Nets Are Scorching

Regardless of his coaching decisions, Lawrence Frank was undoubtedly one of the nice guys in the NBA. He stayed true to form while cleaning out his office at the Nets PNY Practice Facility Monday, giving one last news conference with the press. Al Iannazzone has the report:

Yet Frank remains positive about the experience, about his future and about the future of the team.

“I’m being very sincere in that I feel very, very bad for this group of guys,” he said. “If they didn’t deserve it I wouldn’t say it. I have nothing to gain by it. This group deserves better. They’re going to break through. Guys are going to get back in rhythm and conditioning and other guys are going to get back. The brighter days obviously are ahead.”

“Many times when you’re terminated there’s a great deal of bitterness,” Frank said. “With me, there is no bitterness. I only root for this organization to be successful. I love the people here. It’s no different when a player gets traded. You don’t all of a sudden not like the player because you traded him. I love Rod. I love so many people around here. I have a great deal of affection for our players, staff, everyone. I root hard for our guys. There’s zero bitterness. I’m packing up my stuff. But I’ll be rooting hard for the Nets.”

I am legitimately touched by Frank’s words here. I’m sure I can speak for both Sebastian and I  as NAS wishes Lawrence Frank the best of luck in the future. The consensus seems to be he will live to coach again, as well he should. It’s unfortunate it didn’t work out they way it could have after Frank burst out onto the scene in 2004 and led the Nets to 13 straight victories, but sports are funny in that way sometimes. Frank, without a doubt, has had a positive impact on the New Jersey Nets organization. For that, he can not, and will not be forgotten.

Well, it’s practically officially: Kiki Vandeweghe will be the next head coach for the Nets, taking longtime coaching veteran Del Harris as his assistant, according to ESPN’s Marc Stein. The Nets will formally announce this sometime on Tuesday, according to the report.

Vandeweghe, the current Nets GM who has no prior coaching experience, reportedly didn’t want to take the position without a season veteran coach on the bench to assist him. That’s where Del Harris comes in, who was named coached of the year in 1995 while in Los Angeles, and also has head coaching experience in Milwaukee and Houston. Last season, he served as an assistant coach/mentor to Vinny Del Negro in Chicago.

Assistant Tom Barrise, will likely coach Wednesday’s game at home against the Mavericks, according to Stein. Kiki’s first game will probably come Friday against Charlotte (hey, nice timing… a team the Nets could beat).

Personally, I’m glad the Nets went in this direction. Yes, Kiki has no coaching experience whatsoever, but I think a team that is in shambles like the Nets are right now, needs a new voice. Promoting one of the assistants would be rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship. Obviously, there’s no guarantees that Kiki will do any better than the current Nets assistants, but at the bare minimum, he’ll get to utilize the talent he assembled for the roster the way he envisioned it while acquiring these players.

To continue with the theme of posts today, NAS asked some beat writers and NBA bloggers about their thoughts on Lawrence Frank’s firing. For more internet reaction, check out this link dump from Ball Don’t Lie. Meanwhile, we’ll try to add to this post throughout the day, as we get more responses.

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Mark already did a great job looking back at the Lawrence Frank era and looking at who could be next, but I figured I should throw something up on the subject.  And by throw something up, I mean post my Lawrence Frank offseason post for the third time.  I think it is pretty relevant, plus I know for a fact that we have more readers than we did when I posted it the first two times.  Also, at the end, I put some of my observations from this year and compared them to years past.  So if you already read this twice, you can just skip to the end.

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As the Nets look to move on from Lawrence Frank, they now need to name an interim coach to take them through the rest of the season. Common sense says the Nets, who are a financial mess, will promote someone in-house to take over head coaching duties. Here are some of the possibilities:

Kiki Vandeweghe – The Nets GM, Kiki was looking like the odds-on favorite if you believed last week’s media reports. But since the Frank firing, reports say the team may be backing away from Vandeweghe, and looking instead to one of the team’s current assistants. It’s not as if Kiki would have brought something definitively special to the table. He has no head coaching experience, though he’s earned some praise for his talent recognition while working in the front offices of Dallas and Denver. Regarding his work as GM in New Jersey – since he assembled this losing roster, is it only fitting that he should be the one to coach it?

Tom Barrise – Barrise got the call last night against the Lakers and the game resembled the first 16 games of the 2009-10 season. The Nets got blitzed early, were inept offensively for most of the first half, and fell into a hole they were never able to climb out of. There was even some Bobby Simmons playing PF for those longing for Lawrence Frank’s coaching decisions. Still Barrise is a guy who’s paid his dues for 14 years in the organization, first as an advanced scout and then as an assistant. He’s a Jersey guy through and through – born in Paterson, with coaching experience at Ramapo, William Patterson, Farleigh Dickinson and St. Peter’s – which could make him a hometown favorite.

John Loyer – Loyer’s in his first year as an assistant coach with the team, after spending four seasons in that capacity in Philadelphia. A word that comes up often when discussing Loyer is “respect.” Yes, he has no head coaching experience, dating back to his days as an assistant at the University of Cincinnati, but the current roster reportedly is already a fan of his.

