- Nets forward Kevin Durant isn’t convinced the club needs to trade for a third star this offseason, expressing a belief that Caris LeVert is capable of being that star. “I think Caris is that perfect guy for us — any given night he can lead us in scoring or lead us in assists or he can control the offense or we can go to him in the post in a matchup,” Durant said during an appearance on the Old Man & The Three podcast (hat tip to Ian Begley of SNY.tv). “I feel like he has the tools to do everything on the basketball court. On our team, we play unselfishly, and we’ve got guys that can play off the basketball so on any given night anybody can be the star.”
Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie is confident that Steve Nash will succeed as the new head coach of the franchise, he told Shlomo Sprung of Forbes.com.
Dinwiddie discussed a variety of subjects in the interview, including Nash, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and more. Brooklyn announced the hiring of Nash last week with no prior media coverage of the possibility, surprising observers around the league.
“It was definitely out of left field,” Dinwiddie said. “I think overall, it makes sense from the relationship perspective.”
Nash shares a close relationship with Durant, having worked for the Warriors as a player development consultant during his run with the team. Brooklyn consulted Durant, Irving and others before hiring Nash, a decision that received positive reviews from those in the franchise.
“Obviously white privilege is a thing, 1000%,” Dinwiddie said. “But in this situation, he’s only one of the most qualified basketball players of all time and is friends with the stars of our team and the GM of the team [former teammate Sean Marks]. It kind of makes sense beyond the fact that he doesn’t have coaching experience.”
There’s more from the Atlantic Division tonight:
- Blake Murphy of The Athletic examines six takeaways from the Raptors‘ seven-game series loss to the Celtics. Toronto was 0.5 seconds away from going down 3-0 before OG Anunoby‘s buzzer-beating shot in Game 3, climbing back to force the hard-fought series to seven games. The Raptors have several key players set to reach free agency this offseason, including Fred VanVleet, Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol.
- Celtics forward Jayson Tatum passed his latest test to superstardom in leading the team over Toronto, Jared Weiss of The Athletic writes. Tatum has steadily improved on both ends since entering the league, recording 29 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in the team’s Game 7 victory. “He’s a superstar. He showed it tonight,” teammate Kemba Walker said after that game. “Anyone have any question or doubt on that? He showed it.”
- Clippers assistant Tyronn Lue remains the best option for the Sixers as they search for a new head coach, Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer opines. Lue and the Sixers both share a mutual interest for the position, according to Pompey, which was vacated when the team fired Brett Brown after a disappointing 2019/20 season.
Kevin Durant said again this week that he had no intention of joining the Knicks as a free agent last summer, relays Marc Berman of The New York Post. Appearing on J.J. Redick‘s podcast, Durant said he welcomed a more comfortable situation with the Nets rather than trying to turn around a downtrodden franchise.
“Around February (2019) I was thinking I didn’t want to be the savior of the Knicks or New York,’’ Durant said. “That never really moved me. I didn’t care about being on Broadway. I just want to play ball and go to the crib and chill. So I felt like that’s what Brooklyn embodied. And I wanted to live in New York. And I felt like Brooklyn is everything I’m about — chill, on the low, all-black everything, we’re quiet. Just focus on basketball. There’s no show when you come to our games. No Madison Square, no mecca. … We’re just going to hoop and build something new in Brooklyn.”
Durant noticed the hype about him coming to the Knicks, especially after New York traded Kristaps Porzingis to Dallas in a deal that cleared enough cap space for two maximum contracts. Sources say Rich Kleiman, who serves as Durant’s manager and agent, supported the idea of Durant joining the Knicks but wasn’t able to convince him.
“I never planned on going to the Knicks,’’ Durant said. “That was just the media putting that out there, especially when I didn’t sign a three-year deal (as a free agent in 2018). Once I signed a (one-year deal), just the noise got louder about me going to the Knicks for some reason. Knicks being the savior, you know how that goes. Every time a big free agent is up, the Knicks are going to get him. So it just took off.”
There’s more from New York:
- The Knicks are in a better position to build for the future this offseason, notes Ian Begley of SNY.tv. Former team president Steve Mills focused on landing big-name free agents, which led to his dismissal when the strategy failed. Leon Rose and his new management team can afford to build through the draft, where the Knicks have seven first-rounders in the next four years, or they can use some of those picks to facilitate trades.
