Monthly Archives: August 2020

June 19, 2016. Game 7 of the NBA finals. It is 49-42 Warriors at halftime. LeBron James has been good, but has not the LeBron we know.

And suddenly, Lue has a demand: If we’re gonna win, you gotta be better … your body language is terrible … your legacy is on the line.

The rest is history.

It takes gumption to challenge any superstar, let alone LeBron. Lue did it, and won a title with him.

And Lue won a title and made four finals in Cleveland, with a collection of gigantic egos that required regular maintenance. LeBron and Kyrie, as we now know, was a powder keg waiting to explode. LeBron was aloof during streaks of losing, telling the front office he wanted trades with his lazy play. Kyrie wanted his own team. LeBron said of Kevin Love, “fit in or fit out,” breeding tension there. JR Smith is a wild card.

The Cavs were in a constant state of chaos, and required an ego manager to handle that chaos, channel it into title caliber basketball when needed. A person who knew when to crack the whip, but when to let go of the rope and let the players be.

Lue aced the test. The Cavs won a title under his watch and if Kevin Durant did not join the Warriors he may have won two or three.

The Nets, next year, need exactly this from their head coach. Durant and Irving are sensational players, around whom a dynasty can be built. They are also, like a team built around LeBron and Irving, a powder keg potentially waiting to explode. Both soured on their first two NBA stops, despite both seeming like good situations from afar. Durant felt a lack of outside credit and validation despite two titles and finals MVP’s. Kyrie felt LeBron got too much credit and media attention in Cleveland, and struggled in Boston at his first endeavor leading his own legitimate roster.

The key word with the powder keg here is potentially – this may not explode, or may only explode in the very distant future after championship level success. And that is where ego management comes into play.

Coaching stars is not just about installing a good offense and defense, or being quick on your feet to make tactical adjustments. Stars have egos that a title caliber coach needs to manage, without the star running them over.

It requires a powerful personality – like Lue, who just did this in Cleveland. If you can stand up to LeBron during his Cleveland return, you can stand up to anyone.

At the same time, Lue was not just one with gumption. He knows “what buttons to push,” the saying goes. Sometimes you need to stand firm to a star and lay down the law. Sometimes, Durant and Kyrie are great, and you just sit back and let them be great. Lue is capable of that, too – the 2017 Cavs finished third in offensive efficiency with underrated schemes that shredded defenses, and massacred the eastern conference before running into one of the greatest teams ever assembled.

Lue is the right person for this job. The Nets need their next head coach to do exactly what the coach of the 2016-2018 Cavaliers did. And that man is on the market.

None of this is to say that Lue comes without any risks. LeBron is a superhuman force of nature – what if Lue was not as causative of winning as I think? Still, every reported candidate comes with risk, and the risks as to Lue are most important palatable because I have seen him do what we need our next coach to do, in a highly similar situation.

Gregg Popovich has somewhat quietly become a bit outmoded in very recent years – and what if he is partially a creation of Tim Duncan? Not to mention he is unlikely to leave San Antonio. Jeff Van Gundy has not coached since 2007 – the NBA was a different sport then with how much tactics and positions have changed. Can he be effective in the modern game? Ime Udoka has never coached before. Jason Kidd and Mark Jackson are simply poor candidates – just look at the 2015 Warriors and 2019 Bucks.

And then there is Jacque Vaughn. Since he has been with the Nets for several years and the Nets played well in the bubble, momentum built around him as deserving of a shot. There is a human element to that. Most of us do not work in billion dollar industries; if we work hard and earned the right to stick around, we should stick around. But billion dollar industries are different.

Vaughn’s resume is most strongly bolstered by the Bubble. But the job next year is different. The job next year is to manage star egos, not to get lesser players to play hard. Also. with players rounding into shape and teams resting players to focus more on seeding than standings, the bubble was a somewhat fluky atmosphere before the playoffs. It would not be prudent to make a hiring decision based largely on that.

