Everyone, Even Adam Silver, Has Thoughts on the Brooklyn Nets

I said it once and I’ll say it again…

The Brooklyn Nets know how to keep their name in the mouths of NBA people and media. After the Sunday shakeup and firing of Lionel Hollins and the reassignment of General Manager Billy King, the esteemed NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver, put in his two cents this week on what he calls “the ebb and flow” of the Brooklyn Nets.

Adam Silver talked with reporters at London’s O2 arena before the Raptors/Magic game on Thursday. Silver called what the Nets are going through nothing more than the “ebb and flow” in the normal operation of an NBA team. Also, according to Harvey Aaraton of the Times, who quoted Silver as saying Mikhail Prokhorov and Dmitry Razumov kept him informed of the changes that were made in the organization.

But as we have seen during Adam Silver’s short tenure as Commissioner, he is not stupid. He will keep it real. He politely (let’s emphasize this here!) suggested that Mikhail Prokhorov didn’t get “how difficult it is to win in this league”.

Adam Silver at the London press conference…

“There’s no doubt a fairly steep learning curve for owners coming into the league. I think in the case of Mr. Prokhorov, he’d had experience with another club, CSKA Moscow, operating in the Euroleague, a league that doesn’t have a similar salary cap system that the NBA has. While he demonstrated a willingness to pay far above our tax, what comes with that are restrictions on what free agents you can sign. He ‘went for it’ so to speak, bringing in some high profile veterans and trading away some future assets in order to try to win early on in his tenure.”

Remember when I mentioned the emphasis on polite? Well, someone else knew this way back in 2013. Who was this genius that spoke up?

Gerald Wallace.

Wallace was very pivotal in this trade to match up the salaries. His three years at $30 million was just what the doctor ordered to get Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Jason Terry into Brooklyn Nets uniforms. Even though Wallace was terrible in his last year with the Nets, he wasn’t happy about the trade.

Check out what he said to Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News…

“It was one of those stories of a get-rich-quick scheme. You either hit it big or you don’t,” Wallace said. “They took a gamble. It backfired.”

Granted, that trade was bad to get him out of town and the Nets will suffer for quite awhile. It will be the butt of many jokes for the rest of the decade, trust me.

But how about the trade that led Gerald Wallace to Brooklyn?

How about that trade that sent the first-round pick to Portland that turned out to be a certain point guard named Damian Lillard (Take a look at the point guards left on the Nets roster…think the Nets could use him?). That was not a good idea. But what made it worse was when Wallace used his own get-rich-quick scheme to opt out after the trade and get a minted $40 million over four years.

Like I said about Mr. Silver… polite. Like the business acumen used to run the Brooklyn Nets.

“Like what happens in other businesses, it comes time to reset. I think he would be first to acknowledge, although he replaced a key executive in Billy King, he was part of that process along with Billy. It comes a time, in the life of a general manager, that they need to change direction. He’s told me he will be very involved in the transition as he searches for both a new general manager and a new coach and that he’s remained involved with the operation of the team.”

Hope he does better than that Jason Kidd situation.

Remember when Jason Kidd was hired TWO WEEKS after showering for the last time as a New York Knick? Well Kidd forgot his “How to win friends and influence people” book in Madison Square Garden and went on to alienate people in a way that would have the Nets organization rethink their relationship with Deron Williams.

I bet Lawrence Frank saw all this coming.

After being signed as the highest-paid assistant in the NBA to help out Jason Kidd, who obviously could use some help on the bench considering he had never coached before, Frank went from on-the-bench defensive coordinator to be reassigned. Sound familiar?

Maybe Billy King’s assignment will never be known, even though Brooklyn’s Finest has their own ideas, here’s probably why it never will. Frank’s reassignment was “daily reports”.

DAILY REPORTS!

The rift started according to David Aldridge at NBA.com because Frank did something the Jason Kidd thought was reprehensible…

His job.

Here’s what went down…

Kidd brought Frank in to run the defense, draw up plays, be the coaches’ voice at practices. And then Frank did that. Kidd was taken aback.”

Let’s see here… Lawrence Frank is a seasoned head coach. Jason Kidd is not. Wonder who’s wrong here?

Let’s delve deeper, shall we, and see if Lawrence Frank was overstepping his boundaries by way of David Aldridge’s report.

“The assistant’s job is to stand up and call coverages,” an NBA coaching source said at the time. “Every time the offense comes down and calls a play, my defensive coach stands up and yells ‘four down’ or ‘get to the side’. Jason didn’t like it. He thought Lawrence was coaching the team.”

Well Kidd showed Frank who was boss. He did it such a professional manner… if you were in a jail cell.

The blowup Kidd had with Frank, as per Aldridge:

“Sit the (bleep) down! I’m the coach of this (13 letter word not to be guessed on this website) team! When you’re on the bench, don’t (bleeping) move!”

Now understand this, Frank used to COACH Jason Kidd. Then Kidd pushed for this hire. Then got dismissed… loudly. Then after the season, Kidd wanted Billy King’s decision power. Brooklyn said no (Maybe Adam Silver is looking at that as a silver lining… well that check does clear, too!) and Kidd went to Milwaukee after one year. That worked out about as well as Milwaukee is doing this season. Coincidence?

Who okayed all of this and wrote the check… Mikhail Prokhorov.

Maybe Gerald Wallace and Lawrence Frank can help with the reset. These guys obviously saw it. The problem is that it happened about three years before everyone else in the Brooklyn Nets organization.