Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving Weren’t Consulted Before Steve Nash’s Exit, Nets’ GM Says
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Brooklyn Nets general manager Sean Marks told reporters Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving were not consulted before the team parted ways with coach Steve Nash.
The Nets and Nash agreed to a mutual parting Tuesday after a disappointing 2-5 start. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported Brooklyn is expected to hire suspended Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka to replace Nash.
A formal announcement of Udoka’s hiring could happen Wednesday. The Celtics are not expected to seek any draft compensation in return despite Udoka currently being under contract.
It’s highly unlikely Durant is losing sleep over Nash’s ouster. The future Hall of Famer pushed for the dismissal of Nash and Marks during the offseason amid his trade-demand fiasco. While governor Joe Tsai declined to make a move on either his coach or general manager at the time, giving Nash a seven-game window to turn things around was not a particularly strong vote of confidence.
Rather than promote from within—assistant Jacque Vaughn is well-regarded and led the team to a 7-3 record as the interim coach in 2020—the Nets seem determined to throw themselves into the firestorm of another controversy with Udoka.
The soon-to-be-former Celtics coach was suspended for the entire 2022-23 season after being accused of sexual misconduct. An independent investigation found Udoka made crude comments to a female Celtics employee before engaging in an inappropriate sexual relationship with the woman.
Wojnarowski wrote in September that Udoka’s words were “especially concerning coming from a workplace superior,” though no details were released by the team.
The Nets organization hiring Udoka just months after Boston took the unprecedented step to suspend him will undoubtedly raise some eyebrows. It would be fair to criticize the mixed message being sent by Tsai, who tweeted “it’s bigger than basketball” after expressing his disappointment in Irving for his promotion of an antisemitic film on social media.
Irving remains in the eye of the storm after a tense back-and-forth with a reporter Saturday night about his actions. The Nets guard refused to take responsibility for using his platform to promote the film, which utilizes antisemitic themes and tropes, and doubled down on his decision to repost an Alex Jones conspiracy theory that peddles a lie about a so-called “New World Order” controlling the world.