NEW YORK -- When Steve Nash arrived in New York Monday, a day before playing the Knicks, he updated his Twitter account with the following: "In the Empire State. I love this city."
He loves its coaches, too.
Some will poke fun at the Nets' decision to hand the interim reins to Kiki Vandeweghe, who has no head coaching experience. Vandeweghe, himself, wasn't expecting this. He didn't join Rod Thorn in New Jersey two years ago -- first as a consultant, and then as the full-time GM -- to explore a second career on the bench.
But let's put the brakes on this notion that Vandeweghe is some sort of basketball neophyte. Bringing Del Harris along as a lead assistant was Vandeweghe's idea. Call Harris the personification of training wheels if you want, but don't call him a "co-coach."
Not around Nash, anyway.
The prolific point guard led the Suns, with a league-best 14-3 record, into Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night to face a 3-14 team coached by his former co-pilot, Mike D'Antoni. But he has a history with Vandeweghe, too. At the dawn of the decade, Nash and Dirk Nowitzki were young players trying to find their way in Dallas, and Vandeweghe was there to mentor and develop them as an assistant coach and player development director.
"He was always there for us," Nash said Tuesday at the Garden. "He'd go to the gym with us any time of the day or night. He was there before and after practice. He was a very bright guy and I think, more than anything at that young age in our careers, he gave us confidence. At that stage of your career, a lot of things are unknown. If you're an analytical player, if you overthink or you don't have as much confidence as you should, you need to simplify things more. And I think he was a good sounding board for that stuff because of his experience and his intelligence."
The 0-17 Nets -- who will be coached by Tom Barrise on Wednesday night when they try to avoid breaking the record for the NBA's worst start -- sure could use some encouragement and confidence right about now. Vandeweghe is far from a long-term solution; in fact, he's been assured by team president Thorn that he will return to to the front office after the season, as long as Thorn is making that decision. But for now, Vandeweghe's strength in the development of players and his even-keeled personality might be what the Nets need to salvage some semblance of dignity and progress out of a disastrous season.
"This year was always going to be a developmental year," Vandeweghe told me on the phone as he drove to the news conference where he would be introduced as the new coach. "And it was always going to be about the young players and building our foundation."
The direction will be a little different, Vandeweghe said. He wants to play "a little quicker," and you can expect to see more of first-round pick Terrence Williams, who has a bright future but needs the steady hand of an experienced mentor to begin reaching his potential.
• Vandeweghe takes over in New Jersey
"We're in the midst of a rebuild," Vandeweghe said. "Rebuilds are tricky, and they're painful at times and have a lot of twists and turns. You've got to get a real close-hand look at our players, getting to know them personally in a way that you couldn't as the GM. It also gives you players, at least on some level, in the free-agent market that you get to look at on the front line. It's a unique opportunity that doesn't come along all the time. Maybe we can take advantage of it."
Vandeweghe's desire to run and his loosely wound personality should be good for point guard Devin Harris, who can be difficult to coach. Vandeweghe already has formed a solid bond with perhaps the Nets' best asset, second-year center Brook Lopez. After Lawrence Frank's final home game as the Nets' coach last week, Vandeweghe was chatting in the hallway outside the locker room when Lopez walked by and asked if he was joining the team in Denver. "You're a legend there," said Lopez, who knows his basketball history. Not only that, but Vandeweghe has been one of the primary instructors at Pete Newell's prestigious big-man camp for two decades. Developing Lopez into a top-shelf NBA center is far more important than wins.
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| Kiki Vandweghe helped develop Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki. The Nets hope he can do the same for Brook Lopez and Devin Harris. (AP) |
On the other side of the river, there couldn't be a more appropriate forum for the critics to take aim at D'Antoni than a night when his former team comes into the Garden with a transposed record, piloting D'Antoni's own system with far better results. Thus, some have begun to write off D'Antoni's successful run in Phoenix as a function of Nash's unique abilities, not coaching. It's absurd, Nash said.
"Mike's a great coach," Nash said. "That's never going to change. Sometimes, great coaches can have bad seasons, and great players can have bad seasons. It doesn't change what they've accomplished in the past. It's all speculation, but from experience, I know Mike's a great coach."
Unlike Frank, who was in the last year of his contract, D'Antoni has job security and is among the most powerful coaches in the league. But his reputation has taken a hit with a rebuilding job that is more difficult than both he and Donnie Walsh imagined. It's so daunting, in fact, that several teams have quietly begun inquiring about how long he will last in New York. One person familiar with the situation said teams that anticipate being in the market for a head coach next summer are asking if the Knicks' struggles "might be an opportunity for them." And what do they like about D'Antoni that his growing chorus of critics fails to see?
"He's still protecting his players, who are at best, second-line types," the person said. "That is hard to find in today's coaching ranks."
Not in these parts. Now there's one on either side of the Hudson River.
