Nets create more questions with Steve Nash split, Ime Udoka rumors
NEW YORK — In seeking answers, the Brooklyn Nets may only be inviting new questions.
Despite being swept in the first round of the playoffs last year by the Boston Celtics, and despite their star spending the offseason both demanding a trade and then asking for the team's general manager and head coach to be fired, the Nets entered this season believing that they were a championship contender. Not only was Kyrie Irving free to play home games, but Ben Simmons was returning to the floor. Kevin Durant was healthy. So was sharpshooter Joe Harris.
Then the season began and the losses started to mount. First, it was the home opener to the New Orleans Pelicans, then another in Milwaukee and another in Dallas and one more, this time in Indianapolis to the tanking Pacers. The team often appeared disinterested, the defense inept. And so Tuesday, the Nets announced that they had made a change: head coach Steve Nash would no longer be serving in that role.
"We both felt that this was time," Nets general manager Sean Marks told reporters Tuesday evening during a news conference at the Barclays Center. "To be quite frank, the team was not doing what it was supposed to be doing. We've fallen from our goals."
Nash, a two-time MVP and eight-time All-Star as a player, was hired in September 2020 despite never having coached professionally. He went 94-67 in two seasons with the team and won one playoff series. He thanked the team with a statement posted to Twitter.
Nash's tenure was full of difficulties. He coached the team during the pandemic, dealt with Irving's refusal to get vaccinated for COVID-19, and navigated the fallout from the 2021 acquisition of James Harden as well as the eventual trading of Harden for Simmons, who missed all of last season due to a mix of injuries and mental health concerns.
"He has certainly not had an even playing field," Marks said of Nash. "And for that, I certainly feel some responsibility."
But Marks was also blunt in assessing where he thought the team could improve.
"We saw games this year where, I'll be honest, I don't think we've brought it," he said.
Marks said the decision was made by him and that he'd spoken with team owner Joseph Tsai about the move. A league source told FOX Sports that pressure had been coming down from Tsai. And Nash, sensing those feelings and worn out by the drama around the organization, didn't fight it. He and Marks had begun discussing whether Nash was the right person to lead the team moving forward.
"When we're having these conversations, he's aware of, ‘Hey, they're not responding to me right now,'" Marks said of Nash. "Or, you know, ‘That was not the performance I needed to see out there.' And so you know, over the course of the last week to 10 days we've just been talking and talking, and I think it came to a head."
But that wasn't the only head-turning news the organization created Tuesday.
Within hours of the Nash announcement, both ESPN and The Athletic reported that the Nets are zeroing in on replacing him with Ime Udoka, a former Nets assistant who coached the Boston Celtics to the Finals just months ago before being suspended for this season for engaging in an improper sexual relationship with a subordinate. While Marks denied those reports during his news conference, saying the team had "absolutely not" decided upon its next head coach, he was asked whether he'd be comfortable bringing in a candidate with Udoka's reputation.
"Whenever you're bring anybody in here, it doesn't matter if it's a new head coach or whether it's an intern, it doesn't matter, you're doing your due diligence on everybody's background, you're looking at past relationships, prior relationships, current relationships, you name it, to make sure that you're bringing in the right people at the right time for the right job," Marks said.
But even before facing the Udoka questions, Marks had to know there was another fire he would need to address. He was also asked Tuesday about the team's handling of Irving, who last week used his Twitter feed to promote an antisemitic film and then in a combative news conference over the weekend stood behind his decision.
"I think we are having these discussions behind the scenes, I honestly don't want to really get into those right now with we're taking the advice as I mentioned before, we're talking to the [Anti-Defamation League] right now and really just trying to lay out exactly what the best course of action is here," Marks said of why the team has so far declined to discipline Irving. Asked if Irving was taking part in those discussions, Marks responded, "I don't want to get into who and how and when these conversations are happening, they're ongoing."
Irving was not made available to reporters after the Nets' 108-99 loss to the Chicago Bulls, as Marks had said would be the case before the game.
"He's not going to do media tonight. And at some point, he will come up here and do media again, but I think at this point it's, you know, we don't want to cause more fuss right now, more interaction with people, like, let's let him simmer down," Marks said. "Let's let cooler minds prevail. And I think we need to go out and educate ourselves, educate the whole group and get some direction."
Yes, the Nets made one change Tuesday, letting Nash go. But after a chaotic week with fewer answers than questions, the team is still awaiting exactly that: direction.
Yaron Weitzman is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. He is the author of "Tanking to the Top: The Philadelphia 76ers and the Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports." Follow him on Twitter @YaronWeitzman.
