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Adam Caporn

Nets Officially Announce Changes To Coaching Staff

June 20th, 2023 at 10:05am CST by Luke Adams

The Nets were among the teams to make an in-season coaching change this past season, replacing Steve Nash with Jacque Vaughn in November. Even though he spent nearly the entire 2022/23 season running the Nets, Vaughn didn’t get a chance to reshape his coaching staff until this spring.

Vaughn is taking advantage of that opportunity, with the Nets issuing a press release on Tuesday to formally announce several changes to their coaching staff.

The new additions, some of which were previously reported, are as follows:

Kevin Ollie (assistant coach), the former head coach of UConn and Overtime Elite.
Will Weaver (assistant coach), who has coached the Sydney Kings and (this past season) Paris Basketball internationally. He’s also a veteran NBA assistant who had a previous stint in Brooklyn as a Nets assistant (2016-18) and coach of the Long Island Nets (2018/19).
Jay Hernandez (assistant coach), who was an assistant coach and the director of player development with the Hornets for the past five seasons.
Ronnie Burrell (assistant coach), the head coach of the Long Island Nets in 2022/23.
Corey Vinson (assistant coach/player development), a former player development coach with the Suns.

According to today’s announcement, the Nets will retain assistant coach and director of player development Adam Caporn, as well as assistants Trevor Hendry and Ryan Forehan-Kelly. They all worked under Nash and will be holdovers under Vaughn as he prepares for his first full season as Brooklyn’s head coach.

Atlantic Notes: Raptors, Celtics, Moser, Nets, Thomas

July 21st, 2022 at 10:03am CST by Luke Adams

After Raptors 905 head coach Patrick Mutombo was hired away by Phoenix, Eric Khoury will take the reins coaching Toronto’s G League team in 2022/23. As Doug Smith of The Toronto Star writes, Khoury’s background in academia and analytics is a little out of the ordinary for an NBA coach, but the 33-year-old has been in the Raptors’ organization for nearly a decade and has proven his basketball bona fides.

“I think that shows that you can come from any sort of background, any diverse background and if you show interest in the game, passion for the game, some hard work … you don’t necessarily need to come from the most traditional, ‘Well, I’ve coached at this level, now at this level’ and slowly bring your way up the ranks,” Khoury said.

“If you show that you have a passion for the game and you bring a cool perspective or a different perspective and you’re willing to work hard at it that it’s possible to make it at the next level.”

Here’s more from around the Atlantic:

Mike Moser, who spent the 2021/22 season as an assistant for the Oregon women’s basketball team, has accepted a job on the Celtics‘ coaching staff, writes Jarrid Denney of On3.com. Oregon women’s basketball head coach Kelly Graves announced the news on Twitter.
Jared Weiss of The Athletic takes a look at which Celtics Summer League players made the strongest cases for a shot at a regular season roster spot, evaluating Brodric Thomas, Matt Ryan, and Justin Jackson, among others.
Brian Lewis of The New York Post shares his takeaways from the Nets‘ Summer League performance, including his impressions on Cam Thomas, David Duke, and Alondes Williams. While Thomas had another big Summer League showing as a scorer, he’ll have to continue improving as a play-maker and defender to earn an increased role in Brooklyn’s regular season rotation, Lewis says.
In addition to carrying a pair of Australians (Ben Simmons and Patty Mills) on their roster, the Nets now have one on their coaching staff. Alex Schiffer of The Athletic profiles Adam Caporn, the newly-promoted Nets assistant who coached Brooklyn’s Summer League team after spending last season in the G League coaching the Long Island Nets.

New York Notes: Nets Assistants, Grimes, Hartenstein, Brunson

July 6th, 2022 at 3:27pm CST by Rory Maher

The Nets have added Igor Kokoškov, Adam Caporn and Trevor Hendry as assistant coaches on Steve Nash‘s staff, per a team press release.

Kokoškov has extensive NBA experience, having served as an assistant coach for 20 years with the Clippers, Pistons, Suns, Cavs, Magic, Jazz, Kings, and most recently with the Mavericks last season. He was the head coach of the Suns for one season, in 2018/19.

In addition to his NBA coaching jobs, Kokoškov has also led the Georgian, Slovenian and Serbian national teams. He was the head coach of Turkish club Fenerbahçe in ’20/21. Marc Stein reported last month that Kokoškov was expected to join Brooklyn.

Caporn was the head coach of Brooklyn’s G League affiliate, the Long Island Nets, last season. A native of Australia, Caporn played college ball at Saint Mary’s before joining the NBL for six seasons as a pro. He has extensive experience in player development and is currently an assistant with the Australian national team, helping the Boomers win a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics last summer.