Doug Overton – In his second season as an assistant coach, the longtime NBA point guard is an interesting dark horse candidate to take over for Frank. I personally wonder how his relationship with Chris Douglas-Roberts would impact Rod Thorn’s decision to promote Overton. Both CDR and Overton have downplayed it, but both have engaged in some public screaming matches with each other in front of the media, including most recently during a game in Milwaukee where Overton was barking orders at CDR and the guard snapped back “we’re losing!”

Roy Rogers – Another dark horse, Rogers has earned some praise in his two years as a Nets assistant because of his work with the Nets bigs – notably Brook Lopez. He does have some coaching experience in the NBA D-League as well, which could help his cause. A former NBA first round draft pick in 1996.

The Open Field – Again, it’s doubtful, but the Nets could reach outside the organization for help. The names that are out there? Well, Patrick Ewing is reportedly already lobbying for a chance. Other names with NBA head coaching experience include Avery Johnson, Sam Mitchell, Reggie Theus, PJ Carlesimo, Terry Porter and Eric Musselman.

Few people knew who Lawrence Frank was when he took over as interim coach for the Nets after the organization fired Byron Scott in January 2004, but after a 13-0 start to his coaching career, and a history with the club that crossed over seven seasons, he certainly made his mark in New Jersey.

While Sebastian and I have definitely disagreed with some of Frank’s coaching decisions over the years, it’s never fun when a coach loses his job, especially a legitimate nice guy like Frank.

So, as we move into the next era of the New Jersey Nets, NAS is going to look back at Lawrence Frank’s five biggest wins, and his five worst losses.
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GameFlow, Forum Blue and Gold, Tom Barrise Interview, Devin Harris Interview

I am a crazy optimistic person.  I am so optimistic in fact, that I thought there was a chance that the Nets would come out last night, guns-a-blazing, a win one for their fallen coach.  Brook Lopez and Sean Williams would then lift assistant-turned head coach Tom Barrise on their shoulders as the crowd chants Rudy! Rudy! Rudy…oh wait…sorry, I got my sports movie moments confused for a moment.  Anyway, the Nets didn’t win, but they did in fact keep it closer than was expected.  Sure, some of it had to do with the fact that Kobe didn’t play a minute in the fourth quarter, but Kobe only scored 30 points though (sarcastic) and the Nets did some good things (not sarcastic).

From the start, the game had a weird feel about it, and you couldn’t tell if the Nets were mailing this one in, or if the talent gap between the Nets and the Lakers was so great it just looked like the Nets weren’t trying.  Again, it could be the optimist in me, but I tend to believe it was the latter.  Why?  Well, the Nets were all over the court from opening tip to final whistle.  You know Brook always goes hard, but Devin was diving on the floor late in the game (under 2 minutes left), Sean Williams was running up and down challenging dunk attempts.  Hell, even Rafer Alston gave up a hard foul on Shannon Brown when he spotted up for a 3 with 10 seconds left.

Speaking of Rafer, we can start talking about the negative with him.  He had another poor game today going 2-8, including getting blocked as he jogged to the rim going for a lay-up as time expired in the first (Jordan Farmer, who was hustling all the way blocked him of course).  Also, he had another one of those “dribble it off my foot and out of bounds” moments that always seems to make it on Sportscenter.  CDR too had a poor game, part of it probably had to do with Kobe defending him, but he did seem to be pressing as if to break the win streak every time he touched the ball.  He only got 1 shot in the second quarter.  How can your second best option at this point only get 1 shot in 12 minutes?  Oh well, this is his first poor game in a while, so he gets a pass here.  Bobby Simmons still can’t make wide open 3s anymore and it is getting so bad, teams start to close out on him, realize it is Bobby Simmons and go in for the rebound.  No joke.  It happened twice last night.  After the jump, I get into the other positives (yes, there were multiple positives) in bullet format:

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Obviously, there’s still lots of fallout over Lawrence Frank’s firing in the papers last night/this morning.

Over at the Star-Ledger, Dave D’Alessandro talks about potential interim replacements, while Rod Thorn said the organization could even look outside to fill the position.

Steve Politi thinks Rod Thorn is the last thing to believe in with the Nets.

Chris Sheridan over at TrueHoop talks about the “wacky” history of Nets firings.

Rafer Alston says blame the players.

The Record looks back at the fantastic journey of Lawrence Frank.

The always demonstrative Stan Van Gundy, has some interesting things to say about Frank’s firing.

Meanwhile, Vince Carter had “no comment” on the firing.

Mitch Lawrence of the Daily News says don’t expect to see much improvement in the Nets now that they fired Frank.

Hardwood Paroxysm podcasts about Lawrence Frank.

Bleacher Report speculates that the Frank firing could affect the team’s chances to land a free agent next summer.

Mark Heisler of the LA Times looks back at the Nets miseries.

Fanhouse also chimes in on the state of the Nets.