Jacque Vaughn took the long route to locking down Nets job

Jacque Vaughn thought he might have a shot at getting the Nets’ full-time head coaching job when he coached the team as an interim to a 7-3 record in the 2020 COVID bubble in Orlando. But the Nets went in a different direction and hired Steve Nash.

Then Vaughn — who stayed on as an assistant under Nash — thought he might have a shot at the head job again when Nash was fired on Nov. 1.

But Vaughn was named the interim coach and the Nets explored the combustible idea of hiring suspended Boston Celtics coach Ime Udoka before deciding against that move.

So Vaughn continued to put his head down and coach. He was named full head coach on Nov. 9 with a contract that only was guaranteed through the end of this season.

Finally, on Tuesday, the Nets agreed to a contract extension with the 48-year-old Vaughn that makes him the team’s head coach through the 2026-27 season.

Some would say it’s about darn time. But you’ll never catch Vaughn saying that.

“I just kept doing my job,” Vaughn said in a Zoom call on Wednesday. “You know, it's a great lesson for my kids. . . You just continue to do your job and you persevere and you love to grind and they know that's a part of me. I've seen it all here — where there's multiple coaches, where there's the bubble, whether it's a toenail over the three-point line, whether it's trade requests, whether it's all of the above, and so to still be a part of this organization means a lot to me.

“That means the way I carry myself on a daily basis, people appreciate it. At the end of the day, I just kept doing my job and showing up every single day and ready to rumble every single day.”

The “toenail over the three-point line” refers to Kevin Durant’s would-have-been three-pointer in the Nets’ loss in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals against Milwaukee in June 2021.

The “trade requests” — well, the Nets have had many over the recent years, from James Harden to Kyrie Irving to Durant (twice), and now all three of those stars play elsewhere.

Vaughn has indeed seen it all in Brooklyn. Now he’s ready to go to battle with an almost entirely new starting lineup as the Nets prepare to begin the season’s final 24-game stretch on Friday in Chicago.

Vaughn, armed with his new job security, said one of his messages to the players will be “we have to be the hardest playing team in the league. So when you look at us on film, when you look at us live, when you look at the first possession of the game, are the Brooklyn Nets the hardest playing team in the NBA?”

At 34-24, the Nets start the post-All-Star break period in the No. 5 spot in the Eastern Conference. They hope they are headed to the playoffs and know who will lead them there for this and many more seasons.

“Extremely thankful,” Vaughn said, “and excited about the fact that an organization such as ours chose to have me continue going forward with this group. For me, I'm excited about the challenge ahead, growing with this group, getting the most out of this group and pushing this group. So excited about that.”

By Anthony Rieber

anthony.rieber@newsday.comAnthonyRieber

Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.