The Nets have a job that is in incredible demand. The next coach has the chance to coach two superstars, coach in the city, and compete for titles. The job is the best – why not see if you can recruit the best? Why settle for Vaughn? What if his Orlando tenure is more representative of who he is as a coach? Why take the chance, given this is a two year window (your window in this high star movement era is the guaranteed years on the contracts of your stars).

The feel good decision and story is to settle for Vaughn. The ruthless decision is to replace him. But ruthless decisions win titles, and feel good decisions do not feel good when the results do not come. It was ruthless to replace Dwane Casey after 59 wins, Mark Jackson after 51 wins, and David Blatt after losing Kyrie in the finals and having the Cavs at 30-11. Something tells me those three fanbases are ok with it now.

And on the other hand, the feel good decision in Philadelphia was to empower Brett Brown. He saw through the Process. He deserved to coach Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons during their playoff years …

But now that he has failed to help Philly progress, that feel good story is stale.

Sean Marks faces a huge offseason. With a two year window to compete for a championship, he cannot waste the first year seeing what he has. 2019-20 was a time to experiment. In 2020-21, the Nets need an all in, all business approach.

And that starts with Tyronn Lue as head coach.

The day was June 23, 2016.

The Nets were coming off a moribund 21-61 season. Brook Lopez and Thaddeus Young, two sturdy veterans who bought in and contributed to past playoff runs, were fan favorites.

Kenny Atkinson, prior, was interviewed and asked about Young. He said, Thad Young was “my guy,” and Sean Marks expressed a preference to retain him.

But then on June 23, the Nets traded him. The draft pick was used on Caris LeVert. It may seem silly now, but at the time, the trade was perceived negatively by Nets fans, and mixed at best. A fan favorite was traded for a first round pick. The pick was used on a player mocked lower in most mock drafts.

Fast forward four years, and LeVert is now the fan favorite. As fans, you ultimately support the team, are resilient, and move on from tough organizational decisions.

In every way, LeVert has earned the title of fan favorite. He has overcome injuries, adversity. He is a tireless worker. He seems like a genuine, good person. He supports strong social causes. He has improved immensely since his rookie year. He shows happiness when his teammates succeed, even on nights when he is not a participant in the success, or was hurt. He has accepted a variety of different roles. He is even a friend of Kevin Durant, although it should be noted he was a fan favorite regardless of KD.

Dealing LeVert would be a tough pill. You can say similar things about why it would be a difficult pill to deal any of the younger Nets who have been here since year one or two under Marks, but LeVert takes the cake.

Still, whether it is LeVert or any of the other Nets, the Nets should trade anyone, if they benefit on the court. No matter how popular, or deservingly beloved, the player. That is because the ultimate goal is a title – that matters more than keeping any player.

Certainly, Sean Marks thinks this way. He let D’Angelo Russell and Kenny Atkinson go, despite all they did for Brooklyn. It was not because of anything they did wrong. It was because Marks felt replacing them with different people (Kyrie and TBD, respectively), increased the probability of a title for Brooklyn.

NBA history tells us that three high level star teams are dominant, and win titles. Whether it’s the KD Warriors, the Heatles, or some of the old school Lakers and Celtics teams, if you had an elite superstar, and two more bonafide stars, you will likely win a title.

The Nets are the only franchise in the NBA that has the ability to enter next season with three such players. If a Bradley Beal like player is available, the Nets should jump on it. Would that require dealing LeVert? Yes, it would. But it would significantly increase the Nets’ title odds. Losing LeVert would hurt, but fans are resilient. When they see Beal (or Jrue Holiday, or Donovan Mitchell) in black and white, they’ll move on just fine.

Can the Nets win a title, as is? Yes, they can. KD and Kyrie, with the roster depth in place, can carry the Nets past the rest of the NBA. But that does not mean the Nets should be content with the roster.