Hendry has been the Nets’ head video coordinator for the past four seasons. He’s been with the organization since 2014, serving in a variety of roles in the basketball operations department prior to becoming video coordinator.

Here’s more from New York:

Knicks guard Quentin Grimes has a simple goal for Las Vegas Summer League, writes Zach Braziller of The New York Post. “Really come out here and dominate,” Grimes said after the team’s first practice at Cox Pavillion. “I feel like I played well last year. Just coming in this year being a second-year guy, I know what to expect, I know how the games are. Just go out there and try to dominate every time offensively and defensively.” The 25th pick of the 2021 draft, Grimes averaged 6 PPG and 2 RPG while shooting 38.1% from three-point range and playing solid defense in 46 games (17.1 MPG) as a rookie last season. Grimes dealt with a dislocated knee cap towards the end of last season, but he says he’s fully healthy now, per Braziller.
Fred Katz and Law Murray of The Athletic take a look at what the Knicks can expect from center Isaiah Hartenstein, who agreed to a two-year, $16.7MM deal with New York in free agency. A strong passer and play-maker, Hartenstein could unlock easy baskets for players like Grimes, Immanuel Quickley, Evan Fournier and RJ Barrett, according to Murray, who says Hartenstein was underutilized offensively by the Clippers last season. Although he isn’t the most athletic player, Murray notes that Hartenstein rotates well on defense and uses his length to effectively defend the paint. Hartenstein posted impressive per-36 averages of 1.5 steals and 2.3 blocks per game last season.
Signing Jalen Brunson is a make-or-break move for Leon Rose‘s tenure as president of basketball operations, argues Ian Begley of SNY.tv. Begley details Rose’s 2021 offseason moves, which were considered low-risk at the time, yet the Knicks were forced to package various draft assets to move off the salaries of Kemba Walker, Nerlens Noel and Alec Burks in order to create cap space to sign Brunson. Sources tell Begley that one rival team was willing to trade a second-rounder to acquire Burks, but the Knicks ended up giving away two second-round picks and $6MM to Detroit to move Burks and Noel. Rose’s CAA connections haven’t led to sustained success to this point, per Begley, and signing Brunson needs to work out considering all the assets the Knicks gave up.
Part of the reason Brunson decided to sign with the Knicks is because he thought he’d have a better chance at becoming an All-Star in the East than the West, Marc Stein writes in his latest article for Substack. As Stein relays, Brunson is the first player in league history to receive a nine-figure contract from a new club without making an All-Star team, per ESPN Stats & Info (Twitter link).

Atlantic Notes: Celtics, Siakam, Love, Nets

July 6th, 2021 at 9:47pm CST by Eli Cohen

The Celtics have had a tumultuous start to their offseason, and fans can expect even more changes as the off-season progresses. But their options are limited, writes Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston, and making large changes require creativity and precision. President of basketball operations Brad Stevens, for his part, seems to agree.

“There are some things that we have to navigate from a financial perspective,” Stevens said. “With our limited ability to sign in free agency. We’re gonna have to be creative, we’re gonna have to continue to work, and we’re gonna have to continue to see what’s out there.”

Forsberg goes step-by-step through how the Celtics will likely approach their non-taxpayer mid-level exception, their trade exceptions, and the other tools they have available this offseason as they try to rebuild this team on the fly.

We have more from around the Atlantic Division:

Following rumors of the Warriors potentially using one or both of their picks along with James Wiseman to add win-now talent, Blake Murphy of The Athletic addresses the notion that the Raptors could move Pascal Siakam in such a deal. It wouldn’t be as simple as it seems, Murphy writes, both from a financial standpoint and from the Raptors’ end, as they would rather not pursue a deal that feels like it’s selling low on their All-NBA talent.
With two years and $60MM left on his deal, the Cavaliers would surely rather trade Kevin Love than buy him out, but if no trade materializes and they do end up going the buyout rate, keep an eye on the Nets as a landing spot, writes Brian Lewis of The New York Post. “I understand going into my 14th season that being that No. 1 guy, playing 35 minutes, getting 20 touches a game is probably in my rear view,” Love said after practicing with Team USA on Tuesday. “But how I can affect the team, and feeling how I’m feeling now, I know that I can do it at a very high level.”
The Long Island Nets have named Adam Caporn their head coach, according to a team press release. Caporn comes to Brooklyn’s G League affiliate after seven seasons as head coach of Basketball Australia’s Centre of Excellence, the country’s premier player development program. Caporn is also currently serving as an assistant coach for the Australian national team as they compete for a gold medal in Tokyo.