The Nets have dismissed head coach Jacque Vaughn, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link). The organization made a formal announcement of the move in a press release, stating that an interim coach will be appointed soon.
“This was an incredibly difficult decision, but one we feel is in the best interest of the team going forward,” general manager Sean Marks stated. “Jacque has represented this organization with exemplary character and class for the past eight years. The consistent positivity and passion he poured into our team daily will remain with the players and staff he interacted with throughout his tenure. We thank Jacque for all he has done for the Nets and the borough of Brooklyn, and wish him, Laura and their family nothing but the best in the future.”
The move comes in the wake of a 50-point loss to Boston last Wednesday that left the team with a disappointing 21-33 record at the All-Star break. Because Brooklyn doesn’t own its first-round pick in this year’s draft, management was hoping to be more competitive, but the Nets will need a strong finish to the season just to reach the play-in tournament.
Brooklyn has dropped 18 of its last 24 games, and players lost confidence in Vaughn as the losses piled up, sources tell Ian Begley of SNY (Twitter link). Management is hoping to land a star player this summer to build around, and there were concerns that keeping Vaughn as head coach might impede that effort, according to Begley’s sources.
There’s no immediate word on who the interim coach might be, but Brian Lewis of the New York Post suggests current assistant Kevin Ollie (Twitter link). Ollie, who won an NCAA championship at Connecticut, joined Brooklyn’s staff at the start of this season after coaching two years with Overtime Elite.
Lewis notes that Marks will hire his third coach in his eight years as GM, but this will be the team’s first extensive search since 2016 (Twitter link). Vaughn was promoted after taking over for Steve Nash on an interim basis in November of 2022, and Nash was selected because of his relationship with the team’s former stars, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.
An assistant with the Nets dating back to the 2016/17 season, Vaughn compiled a 71-68 record as the team’s head coach, including 10 games on an interim basis during the 2019/2020 season. He also spent two-and-a-half seasons as head coach in Orlando and holds a 129-226 career record.
As a Nets fan, I don’t agree with this. They’re not going to compete for a title this year or next year and Jacque Vaughn has proven to be a good development coach. Mikal Bridges, Nic Claxton, Dayron Sharpe, Cam Thomas — all those guys have made huge strides since Vaughn became head coach. I would assume there was something private going on: maybe some players complained about his style? I don’t know. I don’t get it.
Huh? his own players (mainly Mikal) called him out for not adjusting accordingly when Ben is in and out in the lineup. It’s also pretty obvious at this point he’s a pretty trash head coach. And those guys did not make huge strides bc of Jacque lmao
Getting rid of Sean marks would be the real step needed. Start over and build a young team. KD and Irving destroyed the team for a few years now pick up the pieces and start over fresh.
Right? Isn’t this Sean Marks’ third coach during his tenure? After Atkinson/Nash and Vaughn? At what point do they clean house with him and start fresh?
“More things change, they remain the same”.
He’s been pretty good with respect to the draft. So for all those mistakes, I don’t think it should be a slam dunk firing him. But yeah, he needs to work on his hiring acumen. Definitely should be on the hot seat, at the very least. I’d give him another year tops.
One word. What?
Remember the days when the Nets were building something with Levert, Harris, Allen, Russell, etc. with Kenny Atkinson at the helm. How far this franchise has fallen.
They fooled themselves into thinking that Mikhail Bridges was a superstar instead of just a good player.
You mean Ben Simmons, right?
lol except none of those players are good besides Allen, haven’t really fallen at all (besides the big 3 disaster ofc)
I remember those Nets. Exiting, upcoming team. Then boom. Blew it all up. Bring back Kenny Atkinson.
All Quinn Snyder had to do was wait for a good job to open up a couple of years ago. Instead, he took one of the first available jobs, the Atlanta Hawks. He could have had his pick of jobs, and intriguing young stars to work with. He chose Trae Young and Atlanta. Atlanta has always been a bad job, and likely always will be. Got himself attached to Trae and a hopeless situation, and now has to watch all these jobs open up while he toils in Atlanta, with no shot at ever tasting an extended playoff run.
Like Brooklyn?…
Same with Monty
Monty is a fish out of water with the young guys in Detroit.
Monty said no until he got paid 78 million to coach. I would try to coach turtles to play basketball if it involved that kind of guaranteed money.
Especially if you know you can underperform, have that failure placed on the players/roster, get fired and take a new HC job somewhere else
Well, now apparently it is Ollie’s turn to be stick with Ben Simmons
Mike Budenholzer
Poor decision . He isn’t the problem it’s Marks . He did not deserve to get axed
Rebuild rebuild rebuild …….
Trade Brooklyn Bridges to Knicks .
Bridges should force his way to MSG
Ben Simmons takes down yet another coach.
About time they got rid of him!
All you people who called for Steve Nash’s head…not so easy as it looks, huh?
No surprise – he’s not a very good coach.
BKN has had a tough roster to coach since Vaughn took the job, and its unclear if he was even empowered to really coach it. He was hired, as a default choice, to coach a much different roster. But the roster is likely to remain a WIP through next season, and nothing has moved forward for awhile. So, I can see where a new voice might help. I can’t imagine Vaughn is all that upset about the move, and perhaps even welcomed it. BKN has some great assets, which I believe they can build around, but the next year and change need to set that up. Hopefully, they don’t go 2k and blow it up. But that is popular path these days.
No one is going to want this job as they continue to fire coaches every 1-2 years.
They signed two weirdo superstars, traded for Harden. They let the stars run the show, fire coaches and now fire another after getting out of the star situation. They need to figure out the direction. They are not title contenders, Bridges I am not sure is an SGA type that will explode and become a top guy.
Celtics assistant ?
I live in Boston and watched the game the other night. I said to my son, “he’s going to get fired over the weekend”. This Nets team has too much talent to play this poorly. The quit on Vaughn. But I must say, Claxton is terrible. They need a big man and a point guard. And if Simmons can’t be that full time point guard then they have to get rid of him.
WHY did they rehire him a year ago??????!