Kevin Ollie led his first practice as Brooklyn Nets interim head coach on Tuesday. His promotion follows an 8-23 stretch that has dropped the Nets to 11th place in the Eastern Conference, resulting in general manager Sean Marks abruptly firing Jacque Vaughn.
For a team hoping to attract stars in the coming seasons, the recent slide was enough for Marks to move on from the third head coach of his eight-year Brooklyn tenure. And the change was made with a playoff push in mind.
“You hope you don’t have to make these decisions,” Marks said of firing Vaughn. “But at the end of the day, we’re in a results-driven business. I looked back and said, well, this isn’t where this team needs to be, and this is not the direction we need to be heading in. And so that’s when you have to make these tough decisions.
“With 28 games to go and 55 days before the playoffs start, it’s time for us to get some movement from this group. The expectation for Kevin as the new head coach is to come in and get that movement.”
Ollie, who won a national championship as the UConn Huskies men's basketball head coach in 2014, understands the task in front of him and what being successful could mean ahead of Brooklyn's coaching search this upcoming offseason.
“I want to be the permanent coach here,” Ollie said. “We're all auditioning these 28 games, players included. We have to be in the same boat, rowing in the same direction, and get this done… We got 28 games in 55 days. We want to make a push, make a push for a playoff run, and that’s what I want our guys to concentrate on. The playoffs are one thing, but it’s every day. Can we win every day? I think those results will follow that.”
What changes can the Nets expect under Kevin Ollie?
How will the Nets get there? For starters, Kevin Ollie called out a lack of hustle and made it clear he would demand more in that area. The coach said he has a list of 17 “EGBs” (energy-generating behaviors) that were gone over “extensively” at Tuesday's practice.
“That’s how I coach. That’s what I’m going to demand,” he said. “We can’t be 30th in loose balls. We can’t have five charges on the season. We can’t have those things. That’s losing basketball with me. Winning and losing, that’s part of the results, but it’s also the process, and the process is these energy-generating behaviors. How we get lost in those things, and how we hunt for them each and every day.”
“I want hunters. If you hunt, you’re going to play. If you don’t hunt, you’re not going to play.”
Kevin Ollie said he has a list of 17 "EGBs" (energy-generating behaviors) that were gone over “extensively” today:
“I want hunters. If you hunt, you're gonna play. If you don’t hunt, you're not gonna play.” pic.twitter.com/tqgtBzPDjD
— Erik Slater (@erikslater_) February 21, 2024
Following a 50-point loss to the Boston Celtics, which is now the second largest loss in franchise history, Mikal Bridges voiced his displeasure with the team's lack of structure offensively. While Ollie has begun implementing schematic changes, the coach will have just two practices before his first game on Thursday against the Toronto Raptors.
“We're putting some new things in on the offensive end, on the defensive end. But there's not a lot of time. It's like a two-day crash course,” he said. “You can't invent the wheel in two days. There's some things that I thought we did well and we want to build on those… Are the [changes I make] going to be prominent the first day? Probably not. It's going to take time with those.”
“But we want to see evidence of more effort and more energy. Those things can happen immediately. Those things we can control. We can control our attitude. We can control the energy that we bring, the effort that we have. And those are the things I really want to concentrate on. I want to be a manager of effort and energy. I want to be prepared and I want to execute.”
While a midseason coaching switch is difficult for any team, Kevin Ollie, who played for 12 NBA teams in 13 seasons, said he is “built for” operating under change. Meanwhile, Bridges, who was reportedly vocal behind the scenes about his displeasure with the offense Vaughn had been running, emphasized the need for players and coaches to be on the same page.
“It’s tough but ain’t no time to whine and cry about it,” Bridges said of the coaching change. “You got 28 games [left], you got to be ready. It happens all the time. So, obviously, it’s tough, but the main goal is to win, so we got to keep going [and] keep the main goal the main goal.”
“We’ve just got to be on the same page with everybody; with the coaches and players. They’ve got hold us to the standard, we've hold each other accountable. We’ve got to play hard. It's never 100 percent on coaches, 100 percent on players. It’s a mix, it's togetherness… We can't mope around. I've had bad body language, just personally. And that comes through frustrations. I want to win. But I can't let that get to me where I show to my teammates that like I'm down and I just shut down. Even when times get tough, like, f**k it, pick your head up and be ready.”
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