August 2, 2022 – Charlotte Hornets President of Basketball Operations & General Manager Mitch Kupchak announced today that the team has added Tyrone Corbin, Bob Beyer, Rex Walters, Bruce Kruetzer and Brian O’Connor to Steve Clifford’s staff. Additionally, the team has retained assistant coaches Marlon Garnett, Jay Hernandez, Nick Friedman and Norman Richardson.
Tyrone Corbin joins the Hornets as an assistant coach, bringing 16 years of NBA head and assistant coaching experience after a 16-year NBA playing career. Corbin is a Columbia, South Carolina, native and joins the Hornets after most recently serving on the Orlando Magic’s coaching staff under Steve Clifford from 2018 to 2021. The DePaul product retired from playing in 2001 and began his coaching career in 2004 with the Utah Jazz, where he was an assistant coach for six and a half seasons before serving as head coach for three and a half. After taking over for the final 28 games of the 2010-11 season, Corbin led the Jazz to back-to-back winning seasons in 2011-12 and 2012-13. He spent the 2014-15 season with the Sacramento Kings, again serving as interim head coach for 28 games, and was with the Phoenix Suns from 2016 to 2018 before joining Clifford in Orlando. Corbin appeared in 1,065 NBA games during his playing career as well as 81 playoff games. He ended his career with averages of 9.2 points, 4.7 rebounds and 1.8 assists in 26.0 minutes per game.
Bob Beyer joins the Hornets as an assistant coach, bringing 15 years of NBA assistant coaching experience and multiple decades of coaching experience overall between professional and collegiate coaching stints. The New York native most recently served on the New Orleans Pelicans coaching staff during the 2020-21 season and previously coached under Clifford in Charlotte during the 2013-14 NBA season. Beyer is a graduate of Alfred University, where he began his coaching career as a graduate assistant before collegiate coaching stints at Albany, Siena, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Texas Tech and Dayton. Along with the one season in Charlotte, his NBA coaching experience includes roles in Toronto, Orlando, Golden State, Detroit, Oklahoma City, Sacramento and New Orleans.
Rex Walters joins the Hornets as an assistant coach, bringing 18 years of combined NBA assistant and collegiate head and assistant coaching experience. The former Jayhawk also holds NBA and international playing experience after a 10-year career that began with him being selected as the 16th pick in the 1993 NBA Draft by the Nets. He ended his NBA playing career with averages of 4.6 points and 1.7 assists in 13.7 minutes played per game over 335 career appearances. Walters joins the Hornets after most recently serving on the New Orleans Pelicans coaching staff during the 2020-21 NBA season. Walters has a career college head coaching record of 158-160 in two years at Florida Atlantic and eight years at San Francisco, where he was named West Coast Conference Coach of the Year in 2013-14, and served as head coach of the Grand Rapids Drive in the NBA G League in 2016-17. He also has assistant coaching experience in the NBA with the Detroit Pistons and at the collegiate level at Valparaiso, Nevada and Wake Forest.
Bruce Kruetzer joins the Hornets as an assistant coach, bringing decades of experience coaching at the NBA and collegiate levels, as well as serving as a shooting coach and consultant. The hire will mark Kruetzer’s second stint in Charlotte, having previously served on Steve Clifford’s staff from 2015 to 2018 as an assistant coach. Kruetzer most recently served as an assistant coach with the Orlando Magic from 2018 through the end of the 2021-22 season. His previous professional and collegiate coaching experience includes serving as the head coach of the ABA’s Atlanta Vision, working as a shooting consultant for the NBA G League and Philadelphia 76ers, and serving as an assistant coach at Queens University and UNC Charlotte.
Brian O’Connor joins the Hornets after spending the last five years at Georgetown University as part of Patrick Ewing’s staff. O’Connor, who previously served as a basketball operations intern with the Hornets during the 2016-17 NBA season, will have responsibilities in the team’s video room and will also be involved in all aspects within the coaching staff.
Garnett, Hernandez, Friedman and Richardson remain with the Hornets as assistant coaches. Hernandez returns for a fifth season in Charlotte, while Friedman enters his third season and Garnett and Richardson begin their second seasons.