Former Brooklyn Nets head coach Steve Nash endured a challenging and exciting time when he served the team from 2020 to 2022. Nash tackled the challenge of managing lineups featuring multiple stars, including Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden. Although Nash's coaching tenure with Brooklyn did not end how he imagined, he learned valuable lessons from the experience.
Nash amassed a 94-67 record during his time with the Nets, a respectable showing. However, like many coaches, he faced criticism for his lineups and management of the team's talent. What initially made Nash attractive to Brooklyn was his relationship with Kevin Durant. Nash was a player development consultant for the Golden State Warriors for Durant's entire tenure in the Bay Area. Durant and Nash seemed to do okay in Brooklyn, but the Nets never escaped the second round of the playoffs.
Despite his experience with the Warriors, Nash made an eye-opening admission about his coaching mentality before he joined the Nets.
“I hadn’t planned to coach, there was a unique situation in Brooklyn that knocked on my door," Nash revealed, via EuroHoops.net. "It was a quick transition. You deal with a different dynamic. A lot of it is managing personalities, between front offices, players, and agents. That’s a huge component of my job. All the dynamics, personalities, and power that the players hold nowadays.”
Steve Nash's Nets tenure is a fond memory for fans
When Steve Nash was Brooklyn's head coach, the team had high expectations. During the 2020-21 season, Nash's first year, the Nets boasted several different starting lineups, but their unit of Kyrie Irving, Spencer Dinwiddie, Joe Harris, Kevin Durant, and Jarrett Allen was one of the most offensively potent in the league.
The Nets opened the season with a memorable 125-99 win over the Warriors that had fans enthused. Brooklyn proceeded to go 48-24 in the shortened season, which earned them the second seed in the Eastern Conference playoff picture. The period that followed was nothing short of spectacular.
After beating the Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs, the Nets took on the Milwaukee Bucks in an unforgettable series. Kevin Durant nearly secured a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals for Brooklyn, but he and his squad ran out of gas and succumbed to a 115-111 defeat. The loss marked one of Steve Nash's toughest of his Nets' tenure and was the closest he got the team to glory.
Brooklyn parted ways with Nash in November of 2022. Yet, his time in the borough was one of the most exciting in Nets history. While Nash and several stars of the recent past are gone, Nets fans can still be excited for the new era, as Sean Marks continues to lead the team's rebuild.