- New York could make a bold move by dealing for Thunder point guard Chris Paul, suggests Steve Popper of Newsday. Even though the 35-year-old doesn’t fit in with the current youth movement, Popper states that he would instantly become the best player on the team and could help new coach Tom Thibodeau develop the younger talent. Paul remains close to Rose, his former agent, and the Knicks could create enough cap room to avoid having to match his $41.3MM salary for next season in a trade. Popper speculates that Paul and Rose could be enough to attract free agent Carmelo Anthony back to New York.
- The eight teams not invited to Orlando can begin workouts Monday, and Popper writes in the same story that the Knicks expect to have almost all their players attending — even the potential free agents.
The Nets will try to add experienced coaches to Steve Nash’s staff, Shams Charania of The Athletic said in an appearance on Stadium (video tweeted by Billy Reinhardt of NetsDaily). Charania mentioned ABC/ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy and Lakers assistant Phil Handy as two possibilities.
Brooklyn considered Van Gundy as a potential head coach before hiring Nash last week, Charania adds. The 58-year-old hasn’t coached in the NBA since the 2006/07 season with Houston and has built a successful career in television. However, he did lead Team USA at the 2017 FIBA AmeriCup tournament and the qualifiers for last year’s World Cup and he may be tempted to join a team that figures to be in title contention when Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving are both healthy next season.
Handy, 49, has been in the league for the past decade, breaking in as a player development coach with the Lakers. He also served as an assistant with the Cavaliers and Raptors before coming back to L.A. when Frank Vogel was hired last summer.
The Nets filled one spot on Nash’s staff when they retained interim coach Jacque Vaughn as lead assistant. Keeping Vaughn was “critical,” according to Charania, who says Vaughn’s relationship with Durant has improved over the past few weeks. He adds that Vaughn likely would have become the head coach if Nash hadn’t agreed to take the job.
New Nets head coach Steve Nash and the team’s front office are seeking out assistants to join the former two-time MVP’s coaching staff, including Lakers assistant Phil Handy, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic.
2019/20 interim Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn will stay on staff as the team’s lead assistant during the 2020/21 season. Nash, an eight-time All-Star, joined the Nets staff last week in a surprising hire.
Here are more notes out of Brooklyn:
- Former Nets forward (and Hall of Famer) Kevin Garnett, a 15-time All-Star, has said that he believes Brooklyn should look to trade for a high-level scoring wing like Bulls shooting guard Zach LaVine or Wizards shooting guard Bradley Beal to join current Brooklyn All-Stars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, according to Kristian Winfield of the New York Daily News.
- Kevin Durant expressed his enthusiasm for new coach Steve Nash‘s addition to the Brooklyn sideline, per Andrew Lopez of ESPN. “His insight for the game, his communication, how he communicates the game of basketball is definitely going to help me as a player develop and it’s going to help the rest of the team,” Durant said in a new episode of Pelicans swingman J.J. Redick‘s “The Old Man and the Three” podcast.
- The addition of Nash may help convince Nets sharpshooter Joe Harris to stick around as he enters unrestricted free agency this summer, according to Brian Lewis of the New York Post. “I met with him the other day, grabbed a coffee with him and [team president] Sean [Marks],” Harris said during a recent conversation with “The JWilly Show” podcast. “And he just talked about how he felt about me as a player and wanted me to come back and be in Brooklyn.”
On Wednesday, the Nets officially introduced Hall of Fame point guard Steve Nash as their new head coach. The 46-year-old, who has no prior coaching experience, will try to get Brooklyn to the NBA Finals with a healthy roster next season.
The Nets’ new head coach spoke about his lack of experience and the criticism he’s received at his introductory press conference. “Well, I did skip the line, frankly,” Nash said (h/t Tim Bontemps of ESPN). “But at the same time, I think leading an NBA team for almost two decades is pretty unique. So while I haven’t necessarily learned some of the skills that I’ll definitely seek to understand and learn as far as the technical aspects of coaching, I was never far from that.”
It will be interesting to see how the 46-year-old Nash leads a Nets team that features Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving next season at the Barclays Center.
