Chris Beard addresses interest in coaching at NBA level

Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard has quickly risen through the ranks of college coaches due to his profound success at Little Rock, Texas Tech, Texas and Ole Miss. He is entering his third season with the Rebels, fresh off their first Sweet 16 appearance since 2001.

In 10 seasons of coaching at the Division I level, Beard boasts a 215-97 record with a Sweet 16 appearance (Ole Miss in 2024), an Elite 8 appearance (Texas Tech in 2018) and a National Championship runner-up in 2019 (Texas Tech).

At a media opportunity on Tuesday, Beard was asked about his interest in coaching at the NBA level. The Marietta, GA native surprisingly did not completely shut down any chance he could be looking to move up to the professional level sometime soon.

Beard is a self-proclaimed NBA junkies

“In terms of me, I’ve got practice here in a couple of hours and I don’t think much ahead of that,” Beard said. “But what I would say is I’ve been asked that a few times over the years. I don’t shy away from that. One thing about me is I love coaching the best players and I love being in the most stressful moments in terms of competition. That’s what kind of fires me up.”

“So I don’t know, if ever given the opportunity to coach the best players I would never be one of these coaches that said ‘no way.’ I try to just kind of answer questions based on how I feel today and not in the future, but I love the NBA. You’ve got some college guys that don’t watch it at all, some guys that are obsessed with it, I’m probably farther on the side of obsession. It’s the best players. Best coaches. It’s the best competition. To not take a look at that closely often I think is just foolish.”

Since his move to power-four basketball in 2017, Beard has gotten three players selected in the NBA Draft.

• Texas Tech SG Jarrett Culver (Round 1, Pick 6 to Phoenix Suns in 2019 NBA Draft)
• Texas Tech SG Zhaire Smith (Round 1, Pick 16 to Phoenix Suns in 2018 NBA Draft)
• Texas Tech PG Jahmi’us Ramsey (Round 2, Pick 43 to Sacramento Kings in 2020 NBA Draft)

Beard discusses the relationship between NBA and CBB

“Some of the things from that game don’t translate, but many things do,” Beard said. “It’s really hard to find something that doesn’t translate. What happens in the NBA usually permeates down to college in my opinion. I’ve seen it in my lifetime. We used to all throw the ball into the post, then we started setting ball screens and now we’re playing with space. We value a lane being open. On defense, the NBA was switching long before college was switching.”

So I think we’ve always been ahead of the curve a little bit in terms of that and a lot of the ideas and things we’ve done that have gotten praise over the years, a lot of its been NBA based. Our desire to keep the ball out of the middle of the floor years ago was just something that the NBA had been doing for a long time.”

With NBA GM’s dropping their head coaches at an accelerated rate, it may not be long before Beard gets his shot in the pros.