Give credit to the Nets for surrounding first-time head coach Steve Nash with an experienced supporting staff.
The team announced on Friday that they have added Mike D’Antoni, Ime Udoka, and Amar’e Stoudemire as assistants, joining Jacque Vaughn, the Nets’ head coach in the Orlando bubble following the firing of Kenny Atkinson in March, among others on the sideline whenever the 2020-21 season commences.
D’Antoni, the iconic developer of Nash & Stoudemire’s “seven seconds or less” teams in Phoenix and former boss of the Knicks, Lakers, and Rockets, is the sexiest name in the press release, but it will likely be Udoka who will have more influence on how high Brooklyn can soar this season.
The Nets, assuming Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving are healthy, are going to score a lot of points, no matter the system – be it five-out isolation, pick-and-roll, or old-school KD post-ups. Both superstars are three-level scorers who know their way around the court to produce with high efficiency.
The open question, however, is if this team, which is by no means assured of staying as is through the offseason, can get enough stops to overcome Eastern Conference heavyweights like Milwaukee, Miami, Boston, Toronto, and Philadelphia, all of whom routinely play defense with significantly higher intensity.
That’s where Udoka comes in. Defense is where he made his mark on Brett Brown’s Sixers staff last season after spending the previous seven years with Gregg Popovich in San Antonio – Philly rose from 14th to eighth in regular-season defensive efficiency before flaming out in a four-game first-round playoff sweep.
However, despite placing tenth in defensive rating last season, the Nets do not possess any players with the proficiency on that end – like Sixers stars Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid or shutdown wing Matisse Thybulle – so Udoka will have his hands full. Brooklyn’s best defensive player may very well be center Jarrett Allen, who has been among the most mentioned by the speculative media as compensation in potential trade packages for a “third star.” Even if Allen remains on the roster, he is far from a complete defender, as he is still susceptible to being bullied inside and often allows sweet-shooting opponents to fire away unchallenged.
Blame for the latter deficiency could also be directed at the Nets’ defensive schemes, as Atkinson, likely under general manager Sean Marks’ direction, preferred a strict analytical approach that considered opponents’ shots from mid-range areas, no matter the contest factor, as Nets wins.
As we all witnessed in the bubble, such generosity towards big men like Anthony Davis, Nikola Jokic, and, to lesser extents, Serge Ibaka and Bam Adebayo, are death sentences.
The best defensive teams are those that stay connected through the most possessions, from understanding pick-and-roll responsibilities and rotations to minimize open looks all the way through to the eventual defensive rebounds. If your scheme can force an outsized number of turnovers, all the better.
Udoka’s defense was highly regarded in his nomadic professional career, but his ability to forge relationships is what led him into coaching. He’ll have to coax Nets guards Irving, Caris LeVert, and Spencer Dinwiddie, none of whom have shown an affinity for getting into opposing ballhandlers and would typically die on screens on and off the ball, to adjust how they play – not an easy ask. Udoka would benefit if Marks can obtain more switchable defenders, but salary cap restraints will limit who can be added through free agency, so Udoka might have to make do with what he has.
At least billionaire owner Joseph Tsai doesn’t have a coaching salary cap to deal with, as the Nets now have one of the most expensive coaching staffs in the NBA. Surely, multiple-time head man D’Antoni and rising star Udoka, who was on many teams’ interview lists for open head coaching jobs this offseason, didn’t come cheap.
Even if I question whether D’Antoni, 69, is willing to step back and actually put in the drudge scouting work often assigned to assistants, he still should be worth the high price. Nash was fantastic in the moment as a Hall of Fame player, but he is going to need advice on how to think of the steps ahead as a coach – and having D’Antoni, with his lifetime of experience in pressure-cooker situations, at his side will provide a great sounding board. As for Stoudemire, he will work in player development, likely taking on some of the work with big men that departing assistant Travon Bryant did last season.
Like with the on-court product, this staff must form its own chemistry. The last thing the Nets need is another Jason Kidd/Lawrence Frank distraction with some assistant overstepping his bounds, though having the more laid-back Nash at the helm diminishes the odds of that.
The other bonding element is that all of the Nets coaches have previous ties to Marks, who clearly comes out of this offseason as the clear winner over those who believed that the Nets’ stars were running the show. He has the staff he wanted; now the task is finding the remaining pieces that best fit this roster.
For a FAN’s perspective of the Nets, Devils and Jets, follow Steve Lichtenstein on Twitter: @SteveLichtenst1
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