Here’s more from around the Atlantic Division:
- Jacque Vaughn, who was the Nets’ interim coach after the team fired Kenny Atkinson in March, will be staying with the organization as Nash’s lead assistant. Despite missing many notable players down in the bubble, Vaughn had the Nets playing hard in the seeding games and playoffs. That effort did not go unnoticed by Nash, who is excited to work with Vaughn. “I think Jacque’s qualities speak for themselves,” Nash said (h/t Nets Daily). “He is an incredibly high character individual, extremely hard-working, prepared, and he is an all-around top human being so to have people like that to work with every day is incredible.”
- Celtics forward Gordon Hayward has returned to the bubble in Orlando and is in quarantine until Friday, per Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe (Twitter link). Hayward suffered a Grade 3 ankle sprain in the first round of the playoffs last month against the Sixers. While the veteran forward’s return timeline is unclear and his quarantine period isn’t over, he’s allowed to leave his room once per day for exercise and rehab, according to Washburn.
- Before the Sixers hire a new head coach, they need to address their front office issues, Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer writes. As previously reported, multiple league sources do not expect Alex Rucker, who is the team’s executive vice president of basketball operations, to return next season. Pompey adds that Rucker played a role behind-the-scenes in decision-making as the team leaned heavily on analytics. In addition to Rucker, assistant general manager Ned Cohen and VP of strategy Sergi Oliva were reportedly also involved in decision-making. There has been nothing as of yet on the futures of Cohen and Oliva.
The Pacers are set to begin a wide-ranging search for a head coach that will include more than a dozen candidates, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. As Wojnarowski details, Indiana is looking to interview the following candidates as the team seeks a replacement for Nate McMillan:
- Former Kings and Grizzlies coach Dave Joerger
- Timberwolves associate head coach David Vanterpool
- Nets associate head coach Jacque Vaughn
- Trail Blazers associate head coach Nate Tibbetts
- Spurs assistants Becky Hammon and Will Hardy
- Heat assistants Dan Craig and Chris Quinn
- Mavericks assistants Jamahl Mosley and Stephen Silas
- Bucks assistants Darvin Ham and Charles Lee
- Sixers assistant Ime Udoka
- Magic assistant Pat Delany
It remains to be seen whether the Pacers will be granted permission to speak with all of their potential targets. If they do, the team’s first round of virtual meetings would feature at least 14 interviews.
Many of the Pacers’ coaching candidates identified by Wojnarowski have been linked to other vacancies around the league. Vanterpool, Craig, Mosley, Silas, Ham, and Udoka, for example, are all believed to be interviewing for the Bulls’ job. Udoka and Ham have also been mentioned as potential 76ers candidates, as has Joerger. Vaughn was seriously considered for the Nets job before the team hired Steve Nash, while Hardy and Delany interviewed with the Knicks before they hired Tom Thibodeau.
[RELATED: 2020 NBA Head Coaching Search Tracker]
Others on Indiana’s list, such as Tibbetts and Hammon, have interviewed in past years for various NBA head coaching openings. Only a couple candidates – Quinn and Lee – haven’t received head coaching consideration in the past, as far as I can tell. Meanwhile, Joerger and Vaughn are the only names on the list with previous head coaching experience.
Mike D’Antoni has also been mentioned as a potential target for the Pacers, but he remains active in the postseason with the Rockets and there’s no guarantee he’ll leave Houston when his contract expires.
Pacers president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard has spoken about wanting to hire a head coach who takes a “modern approach” to the game and has the ability to connect with younger players. McMillan’s old-school approach to offense was believed to be one reason why Indiana made a change.
A reunion with China’s Zhejiang Lions for the 2020/21 season may be in the cards for Nets forward Wilson Chandler.
After Chinese journalist Zhang Duo was among those to report (via Twitter) that Chandler had signed with Zhejiang, Alex Schiffer of The Athletic (Twitter link) cited a source close to the forward who indicated that those reports were inaccurate. However, Emiliano Carchia of Sportando says (via Twitter) that while Chandler’s deal with Zhejiang isn’t done yet, it’s expected to be finalized eventually.
One of several players who opted out of the NBA’s restart this summer, Chandler technically remains under contract with the Nets until the 2019/20 league year ends. The 33-year-old was a part-time contributor in Brooklyn this year, averaging 5.9 PPG and 4.1 RPG in 35 contests (21.0 MPG).
Although he was a regular rotation player in ’19/20, Chandler missed the first 25 games of the season due to a PED suspension, and wasn’t as effective or efficient as usual after making his Nets debut — his .404 FG% and .306 3PT% were among the lowest marks of his NBA career.
