Incoming Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov doesn’t really strike anyone as the hands-off, let-the-man-do-his-job kind of guy, so how this relationship would work remains to be seen. Plus, the Daily News article goes on to speculate about Colangelo bringing in Mike Krzyzewski from Duke as coach, even though Coach K made jokes about that idea over the weekend.
But with the way the Nets season has unfolded, Coach K is the only real hope New Jersey has to luring one or two of the big three free agents — LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh — to town. The pitch is they would be coming to Brooklyn and have a great roster around them in a couple years.
via Colangelo would consider running the Nets – ProBasketballTalk – Basketball – NBC Sports.
Sorry, been waiting to use that headline since “Kenny and The Nets” popped into my head while watching the TNT crew during HORSE over All-Star Weekend.
(Side note: Being the professional that I am, I was totally cool during the surreality of the weekend, talking with players, coaches, and executives. The one tough thing? Not immediately running over to Ernie Johnson and tackle-hugging him, screaming “ERNIE!” Also, he got an enormous ovation from the crowd when he showed up at Jam Session.)
Kurt goes into the Colangelo idea and all of this adds more to my fire of “The Nets are one big conspiracy theory that no one sees coming but me” angle. Everyone thinks I’m mad. But I would like to point out that Cleveland miraculously wins the #1 spot with James coming out with only a 25% chance and if there’s one thing you take away from how LeBron, Wade, etc. act, it’s that they are more than basketball players, that they run this game.
Colangelo+Coach K (who knows LeBron and Wade from the Olympics)+LeBron+Wade/Bosh/Amar’e+Lopez+Wall+Yi+CDR+3 first round picks and you think I’m nuts for seeing how this would be an attractive package?
I don’t think K’s in it, though. I just think he’s too smart to think his tactics will carry over to the NBA. There are college guys and pro guys and very rarely, very rarely do they intersect. Larry Brown is a great example, but in the NBA, he’s widely considered an anomaly. K is brilliant, but he’s brilliant through a forced regimen that you can’t force NBA players to adopt. You can try, but there’s too much ego due to too much money. Scheyer has no ego. Because he knows he’s nothing, without K. NBA players? Not the same deal. He and Calipari are two sides of the coin, and neither will turn the NBA video game on.
Colangelo, though, would be in a position to manage the greatest basketball organization of its time if he were to successfully court LeBron. That’s the kind of impact that cements a legacy, and that’s hard to pass up.
This is all going to end with everyone re-signing where they are and I’m going to look like the kid standing in line at the rollercoaster the’ve shut down and no one has told him.
