NET CHANGES KEEP COMING
DeAndre in, Allen out on Jacque’s first day
Let the games begin.
New Nets interim head coach Jacque Vaughn made one big change in his first game at the helm: inserting DeAndre Jordan as the starting center in favor of third-year big man Jarrett Allen. The move came one day after the team parted ways with Kenny Atkinson, who started Allen in all but four games this season.
“That’s a change immediately,” Vaughn said in his first press conference ahead of the Nets’ 110-107 victory over the Bulls Sunday in Brooklyn. “Hopefully that impacts us on both ends of the floor.”
Vaughn is trying to sell the substitution as a tactical decision. Adding
Jordan to the starting lineup alongside Wilson Chandler gives the team a boost in defensive rebounding and moving Allen to the bench gives the second unit some extra speed, according to Vaughn.
In a sense, he’s right: Jordan has been the better big man in recent weeks. Over the past 15 games, he’s had the third-highest plus-minus (plus-8) of all Nets players behind only Caris LeVert and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot. Allen has had the second-lowest behind only Wilson Chandler.
Starting his first game under Vaughn, Jordan finished with 11 points, 15 rebounds, four assists and three blocks.
“DJ’s minutes were extended that first stint,” Vaughn said. “I thought it just gave us a presence and some stability at the rim.”
But selling a tactical decision in a lost season shows how far off the rails this year has gone. There are no game-plan changes that can save a Nets team destined for its second first-round exit in a row. There is no combination of players that can move this team up from the seventh or eighth seed in the Eastern Conference.
The Nets will either lose to the Bucks, Raptors or Celtics in the first round of the playoffs. It won’t be close, and it won’t be pretty. That’s only if they hold onto their standing as a playoff contender. The only thing helping them is how bad both the Magic and Wizards have been after the All-Star break.
Jordan’s insertion into the starting lineup is not a temporary fix. It’s a permanent decision, one that will likely carry into next season. Allen’s relegation to the bench, like Atkinson’s dismissal, signals the beginning of the end of everything the Nets used to be, and the start of everything Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving intend to transform the franchise into for their next three years in Brooklyn.
“We’re just continuing to build what the Brooklyn Nets culture is. I think that’s yet to be defined. We have a chance to define it with the guys in our locker room here,” Irving said on Jan. 12.
“Obviously we play hard, but culture here is we want to be a championship-level organization, and we want to do that for the next few years,” he continued. “That’s competing and when I’m done playing basketball this culture here will still be consistent. And that’s what I’m after.”
The stars have taken over the city. Remember: The Nets didn’t choose them; they officially found out on Instagram, just like the rest of the world.
For all intents and purposes, Durant and Irving run the Brooklyn Nets. That’s why the Nets gave Jordan a four-year, $40 million deal despite already having a starting center on a potential All-Star trajectory. And it’s why Jordan is in the starting lineup, in a season that might as well simulate to finish.
Allen said he learned of the role change on Saturday night.
“(Vaughn) called me last night, told me the news,” he said. “He told me before there was a possibility of changing up things and how they were gonna do it.”
This is only the beginning of change in Brooklyn. The rest will come once trades can be made when the season comes to an end.