Anyone hoping for the same type of reaction from the Nets after their last coaching change had to be disappointed last night. But there are some major differences.
When Byron Scott was fired in 2004, the players wanted him out. They had stopped playing for him. They knew they were good and could turn it on at any moment, and that’s what Jason Kidd and company did for Lawrence Frank, reeling off 13 consecutive wins after he took over.
After Frank was ousted yesterday, the Nets had to play the reigning champion Lakers in their building at the end of a long, dreary trip. They didn’t have a day or so to catch their breaths. And there are no Hall of Famers on this team, no one to lead them the way Kidd did. At this point, the Nets would be happy to win 13 games this season.
For the most part, these guys were playing hard for themselves more so than the coach. They were trying to win to prove they could and to avoid being the team that shared or held the record for the worst start to a season.
There were some genuinely upset players after Frank was fired because so much of what’s happened to the Nets this season was not his fault.
Nets president Rod Thorn said the team “needed a different voice,” before the team fell to 0-17. Yes, in the end, it seemed like some of the players had tuned out Frank because the team got worse as they worked cornerstones Devin Harris and Courtney Lee back into things.
But there was going to be an adjustment period –- still is -– and we said all along that the players coming back had to play with the same effort and defensive intensity the great eight had been. Let’s be real: they haven’t.
There will be adjustments galore now. Players will have to get used to a new voice and different philosophies or schemes. The new coach –- who probably will come from within –- will have to adjust as key players continue to come back.
Harris and Lee are getting their legs back and then it will be Yi Jianlian and then Jarvis Hayes and Keyon Dooling. Yet whoever takes over will have a better chance of winning than Frank because he will have a full complement of players at some point.
You can second-guess and Monday-morning quarterback so many things, but if Harris hadn’t missed 10 games, the Nets would not be 0-17 right.
They probably would have won in Charlotte –- a game they should have won anyway -– and would have taken one of the two three-point losses to the Sixers. If Chris Douglas-Roberts had been healthy for those two games, the Nets would have had one of them.
Yes, the games would have gone differently, and who knows if the Nets would have played as strong defensively. But they would have had better chances to score. In those three in particular, the Nets scored 68, 94 and 79 points, respectively.
Make no mistake, we still think the Nets should have won some of those games, several of the 17 they have played thus far, and had they, Frank would still be coaching. If the Nets close out Minnesota -– when they’re starting five was whole -- and protect their 19-point second-half lead, the whole season might be different. Maybe they win the Charlotte game even without Harris.
But as much as this is a resilient team, it seems to be a fragile one, too. If a team makes a run, the Nets seem to have a “here-we-go-again” mind frame and have trouble stopping the surge or gathering themselves.
Everyone knows the job of his successor will be what Frank’s job was when season started: to develop the young players. Frank had to do that and still try to win some games. The new coach has to play Harris, Lee, Brook Lopez, Yi, and Douglas-Roberts the bulk of the minutes. It’s about next season and beyond, and they have to see what they have and show prospective free agents what they can be.
They may be scared off by 0-17. Maybe the next coach can make those numbers more attractive. Eventually, he should have a better team than Frank did.
Al Iannazzone covers the Nets for The Record (Bergen County, N.J.)
