
On Friday, Jon Scheyer admitted he’s never hired anyone for a job.
Now, as Duke’s new head basketball coach, he’ll be tasked with hiring two new assistant coaches.
Nolan Smith, Scheyer’s former Blue Devils backcourt mate who just completed his first season as an assistant coach on Mike Krzyzewski’s staff, has decided to leave Duke to join Louisville’s coaching staff.
Louisville is expected to make the hiring official later this week, but sources close to Smith confirmed Monday that Smith informed Duke of his decision to accept new Louisville head coach Kenny Payne’s offer to be his associate head coach.
The 34-year-old Scheyer, an associate head coach this season during Krzyzewski’s final year before retirement, was named Krzyzewski’s successor last June. That meant he’d have to hire at least one assistant coach to give Duke the three assistant coaches the NCAA allows.
Smith’s departure means Duke will be down two coaches, leaving associate head coach Chris Carrawell as the lone remaining assistant.
Amile Jefferson, who joined Duke’s staff last summer in a similar non-coaching position — director of player development — to that which Smith occupied before becoming an assistant, is a top candidate to move into one of the open coaching positions.
Like Smith, Jefferson was a team captain as a player at Duke for Krzyzewski. Jefferson played on Duke’s 2015 NCAA championship team and, after his professional basketball career, returned to Duke’s staff last summer.
Jefferson was able to get more on-court work, like a full assistant coach, during this season because Carrawell was recovering from knee replacement surgery. NCAA rules stipulate only four coaches (one head coach and three assistants) can work with players on the court and partake in most recruiting duties. But, because of Carrawell’s early December surgery, the NCAA granted Duke permission for Jefferson to fill in as the fourth assistant coach as needed when Carrawell was limited physically.
Smith, who’ll turn 34 this July, is the son of former Louisville basketball player Derek Smith. The elder Smith played on Louisville’s 1980 NCAA championship team and was part of the Cardinals’ 1982 Final Four team.
Nolan Smith was born in Louisville and lived there as a child, later moving to the Washington, D.C., area as his father joined the Washington Bullets’ staff as an assistant coach. Derek Smith died in 1996 at age 34 of a heart attack he suffered while on a cruise with his family in the Atlantic Ocean.
Growing up in Prince George’s County, Maryland, Smith decided to play his college basketball at Duke. He was a junior when the Blue Devils won the 2010 NCAA championship, and was named ACC player of the year as a senior the following season.
Following his professional basketball career, Smith returned to Duke in a non-coaching role in 2016. He became a full assistant coach last April.
This story was originally published April 4, 2022 at 3:34 PM with the headline "Duke’s Nolan Smith will join Louisville staff, sources say. Who Jon Scheyer could hire."