Steve Nash's failure with Nets really a team effort
Steve Nash reacts in the first half of a basketball game at Barclays Center on Friday, Oct. 21, 2022. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
It isn’t enough that the Nets can’t play defense, have lost six of their first eight games and employ a conspiracy theory-loving guard who has yet to apologize for promoting an antisemitic movie on his social media account.
Now it appears the Nets have decided to double down on their dysfunction. Early Tuesday afternoon, the team announced it had fired coach Steve Nash and, according to multiple reports, are planning to bring in suspended Boston Celtics coach Ime Udoka to replace him.
In a news conference before Tuesday’s 108-99 loss to Chicago, general manager Sean Marks said he has not determined who will be his next coach. He also declined to share his list of candidates, though when asked specifically about Udoka did not say he wasn’t a candidate.
Udoka, a former Nets assistant who took the Celtics to the NBA Finals last season, is one of the best young coaches in the league. He also comes with some heavy baggage, given that in training camp, the Celtics suspended Udoka for the entire 2022-23 season for “violating team policy.” It has been widely reported, including a report in The Associated Press, that the suspension was for having an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate in the organization.
On the court, Udoka is a significant upgrade from Nash, a Hall of Fame player who is far from a Hall of Fame coach when it came to play-calling and adjustments. Off the court is a different story. The optics of hiring Udoka, who is just 40 days into his suspension, are not good.
It’s hard to be convinced that any coaching change is going to transform this team into a contender. It’s not Nash’s fault that the Nets, who were built to win a championship, have ignited a leaguewide schadenfreude-fest.
The problem with the Nets is cultural, which is ironic given that this is an organization that is always talking about its culture. Marks and owner Joe Tsai were so enamored with the idea of getting two of the greatest players in the game — Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant — to come to Brooklyn three years ago, that they gave up almost everything about the team-first culture that had enticed the duo there in the first place.
First, they got rid of coach Kenny Atkinson, who had built a decent team out of scraps, and replaced him with Nash, who had a longstanding relationship with Durant. Then they decided to shoot for the moon in a trade for James Harden two seasons ago that cost them, among other things, three first-round picks, Caris LeVert and Jarrett Allen.
For a brief period, it looked as though that Big 3 would be posing midcourt with the Larry O’Brien trophy for years to come. Instead, the highlight of the Durant-Irving era remains the moment just before Durant’s toes were ruled to be an inch over the three-point line in Game 7 of the Nets' second-round playoff loss to the Milwaukee Bucks in 2020-21.
Since then, just about nothing has gone right for the Nets and one big reason is the fact that management vacillates between playing hardball with superstar players and giving in to their desires.
Last season, the Nets initially told Irving he couldn’t be a part-time time player but then reversed themselves when it became clear he wasn’t going to get the vaccine that would have allowed him to play at Barclays. As a result, with Irving flipping in and out of the lineup, the Nets could never get any kind of continuity or chemistry going.
Harden was the first to see that the ship was sinking and his determination to get away at all costs is how the Nets ended up with Ben Simmons. With the addition of Simmons, the Nets how have three of the most idiosyncratic superstars in the history of basketball.
Simmons, who sat out all of last season with mental health and back issues, is struggling to find his place alongside Irving and Durant. So far, he is just a shell of the player who was runner-up for defensive player of the year two seasons ago.
Irving, who early in his career looked like he was going to be a Hall of Famer, still puts up big numbers but has become such an embarrassment off the court that Marks said for now he will not talk after games because “we don’t want to cause more fuss right now.”
And finally, there’s Durant, a generational talent. While his effort on the court cannot be questioned, the fact that he has never questioned some of the decisions made by his good friend Irving is problematic.
No, the problem with this team was not just Nash. It’s a group photo.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