Look no further than KD’s last team. The Warriors went 67-15, and dominated the NBA en route to their first title (the Grizzlies and Cavs series were not as close as six games would reflect, and a healthy Kyrie and Love would not have mattered, but that is a story for another day). The Warriors followed that up with the only 73-9 season ever, and likely win a second title if Draymond Green keeps his foot away from LeBron’s groin. The Warriors easily could have said “we will not disrupt this continuity to blow the roster up.” Instead, they relinquished two starters, and multiple rotation players, to add KD. You could argue the Warriors do not win a second title without that move – instead they won a second and third.

This Nets team, while talented, has holes. To win a title, the Nets need to go through Giannis, LeBron, Kawhi, and George. Or perhaps Tatum, Simmons, and Luka. That is going to require high level perimeter defense on guards, wings, and stretch fours. The Nets menu of options to throw at these players defensively is, quite candidly, weak.

There’s Jarrett Allen. But if he is your primary cover on ballhandlers, he is unavailable as a rim protector behind your primary cover. There’s KD; he can do it. But off a ruptured Achilles, do you want him to be your primary in that spot? After that, the options are bleak. LeVert has tools but has never put it together as a defender. Dinwiddie and Prince, same thing. Harris is too limited. The Nets simply have to improve their two way wing corps to win a title. Sure, they have the taxpayer midlevel of around $6 million per season, and minimum exceptions. But those are avenues to add reserves to shore up your depth, not high level options to start and finish games.

The LeVert Dinwiddie combo becomes the area of the roster to touch, first and foremost, in order to add anything of consequence. Both have significant value as a secondary playmaker to take pressure off Kyrie and KD, and help run the offense – this must be noted. In seeing the Lakers struggle in the Bubble, you can see the value in having that. However, there are diminishing returns with having two such players. The Nets cannot play all three together, and at times not even two of them together, because the fit is awkward; they all need the ball. This led to countless closing lineups for the Nets (dating back to DLO) where they had to bench one or two of their three lead players, and play lesser players like Temple, Chandler, Dudley, Prince, and Kurucs at the wing positions so that the parts fit.

Dealing one of LeVert or Dinwiddie to get a high quality wing who can play next to Kyrie and KD, or a true third star, is smart business. Turn those duplicative, cannot play together skills, into players who can play together and address weaknesses.

Allen is another trade piece in a similar vein. Unless your center is one of the league’s few stars (think Jokic, AD, Bam; do not think Capela), there is not much value in an expensive rim runner (which Allen will be soon) because many centers can fill the role. Note how the Lakers use Dwight and McGee. As a result, it simply makes sense to package Allen, for a star or for wing help that fits. Once again, smart business, albeit a hit to the heart.

The above captures what the Nets’ plan should be this summer. Plan B: turn players at positions where you can afford to become weaker (you do not need two secondary creators and two rim runners), into high level two way wings at the 2-4 spots who can shore up this significant roster weakness. In my opinion, if this means one of LeVert or Dinwiddie are moved (I would not deal both of them to achieve this plan), then that is what the Nets should do.

Plan A: get a true third star (LeVert and Dinwiddie are very good, top 50-75 players who help support your best players; stars are bonafide top 20 players who carry franchises and ARE those lead players). Become so talent heavy at the top of the roster, so tough to guard at full force, that this talent overcomes your weaknesses. If this means both LeVert and Dinwiddie must be moved, then that will need to occur.

All of this, admittedly, is tough to reconcile with fandom at times. It has gotten easier as an adult, but you still feel it. LeVert, for all the reasons I offer above, embodies everything these current Nets stand for. It hurts to see players like that leave. Dinwiddie grew from bit player to elite sixth man as a Net. Allen has been a good Net too and represented the borough well, taking underprivileged children shopping on Thanksgiving to help feed families and teach math and budgeting, supporting strong social causes, and being a genuine good person.

Still, if moving any or all of them is best for the Nets in pursing a title, then the Nets need to do it. That may sound like a tough pill but as fans, we are resilient. We also want a title more than we love any player.

As a result, when the new additions come, we will love them, and move on from the players who departed.

Just as we got over Thaddeus Young and appreciated Caris LeVert all those years ago.