Though Nash Firing Was Inevitable, Nets' Issues Go Well Beyond Their Coach
Firing a head coach isn’t cause for celebration, even if Steve Nash should never have been hired in the first place back in the 2020 offseason. When you boast superstars who have the highest aspirations like Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and, after a midseason trade, James Harden, this gig wasn’t meant for someone who required on-the-job training. It wasn’t Nash’s fault that General Manager Sean Marks chose a rookie over more qualified candidates who might have challenged Marks’ staff picks. As the face of the franchise, though, Nash bore the brunt of the criticism, warranted or otherwise. That’s just the nature of the NBA. His demise was simply another chapter in a continuing saga of failed experiments.
I thought Nash, despite absolutely no prior experience on an NBA bench after a Hall-of-Fame career as a player, did some of his best work in the playoffs that first season, when the Nets came within an inch of knocking out eventual champion Milwaukee in the second round. Thereafter, however, Nash succumbed to an extraordinary confluence of events that were mostly not of his making. Brooklyn was swept out of the 2022 postseason by Boston in the first round and then opened this season by going 2-5 before Nash and Marks mutually agreed it was time to pull the plug, according to the Nets’ statement on Tuesday seven hours before the Nets were set to host Chicago.
Nash wasn’t hired to be the “X’s-and-O’s” guy and was always going to struggle with game management, and I believe those shortcomings affected some outcomes. He did, however, have a reputation as a communicator and a connector of people, and that was supposed to outweigh the details he could learn in time. Only the cast of characters he was saddled with proved to be overwhelming. Irving in particular, with his penchant for missing games for reasons other than injuries, has always been difficult to manage, to put it kindly. With Irving on leave because he refused to get vaccinated to comply with New York City’s mandate, Harden basically checked out in the middle of last season so he could force a trade to Philadelphia. In return came Ben Simmons, another head case who missed all of last season and has been a shell of his former athletic self at the start of the 2022-23 campaign following offseason back surgery.
In the meantime, Marks never balanced the supporting cast properly, often leaving Nash to choose between undersized offensive or defensive-oriented sidekicks for his two stars. I don’t blame Marks for going for it in the 2019 offseason by signing Durant, Irving, and DeAndre Jordan, but emptying his asset cupboard for Harden and then flipping him while taking back Simmons and the approximately $113.6 million he is owed on his contract over three seasons will, in my opinion, prove to be as monumental a fail as the infamous Kevin Garnett/Paul Pierce trade in 2013.
The Nets’ inability to put together a sound roster was a contributing factor in Durant’s decision to ask for a trade this past offseason. At one point, it was reported that KD would only return if both Marks and Nash were fired. Though the trade request was later rescinded, the hard feelings likely have not gone away, especially with his friend Irving in limbo during the final season of his contract.
This is not a very likable team. The culture that Marks hyped since taking over a wreckage in 2016 is in tatters. Winning might have cured all ills, but the Nets haven’t done nearly enough of that either, with one playoff series win in his tenure.
To expect any coach to come into this environment and succeed is like believing in the Tooth Fairy. Jacque Vaughn, in his second stint as a Nets interim coach, experienced the whole gamut of dysfunction in just his first game on Tuesday. Simmons (knee) didn’t dress and Irving, from my Barclays Center view, looked like he wasn’t up to playing the second night of a back-to-back—he had no points in just 13 minutes of action in the first half and let Ayo Dosunmu blow past him twice for easy layups as if the Bulls sophomore guard were, well, Kyrie Irving.
Irving, who attracts off-court drama like a magnet, finished with four points, with more turnovers (3) than field goals (2, in 12 attempts). Whether his performance was related to fatigue, injury, or the distractions from his recent posting (since deleted) that promoted hateful and antisemitic content, the Nets don’t have enough ancillary scoring to make up any of his shortages.
Vaughn probably thought he’d be fine giving extended minutes to youthful energy guys like Yuta Watanabe, Edmond Sumner, and David Duke Jr. instead, and it worked for just under three quarters. Unfortunately, the Nets ran out of gas down the stretch and Zach LaVine’s 20 fourth quarter points proved too much to overcome as the Bulls held on for a 108-99 victory. Following the game, Nets sophomore guard Cam Thomas joined the pity party by briefly adding “#freeCT” to his Instagram bio in an obvious attempt to voice his displeasure over his lack of playing time.
Does anyone really think a new coach will be a savior, even if the rumors that suspended Celtics coach Ime Udoka can be freed from his contract and is on his way to Brooklyn are accurate? Let’s not be disillusioned here either. He may have an NBA Finals appearance on his resume from last season, but Udoka wasn’t just cast aside for a full year because of a “consensual affair”, as his people initially leaked to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. The details are allegedly much more sordid.
Just what the Nets need—another guy who makes it hard to root for them.