Kevin Durant’s longtime trainer will coach these 5 WNBA stars this winter

Adam Harrington, a former NBA player and longtime Brooklyn Nets assistant, is one of six head coaches headed to Miami for Unrivaled in January.

Over a decade ago, basketball trainer Adam Harrington began a long relationship with Kevin Durant. Durant was in the midst of an MVP season on the Oklahoma City Thunder — and Harrington was one of the team’s player development coaches.

The two instantly hit it off.

Harrington — a former NBA player — began working closely with Durant in 2013, going beyond his responsibilities as one of the Thunder’s player development personnel. Durant wanted to model some of his workouts after Nowitzki, and Harrington — who shared the floor with Dirk Nowitzki during his playing days — made the introduction.

The player-coach duo continued to work closely together in Brooklyn when Durant became a Net in 2019 after three seasons in Golden State. Harrington had already been serving as a Nets assistant since 2016, and the connection to Brooklyn served as a draw for Durant when he entered free agency.

Now, Harrington is making a career pivot and becoming the head coach of an Unrivaled basketball team. As part of the new 3-on-3 women’s professional basketball league, he will lead the Phantom Club, where he’ll coach a slew of WNBA stars, including ten-time WNBA All-Star Brittney Griner, 2023 Most Improved Player Satou Sabally, 2024 Sixth Player of the Year Tiffany Hayes, and Olympic guard Jackie Young.

Why Harrington’s skills development background makes him a good fit for Unrivaled

Unrivaled is centered around player development. WNBA players will compete in 3-on-3 games three nights a week and be accompanied by world-renowned trainers and medical staff. While Unrivaled will undeniably be a new experience for Harrington, helping elite athletes improve in the offseason is right in his wheelhouse.

For years, he spent offseasons with clients in LA, most recently training Durant, Chet Holmgren, and Jalen Green.

“It’s a very similar setting, where you can lift, where you can go to lunch together, where you can play, where you can do your individual work, where you can watch some film,” Harrington said.

“You’re doing a bunch of shooting drills, you got the weights, you got everything, you got the brotherhood.”

While Harrington will undergo a learning curve as he transitions to working with WNBA players full-time, he said that he’s already gotten the chance to learn from Unrivaled’s other head coaches, some of whom have extensive experience in the league.

Teresa Weatherspoon, for example, is a former WNBA player who most recently coached the Chicago Sky. Andrew Wade is an assistant coach on the Washington Mystics and Nola Henry on the Los Angeles Sparks.

“I was familiar with quite a few of the women in the league — but what an amazing opportunity to sit next to the five other coaches and our leadership team, talk about them, and learn even more and more, especially about some that I wasn’t as familiar with,” Harrington said. That was super refreshing.”

He’s also confident that his breadth of coaching experience will help prepare him for this opportunity.

“I was a skills trainer, worked with a lot of players individually, then obviously joined teams, and have been an assistant coach,” he told the media in his introductory press conference. “[I’ve] done playoff scouts, head coach of NBA Summer League, and all these things,”

Why Adam Harrington loves 3-on-3 basketball

Harrington is excited about Unrivaled’s innovative format of full-court 3-on-3. Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart’s vision when co-founding the league was to give players the room to work on — and showcase — individual skills that might not always be highlighted in the WNBA.

Harrington is a big believer in that concept.

“There’s nowhere to hide. You’re constantly in action. There’s a ton of space,” Harrington said. “I think it’s a great development tool. I’ve always done a ton of it in the offseason with a lot of my clients and players.”

Harrington’s Phantom Club will feature a variety of players, each with a unique skill set. Some, like Brittney Griner, are veterans in the latter portion of their careers. Others, like Satou Sabally, are just hitting their prime.

Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images

Phantom Players: Jackie Young (Las Vegas Aces), Marina Mabrey (Connecticut Sun), Satou Sabally (Dallas Wings), Tiffany Hayes (Las Vegas Aces), Brittney Griner (Phoenix Mercury)

“All the other WNBA coaches out there will be watching, and at the end of the day, they might see their player and be like, ‘Oh, wow, they [can] develop into this. Now, how can it help them in that situation?’” Harrington said. “That really excites me.”

This won’t be Harrington’s first time as a head coach, as he’s coached Summer League teams before. But this will undoubtedly be a different role — and he looks forward to his personal growth, too.

“I think naturally, I’ll get better,” Harrington said. “I’ll get better at media stuff — talking to you right now. I’ll get better at organizing workouts and managing things. The important thing, especially [what’s] trending now in coaching is your ability to connect with players. And that always excites me.”

“How do you connect? How do you inspire? How do you get better? How do you have tough conversations?”

Mostly, he’s just excited about the opportunity to join this brand-new venture.

“I’ve been so blessed,” Harrington said. “I’m extremely thankful, extremely grateful.”

This article is part of a series featuring the six Unrivaled head coaches. You can also read about Andrew Wade, a former sports blogger and college hooper turned player development specialist, and DJ Sackmann, a renowned basketball skills coach making a career pivot into this field.