Brooklyn Nets hire Nash
NEW YORK (AP):
TEVE NASH was one of the NBA’s most entertaining point guards, the engineer of a highscoring team that helped usher in a new era of basketball.
Now the Brooklyn Nets want to see what he can do as a coach.
The Nets hired Nash yesterday, putting the Hall of Famer in charge of the team that hopes to have Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving together next season.
‘’Coaching is something I knew I wanted to pursue when the time was right, and I am humbled to be able to work with the outstanding group of players and staff we have here in Brooklyn,’’ Nash said in a statement.
Nash, two-time MVP as the playmaker of the Phoenix Suns teams under Mike D’Antoni that piled up points and three-pointers long before they became the norm in the NBA, had been a player development consultant with Golden State, where he worked with Durant.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr was the general manager in Phoenix for part of Nash’s time and took elements of the Suns’ system in winning three NBA titles. He thanked and congratulated Nash with a message on Twitter.
‘’You are going to crush it in Brooklyn!’’ Kerr wrote.
SINTRODUCTION
The Nets said they would have a Zoom news conference next week to introduce Nash, the franchise’s 23rd coach and the second Hall of Fame point guard without head coaching experience they’ve hired since moving to Brooklyn in 2012.
Jason Kidd went right from a player to their coach in 2013, leading the Nets to the second round of the playoffs in his lone season, before leaving to coach Milwaukee.
Nash is third in NBA history with 10,335 assists and the 2005 and 2006 MVP, one of only 10 players to win it in backto-back years. Phoenix made the Western Conference finals in both seasons, playing a style that critics sneered at as the Suns put up what at the time were the three highest single-season three-point totals in league history.
Now even big men shoot threes, as teams prioritise pace and spacing the floor rather than pounding the ball into the paint.
Nash should have a team talented enough to do all that. Not only should Durant and Irving be recovered from their surgeries, but players such as rising star Caris LeVert, Spencer Dinwiddie and Joe Harris – assuming he is re-signed – would all fit nicely.
The Nets finished the season under Jacque Vaughn and said he would remain on staff as Nash’s lead assistant.
The Nets reached the postseason despite having Irving for only 20 games and Durant for none, but the two stars who came to Brooklyn together last summer are expected to be ready for the 2020-21 season.
That made the Nets’ vacancy an attractive position, and General Manager Sean Marks said he met with a number of highly accomplished candidates. There was even speculation the Nets would try to entice Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, for whom Marks played and then worked under in San Antonio.