When the Chicago Bulls fired Jim Boylen, it felt like the perfect opportunity had opened up for former Brooklyn Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson. Given what he’d done with the Nets, Atkinson appeared to be exactly what the scuffling Bulls needed.
Instead of Atkinson, Chicago went with former Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Billy Donovan, who had a surprisingly strong 2019-20 despite the franchise trading Paul George to the Los Angeles Clippers and Russell Westbrook to the Houston Rockets before the start of the season.
And now, Atkinson may get the chance to coach one of those two stars who previously played under Donovan in OKC.
Alykhan Bijani and Kelly Iko of The Athletic are reporting Atkinson interviewed for the position of Rockets head coach this week.
The prospect of Atkinson coaching Westbrook and James Harden is strange given what Kyrie Irving recently said about Brooklyn’s former head coach while on “The ETCs with Kevin Durant.”
“I want to give a shout out to Kenny Atkinson because some people came out and was like, ‘Yo, Ky and KD got Kenny fired.’ And look, that was completely false,” Brooklyn’s point guard said. “Listen, Kenny was great for the group that he served, and I was very appreciative of what he was giving us throughout the season when we were playing. We always heard how great Nash was or saw how great Nash was as a player, but also when you get to know him as a person, you understand why he can co-exist with us because we don’t need somebody to come in and put their coaching philosophy on everything that we’re doing and change up the wheel and, ‘Yo, you guys need to start doing this,’ and we start running on the first day of practice, and it’s just like, ‘No.’
“I want somebody, I need somebody that’s going to understand that I am a human being first. I serve my community and where I come from first, and then basketball is something I come and do every single day because I love [it], and also I have the right ingredients and people around me to come in and do my job at a high level, and I know that they will hold me accountable to that level. It’s no disrespect to Kenny or any other coaches I played with, it’s just Steve coming in at this moment and then following up with putting together a great coaching core was going to make us more successful.”
But just because Atkinson wasn’t the right fit for Brooklyn’s two superstars doesn’t mean he can’t work with Houston’s dynamic duo.
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