The Brooklyn Nets’ hiring of Steve Nash as the franchises next head coach caught everyone around the league by surprise on Thursday.
The Hall of Fame point guard helped the Warriors thrive over the last five years, but he wasn’t an assistant coach in Golden State, he was a player development consultant.
This will be Nash’s first experience as a coach at the NBA level.
Though, this isn’t the first time the Nets have given an ex-player their first shot at coaching. Fellow Hall of Fame point guard Jason Kidd got his start in Brooklyn in 2013.
That didn’t go as expected.
There seem to be a lot of similarities between the two: they came in the league right around the same time, they played the same position and Nash is now starting his coaching career in the same place Kidd did, without any coaching experience.
But these situations aren’t the same according to former Nets vice president and assistant general manager turned ESPN insider Bobby Marks doesn’t see it that way:
Was part of the front office that hired Jason Kidd in 2013. This hire is different. Jason was put in a push your chips to the middle situation that didn’t allow him to develop as a coach. It was a roster that was built to win for one season with players that looked better on paper and didn’t fit on the court. There was no safety net when it failed. The Brooklyn roster now is a win-now team but also has at a minimum three-year shelf life to win a championship. There are 2 franchise players in the prime of their [career] with KD (Kevin Durant) and Kyrie [Irving]. A possible 3rd star in LeVert and a great supporting cast of [Spencer] Dinwiddie, [Joe] Harris and [Jarrett] Allen. Plus there is still a nucleus of young players and draft picks to develop and build out the backend of the bench or use in a trade.