Steve Nash Will Have What Jacque Vaughn And Kenny Atkinson Did Not — A Full, Healthy Roster

Can Steve Nash be a great head coach? We will have to wait and see on that, because there is no previous body of work to judge.

Is he a great guy? Absolutely.

Is he a great hire? We shall see.

The nifty thing here is the fresh start thing for the Nets. Say all the positive things you want about the current success of the Miami Heat and the Boston Celtics in the NBA playoffs as those two supposed “underdogs” are holding 2-0 leads over higher-seeded teams. And those positive things are justfied.

But a majority of the teams in the NBA are looking much further ahead into the future, and now the Nets are taking a gamble on a Hall of Fame player who has never been a head coach before but will have an absolutely loaded roster.

So there is a third Eastern Conference team having a good day.

And a good day is nice for everyone after we all witnessed what can fairly be called a rough night for the referees in Wednesday night’s playoff games.

Nash’s relationship with Kevin Durant from their time together in Golden State, combined with a belief among ownership and management that he is best suited to get the most out of mercurial point guard Kyrie Irving, were two of the top reasons cited for the surprise hiring of Nash on Thursday.

The Nets went out of the playoffs in four games under interim head coach Jacque Vaughn, who will remain with Brooklyn as what the team described as the league’s highest-paid assistant coach.

Vaughn was only at the helm for a few days after the surprise firing of Kenny Atkinson and before the coronavirus-related suspension of the NBA season, and the Nets were missing nearly all of their top players as they got swept by the defending champion Toronto Raptors in the first round of the playoffs.

But the experience of playing with a B-team taught the franchise that Caris LaVert is more versatile than they may have realized (he averaged 9.5 assists to go along with his 20.6 points per game), and Jarrett Allen rose to the occasion statistically by grabbing 14.8 rebounds per game, which still has him ranked second among NBA playoff leaders just behind Giannis Antetokounmpo’s 14.9.

So add LaVert and Allen to a roster mix that will likely include Durant and Irving as starters alongside Joe Harris, who was among the top seven most accurate 3-point shooters during the regular season, and what you have there is a starting five may be the strongest in the East on paper.

Then consider that the bench will include Spencer Dinwiddie, who has always thrived in a non-starting role; DeAndre Jordan, a 13-year veteran who can bang with the heavier centers who can outmuscle Allen; Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, who showed promise early in the series against Toronto; locker room leader Garrett Temple; youngsters Rodions Kurucs and Dzanan Musa and veteran Taurean Prince.

That right there is a 12-man roster that is deep at every position and a nice mixture of young and old. The only question mark is whether the Nets can keep Harris, an unrestricted free agent. But there is no question that they can afford it, as owner Joe Tsai is ranked No. 135 on the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires.

Every NBA head coach should be as fortunate as Nash to have that kind of talent and depth for his on-the-job training.

What he can accomplish from a tactical standpoint remains to be seen, but point guards are coaches on the court in a lot of ways. And Nash is one of the best point guards ever to play the game.

Vaughn was never considered a master tactician during his coaching stints in Orlando and Brooklyn, but every team has an X’s and O’s guy on the bench who never gets proper credit.

Who Nash picks to fill that role remains an open question.

“I am honored to have this opportunity with such a first-class organization and would like to thank Sean, Joe and his wife, Clara, for having faith in my ability to lead this team forward,” Nash said in a statement released by the Nets. “Coaching is something I knew I wanted to pursue when the time was right, and I am humbled to be able to work with the outstanding group of players and staff we have here in Brooklyn.

Nash has long made New York City his offseason home, and in years past he was a regular soccer player at games played at neighborhood parks in Manhattan. He will be formally introduced next Wednesday.

“I am as excited about the prospects of the team on the court as I am about moving to Brooklyn with my family and becoming impactful members of this community.”

The legal U.S. sports betting site PointsBet.com has the Nets listed at 15-1 to win the 2020-21 championship, the same odds as Toronto, Houston and Boston.