It is hard to imagine any coach the Nets could have hired coming into the job with more street cred than Steve Nash, whose highly regarded interpersonal skills are only eclipsed by the greatness of the former point guard's 18-year Hall-of-Fame career on the court.
My fear, given recent comments in the media, is that it won't matter, because the inmates will be running the Brooklyn asylum.
Maybe, in making his comments on teammate Kevin Durant's The ETCs podcast, Kyrie Irving didn't intend to disrespect the organization's selection of a rookie coach to replace Jacque Vaughn –but that's exactly how it came across.
While blessing Nash as the perfect communicator for this team that already has the highest expectations, Irving, in Part II of the podcast recording released on Thursday, said this:
"We don't need somebody to come in and put their coaching philosophy on everything we're doing, and change up the wheel, and we're going to start running on the first day of practice. No."
Irving later said, "Now (Nash) is the head coach and I think it's also going to change the way we see coaches. I don't really see us having a 'head' coach. KD could be a head coach; I could be a head coach."
Durant then added, "Jacque Vaughn could do it, one day. It's a collaborative effort."
Since when?
The NBA may be a players league, and coaches need their best to buy in to even have a chance to succeed, but even LeBron James has too much on his plate to not want the additional grunt work and headaches coaches routinely face. Of course, if that coach gets it wrong, he and everyone else in our society is gonna hear about it from James, but that's the extent of it.
If Durant and Irving were simply talking about how their leadership roles will expand once both return from their respective injuries, there would be no controversy. Both are perennial All-Stars with championship rings, so it would be foolish for teammates and the coaching staff to ignore their inputs. However, the discussion seemed to fuel the false perception that all a coach needs to do is roll out the balls for their superstars and smile, which is just a lazy take.
Irving's comment came on the heels of a similar one from Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie, who, in a Forbes interview, said, "To me, coaching at this level, especially with the talent that we have, it's like 80 percent psychologist, 10 percent temperament, 10 percent X's and O's. It's mostly about managing the egos.
That's why Phil Jackson was phenomenal. He knew how to speak to Kobe (Bryant). He knew how to speak to Michael (Jordan)."
The part about Jackson may be true, but how long would his superstars have been placated if they didn't believe in the message, no matter the manner in which it was delivered?
This is what you get when you hire a first-time head coach in Nash, one with no experience other than part-time consulting sessions with Golden State over the last five years. By doing so, the Nets have implicitly devalued coaching in a division that now boasts NBA champion Nick Nurse (Toronto), prodigy Brad Stevens (Boston), veteran Tom Thibodeau (New York), and newly-minted Doc Rivers (Philadelphia).
That's some competitive disadvantage – and because Nash will need time to get his sea legs underneath him, he can't have Durant and Irving co-managing games with him through rotations, play-calling, and adjustments. It's too many cooks in the kitchen. At best, they can (and likely should) be consulted before and after the fact, but not in the moment.
Coaches have never had it more difficult, which is why many of today's brightest have toiled for years at the lowest rungs of basketball operations departments.
Look no further than this year's conference finals: four teams with head coaches who never played a second of NBA basketball. Before Game 1 of the Finals, photos of Erik Spoelstra in Miami's old video library made the social media rounds, and Nurse, last season's champion, led a nomadic existence that included stops in Europe before getting his first NBA opportunity.
Being an elite player has never had anything to do with coaching success. After Nash was hired, the YES Network listed some other players who also went straight into a head coaching gig without experience as an assistant over the last few decades – and I saw names like Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas, Kevin McHale, and Jason Kidd, and went, "Ew."
Only Larry Bird broke through in terms of significant playoff advancement among players of that ilk, and in fact, over the last 40 years, the only Hall of Fame players who coached a team to a title were Billy Cunningham (1983 Sixers) and just-elected Rudy Tomjanovich (1994-95 Rockets).
That's not to say that former NBA players are all doomed to fail as head coaches in their first assignments on the bench. Steve Kerr and Rivers are both examples for Nash to follow.
However, there can only be one person in charge on the Nets sideline, and it can't be Durant or Irving.
For a FAN's perspective of the Nets, Devils and Jets, follow Steve Lichtenstein on Twitter: @SteveLichtenst1
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