FEBRUARY 20: The Nets have made it official, announcing (via Twitter) that Ollie is their interim head coach.
According to Charania (Twitter video link), while Ollie may receive consideration for the permanent job, Brooklyn will conduct a “full-blown” search this spring.
FEBRUARY 19: The Nets plan to name Kevin Ollie as their interim head coach in the wake of Jacque Vaughn‘s dismissal, sources tell ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link).
According to Woj, Ollie will run Tuesday’s practice and will be the lead coach for Thursday’s contest against Toronto.
Separate reports earlier this afternoon from Shams Charania of The Athletic and Wojnarowski indicated that Ollie had emerged as the frontrunner to become Brooklyn’s interim head coach (Twitter links).
Ollie was a finalist for the Pistons’ head coaching job last offseason. The position ultimately went to Monty Williams, with Ollie instead joining Brooklyn as an assistant coach.
A former NBA journeyman guard who played for 11 different teams in his 13 seasons, Ollie began his coaching career after retiring as a player in 2010. He was the head coach at UConn from 2012-18 and won a national title with the Huskies in 2014 but lost his job after the NCAA opened an investigation into UConn and its coaches for recruiting violations.
Ollie was also the head coach of the Overtime Elite program from 2021-23. He left that position last March.
It’s unclear if the 51-year-old will be a candidate for the full-time job, but he’ll have an opportunity to make an impression down the stretch of the 2023/24 season for the Nets, who have been struggling mightily of late, losing 18 of their past 24 games.
Isn’t Ollie one of Durant’s guys? They probably should have just hired him last year it may have kept the Odd Couple together.
Awesome! Loved Ollie at UCONN maybe he can turn these guys around !
Really? He completely destroyed that program.
They seem to be doing just fine…
Your name seems appropriate because UConn appears to be doing just fine now post-COVID.
No he didn’t they’ve been beyond successful with him and after him. Recruiting gaffes happen at every college
He won a championship with Calhoun’s players, his last 2 years they had losing records, were never ranked and suffered embarassing blowout losses. Yes Hurley has returned themback to prominence but he had to do it from the ground up.
You are backpedaling too fast – don’t fall over and hurt yourself. If the program was completely destroyed as you claim, it would not have been in the NCAA tournament three years after he left and would have not won it all two years after that. A slight setback, nothing more. Not completely destroyed. Look up the word hyperbole. You are an active practicer of it.
I would give Kyrie credit for that.
Didn’t take long for Jacque Vaughn to get fired.. are the Nets ran by David Tepper as well?
Yeah, it’s funny how quickly JV went from Coach making progress with plucky team to collecting a pogey check.
I know it’s more about how the Nets played in their last 20 games before the All-Star break than what the record was, but I’m not sure what Nets Management expected from that roster. I like Mikal a lot, but casting him in the roll of top guy is a comment on the Nets overall talent.
Ollie is one of those guys who’s looked like he was 45 forever. I remember when he was a Sixer he looked old.
UConn tried to screw his life. It was one thing to fire him, but they tried to not pay him and throw him completely under the bus. Ollie funally got paid after few yrs in lawsuit. Glad to see Ollie get his career in track again. People forget that he was very loyal to UConn. He was one of the most coveted coaches after he won ncaa title, but he stayed at his alma mater.
Exactly!
To fill his old job,
OLLIE
will bring in…..
STAN !!