Nets looking to save season
Not surprisingly, the Nets parted ways with Steve Nash after a 2-5 start. Coaching the Brooklyn Nets was a job that never fit Nash and he looked uncomfortable at times trying to lead a franchise in chaos.
The Nets handed Nash a talented but dramatic team with Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, and James Harden, and he was never able to find consistency with his roster or to develop a coaching style. He was constantly outcoached, including by Ime Udoka in the playoffs last season, and looked overwhelmed with the moment.
Nets general manager Sean Marks
said management had decided last week to make the move, and Nash appeared relieved to be rid of the responsibility. But, in many ways, it’s Marks’s fault. Yes, the Nets have star power with Durant and Irving, but that monumental trade to acquire Ben Simmons
has been a bust.
Simmons is playing with the same pass-always style that plagued his final years in Philadelphia and has shown no offensive improvement even after a year off. He is out indefinitely with knee issues after not playing last season because of back issues.
Irving and Durant are scoring but the team isn’t playing any defense. Seth Curry remains out with ankle issues, Joe Harris is working back to form after a year off with a foot injury, and TJ Warren remains out because of a foot injury he sustained while with the Pacers in December 2020. The Nets roster wasn’t built to contend unless Simmons returns to All-Star form, which hasn’t happened.
Nash didn’t have the personality or disposition to galvanize the team and deal with the personalities. Maybe Udoka does have that disposition, and the Nets are seriously considering bringing back their former assistant.
“The team was not doing what we’re supposed to be doing,” Marks said. “It was time now because we have lofty aspirations that we need to get to.”
Marks and Nash are friends; the potential hiring of Udoka is a plea for Marks to keep his job. He is the one who signed Irving with the agreement that Durant would follow. He traded for Harden and then traded him for Simmons. He allowed Bruce Brown to leave for the Nuggets. He signed DeAndre Jordan because he’s close with Durant.
Durant then demanded that Nash and Marks be fired if he was to remain in Brooklyn. That didn’t happen. Both kept their jobs, Durant was talked into staying, and Irving was supposed to be engaged this season, with no drama.
“The players were not consulted,” Marks said of the decision. “I don’t think we needed that input right now. It wasn’t panning out on the court. I could list the distractions. I don’t want to get into them.
“[Nash] certainly has not had an even playing field. I definitely feel some responsibility because this does not fall on him. It’s completely unfair to state where we are as a team completely on Steve.”
Short of saying the team quit on Nash, Marks believed the team wasn’t giving its best effort, Nash relayed to management that he felt he wasn’t reaching the players.
“We saw games this year where I don’t think we brought it,” Marks said. “We took quarters off, a half was taken off, a game was taken off. We didn’t compete. That falls on all of us.”
The Nets are one of the more chaotic franchises in professional sports, from Durant’s trade demand to Simmons’s back injury to Harden’s trade demand to Irving’s many issues. And now they are interested in a coach who is serving an unprecedented suspension from a division rival.
The focus is almost never on basketball in Brooklyn, and it won’t be any time soon, especially if they hire Udoka. But Marks insists the team still has championship aspirations, as minuscule as they seem now.
“I’m completely empathetic to what’s going on here and I’m certainly not proud of the situation we find ourselves in,” he said. “I’d like to get back to basketball.
“We wouldn’t have made moves like this if we didn’t think we could win. We do realize we have a window here. When you have this group of players and this salary cap, we hope to achieve that. We hope this is a catalyst for a turnaround.”