Simple plan, Just for now
Nash is not implementing grand
For Steve Nash, it’s all about feel. Yes, the first-time head coach of the Nets wants to leave his stamp on this year’s iteration of the team’s offensive scheme, but he knows now is not the time to bombard his players with new concepts and sets.
The NBA only recently allowed players to practice with one another after an unprecedented suspension in play due to the coronavirus pandemic paved the way for the shortest offseason in NBA history. Combine that with a roster still new to each other — both Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving returned from injury, and the Nets acquired Landry
Shamet and Bruce Brown, whom are working their way into the rotation — and you’ve got a team that needs to learn itself before it learns extravagant wrinkles on the offensive end.
So what, then, does Nash need to see to start implementing some of those new concepts and ideas he’s been thinking through with his coaching staff?
“Some of it is on feel and understanding and figuring out where the team’s at and how it’s working, but our kind of The North Star in that respect is efficiency,” Nash told reporters on a Thursday conference call. “Are we efficient? Are we creating good shots? Are we making them? Are we difficult to defend? Are we making multiple people a threat?
“All those markers kind of dictate where we are and what we need to refine, what we need to scrap or implement, all those things. It’s a process, there’s a method to it but at the same time there has to be a feel. You’re trying to reach a balance between art and science there I think as well.”
Here’s what we know about the team’s offense so far: the Nets want to play fast. They want to get out in space and make decisions before the defense can settle. They want to shoot threes, move the ball and play selflessly.
Newsflash: So does just about every other team in the league.
Every other team, though, doesn’t have a Kevin Durant, a Kyrie Irving, or another 14 players on
the roster who can command legitimate playing time on any team. Get seven or 11 the ball, and everyone else finds their place.
That’s the reality of a team pursuing an NBA championship over the next three seasons. Everyone in the building, from ownership and management down to the players, understands the Nets’ best shot at winning it all is deferring to their two superstars who have won at the highest level.
Nash isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel offensively. He wants to provide the players a system by which they can operate from. Call it Triangle Offense, but make it 2020.
“So we’ll be implementing more structured stuff, more diagram stuff, but we want an element of our play to be more random within a template and learn to play in an unpredictable way where they’re reading and reacting and playing the game and being creative and showing cohesion,” Nash said.
Translation: The Nets will get to the creative X’s and O’s when it’s time, but they want their offense to be unpredictable by design.
OKOBO’S IN
The Nets officially announced the signing of free agent point guard Elie Okobo.
Okobo is in his third year after spending two seasons with the Phoenix Suns, where he averaged about five points and two assists through 108 total regular season games.
NBA teams are allowed 15 players on guaranteed contracts plus an additional two players on two-way, hybrid, G-League contracts.
Okobo marks the fourth point guard on Brooklyn’s roster behind Kyrie Irving, Spencer Dinwiddie and Chris Chiozza.
ALL HANDS ON DECK
Nets head coach Steve Nash says the Nets’ final preseason game against the Celtics in Boston on Tuesday will be treated more like a real game and less like an exhibition.
“I think we’re going to take another step toward a ‘regular game,’ by playing some more regular minutes or looking a little bit deeper at our rotations and minutes and trying to emulate what it will be like Tuesday against the Warriors,” Nash said.
Caris LeVert, who missed the preseason opener with a contusion on his patella said he feels fine and is ready to play.