While Chandler apparently hasn’t finalized any agreement with Zhejiang so far, a move to the Chinese Basketball Association wouldn’t be shocking, since his NBA production has slipped and he has some previous CBA experience. The former DePaul standout signed with the Lions in 2011 during the NBA lockout and averaged 26.6 PPG and 11.6 RPG in 32 games in the Chinese league.
We’ll have to wait for further confirmation on Chandler’s next move, but it sounds as if he’s at least discussing a return to Zhejiang, even if it’s not a done deal yet.
Having poached Kevin Durant from Golden State a year ago, the Nets have now hired away Steve Nash – a former Warriors player development consultant – to be their new head coach.
However, Warriors president of basketball operations Bob Myers respects Nets GM Sean Marks professionally and personally and sees no reason to treat Brooklyn “like some kind of pillager,” writes ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Myers also understands why the Nets would target someone like Nash to coach Durant and Kyrie Irving.
“Steve Nash has the ability to walk out onto the court and earn the immediate respect of Kevin Durant or Steph Curry or Klay Thompson — and there aren’t too many people in the world who can do that,” Myers told Wojnarowski. “More than that, though, he can communicate with them effectively and efficiently.
“… There’s not a lot of teaching left for the most accomplished players in the world. Steph is not going to listen to many people about his jump shot. Steve might be one of the only people in the world outside of Dell (Curry) that he’d give an audience on that conversation.”
Here’s more from around the Atlantic:
- After the Nets hired Nash and Villanova’s Jay Wright withdrew from consideration for the Sixers‘ head coaching job, Philadelphia appears likely to aggressively pursue Tyronn Lue for their head coaching position, according to Chris Mannix of SI.com (via Twitter). Mannix reiterates that there’s strong mutual interest between Lue and the 76ers, as we’ve heard before.
- The Raptors had a better regular season record this year than they did in 2018/19, but without Kawhi Leonard to bail them out on offense, they’ll need scorers to step up in order to make another deep playoff run, writes Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca.
- Celtics forward Jayson Tatum tells Shams Charania of The Athletic that he remains close with former teammate Kyrie Irving. “Ky is like my big brother,” Tatum said. “We still talk to this day, and we’ve talked a few times this playoffs. He always encourages me to be special. Having that relationship with him and having somebody like him in my ear at a young age, it means a lot.”
Steve Nash‘s former coach in Phoenix believes he’ll be successful in his new role as head coach of the Nets, writes Mark Medina of USA Today. Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni, who revolutionized the game with Nash when they were together in Phoenix, believes the Hall of Fame point guard has the background to handle the challenge of running a team.
“He worked as hard as anybody I’ve seen in basketball to get ready in basketball. Even when he broke his leg in LA, no one outworked him,” D’Antoni said. “He’ll do the same as a coach. He knows basketball. It’s a pretty good formula for success.”
Like most observers, D’Antoni was surprised that Nash was interested in coaching. Since retiring as a player, he has overseen the Canadian men’s basketball team and worked as a player-development consultant for the Warriors, but never publicly indicated that he wanted to be a coach.
“I didn’t know he wanted to coach,” D’Antoni said. “He’s got a great basketball mind. I know he loves basketball. So it doesn’t surprise me. But it’s interesting.”
There’s more from New York:
- Nash also gets an endorsement from former teammate Jared Dudley, who tells Sam Amick of The Athletic that the Nets found a coach who knows how to relate to players. “I think that when you’re looking outside the box, you have to bring someone in (who has) the respect factor with the superstars,” Dudley said. “That’s what it is now. And someone with a creative mind. That’s the test. It’s a test for any person who might have been a star, or one thing, and now you’re in a different role.”
- Mike Woodson‘s return to New York after an absence of more than six years became official this morning, notes Marc Berman of The New York Post. Woodson, who led the Knicks to their last playoff appearance in 2013, joins Tom Thibodeau’s staff as an assistant. The team waited to make the announcement until former Jazz assistant Johnnie Bryant was eliminated from the playoffs. Berman hears that Larry Greer, brother of new assistant coach Andy Greer, may also join the organization. He was an assistant with the Suns before the hiatus and worked with new Thibodeau in Minnesota.
- Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic takes a look at the Knicks‘ draft options and examines three scenarios: players with upside, immediate help and low-risk options.