The Brooklyn Nets shocked the NBA on Tuesday when they announced they were firing their head coach Steve Nash and replacing him with suspended Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka. This ends what had become a fairly contentious relationship between Nash and the Nets over the past few months, and shows that Brooklyn isn't content with their 2-5 start to the 2022-23 season.
Now that Nash has officially been canned, it's worth remembering that Kevin Durant demanded that Nash be fired this offseason if the Nets wanted him to rescind his trade request. Durant ended up doing so without Nash being fired, but he will get his wish just seven games into the season after Brooklyn's slow start.
Nash will shoulder much of the blame for Brooklyn's 2-5 start, but he was put in a position where he couldn't truly win. Now, he's out of a job, and the Nets are replacing him with Udoka, who was formerly an assistant coach for the Nets. Regardless of what happens for the Nets in the future, Nash's departure likely won't fix anything for the team, and here are three big reasons why that's the case.
3. The Nets remain way to reliant on Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving
The main problem for the Nets last season, especially once the playoffs rolled around, was their reliance on Durant and Kyrie Irving. If they weren't hitting their shots, the Nets were in big trouble, and that has carried over to the 2022-23 season, despite the addition of Ben Simmons to the starting lineup.
As a coach, Nash can only control so much, especially when it's been made known that the top two players on the team don't want you as their coach. Nash likely would have liked the offense to be less reliant on Durant and Irving, but how is he going to tell them to stop shooting the ball when there is already tension between them?
Chances are that won't change much with Udoka leading the way either. Durant and Irving are going to do things their way, regardless of what anyone tells them. Making Nash the scapegoat doesn't really change anything in that regard, and it certainly won't solve the issues that plague the Nets offense, with this being one of the biggest ones the team has.
2. The Nets are getting nothing from Ben Simmons
The Nets were hoping that getting Simmons back after his season long layoff would help them reemerge as one of the top teams in the league. Instead, Simmons has been pretty much useless early on, and is now dealing with a knee injury that will hold him out for the second straight game on Tuesday night.
It's not as if Nash is at fault for this; in fact, he's been doing his best to give Simmons opportunities to get involved in the team's offense from the get go. Simmons has remained passive as ever, taking just 5.7 shots per game, while failing to make his usual impact on either side of the ball.
Nash leaving suddenly isn't going to make Simmons a productive player. Nash had been giving Simmons the opportunity to take on a bigger role in the Nets offense, but he has failed to assert himself to start the season. Firing Nash isn't going to change things, and it seems unlikely anyone will be able to solve Simmons' struggles aside from Simmons himself.
1. Steve Nash isn't the reason the Nets have gotten off to a slow start
All this goes without saying that Nash isn't the reason that the Nets have gotten off to their 2-5 start to the season. He inherited a situation that no coach would be able to overcome, and it caught up to him. With Durant and Irving still on the team, and the Nets still struggling, Brooklyn's front office clearly feels like they had to abide by their star players' wishes and move on from Nash.
The Nets have problems up and down their roster that firing Nash won't fix. Not only is Simmons struggling, but there's tension all throughout the organization after their rocky offseason, the team still doesn't have a ton of depth, and Irving has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately.
The Nets are a mess, and adding a coach in Udoka who was suspended by his own team in the Celtics (not by the NBA) for having an affair with a team employee likely isn't going to help matters. Brooklyn has already begun to go up in flames, and replacing Nash with Udoka is like throwing a bucket of gasoline on an already burning flame. Things are already bad in Brooklyn, and chances are they will only continue to get worse moving forward.
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