Summary:
- Brooklyn Nets general manager Sean Marks has decided to replace former coach Jacque Vaughn with Kevin Ollie.
- Marks explained the decision, which came during the All-Star break, in connection to the team’s current direction.
- The Nets had their first team practice under Ollie on Tuesday night team
Brooklyn Nets general manager, Sean Marks, has once again proven he is not one to give up on his dreams to see the team make the NBA playoffs this season.
One of his latest endeavors in this sense is the appointment of Kevin Ollie as the new interim coach. Ollie will replace Jacque Vaughn who took over from Steve Nash in 2022 was fired the day before and his main focus will be to try to salvage the season.
The change comes during the current All-Star break, at a time when the Nets are 11th in the Eastern Conference standings, with two and a half games behind Atlanta for the final play-in spot with 28 more games underway.
Marks explained the call to make the switch based on the Nets’ “direction” and “where it’s potentially trending”.
Speaking with reporters less than half an hour before the team’s first practice under the new coach on Tuesday evening, the GM praised Ollie’s “great voice” and ability to be very direct with the players, knowing how to hold them accountable.
Marks expressed some of the attributes that he believes make a good coach. Among them, he mentioned the capacity to put oneself in players’ shoes, be a great storyteller, and also be brutally honest.
The GM believes 51-year-old Ollie who has the experience of 13 NBA seasons “absolutely has” all these attributes.
The new coach of the Nets led UConn to an NCAA title ten years ago and coached for UConn from 2012 to 2018. From 2021 to 2023, he was also Overtime Elite’s head of coaching and basketball development for Overtime Elite.
Commenting on his appointment, Ollie, who played professional basketball for a decade and a half, said that he never had a coach call a play for him.
He added
I had to get it with grit, I had to get it with determination, I had to get it with a mindset that we’re gonna get better each and every day.
Now, he plans on applying the same mindset at the Nets or else it would be “losing basketball with me”.
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