Well, it’s finally official. The Brooklyn Nets shake up the NBA world by announcing today that they have signed Hall of Fame G Steve Nash as their next head coach. They hope that he will lead them to their first NBA championship.
Nash will be the organization’s 23rd head coach (excluding interims), since Brooklyn dismissed Kenny Atkinson back in March after going 28-34 this season with him at the helm. Jacque Vaughn has since served as the interim, and successfully at that. He will remain as the assistant coach (and for your information, the highest paid one).
This news, which broke this morning, is surprising to many after much speculation has taken place about who would inherit this roster with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant leading the way with championship aspirations.
Many names were thrown out there. Jacque Vaughn, Mark Jackson, Tyronn Lue and even Gregg Popovich. No one even gave Nash a thought.
Since the news broke some sportscasters have had a field day on how inexperienced Nash is to be trusted with such an enormous task. Not so fast though.
Has the 19-year vet ever coached a game before? No, but his knowledge of the game and experience in the game is extensive to say the least.
He’s a back to back league MVP in 2005 and 2006, 8x NBA All-Star, 5x assists leader and made the All-NBA First Team three times, just to name a few of his accomplishments.
Most recently the former MVP served as a player development consultant for the Golden State Warriors, taking part in two of their NBA championships.
With that being said, he’s familiar with a particular face on the Nets current roster, 2x NBA Champion, Kevin Durant.
That likely played a role in today’s hire. As a matter of fact, the 10x NBA All-Star F has even said that he considers Nash to be the most brilliant basketball mind that he’s ever been around.
Not to mention, with Kyrie at the PG position the ceiling is even higher because historically when player coaches have a star in the position that they played in, they usually get the most out of them. So now that this decision has been made, the Nets can relax but also get to work to start preparing for the next season where expectations are already high.
