Thaddeus Young Endorses Tony Brown (While Throwing Shade at Lionel Hollins)

Tony Brown won his first game as the interim head coach of the Brooklyn Nets against the New York Knicks this week. Sure, it was a game that Carmelo Anthony decided his feet hurt (actually a sprained ankle) and didn’t play, plus the Knicks were playing the second game of a back to back. Who cares? The Brooklyn Nets won a game. How many of you out there thought the Nets would win ever again? I’ll wait.

At least for now, Tony Brown has three votes for NBA’s Coach of the Year honors. Mikhail Prokhorov because, “HEY! Does he really have a choice at the moment?” Plus anytime the Brooklyn Nets can beat their crosstown rival, the Knicks, there will be an extra bonus at Christmas time. Shane Larkin will definitely have his vote ready to hand out with his small hands (Sorry Shane, The Phil Jackson/New York thing… it just fits). It definitely felt good on the bus after the game.

The guy that definitely will try to stuff the ballot box will be Thaddeus Young. In a post-game interview, Young was asked about his new coach. Young basically talked about what Young is as a coach by saying what he wasn’t. Boy, it just reeked of his discontent of Lionel Hollins.

“When your coach is not panicking and he’s continued to motivate us, it’s huge for us as an energy standpoint. It makes us want to continue to go out there and continue to play, and it doesn’t keep us thinking about what’s happening before as much.

“With us, I think our tendencies before we were harping on the fact that we were giving up leads and harping on the fact that we have some plays where we turned the ball over. But Tony’s mentality is, forget what happened before this and let’s try to push and try too win this game. That’s huge for us as a team. It says a lot that he believes in us, that he wants to compete, he believes that we can continue to win the game at any point.”

That endorsement of Tony Brown definitely threw Lionel Hollins under the bus…

aka…thrown out in the ocean with no boat…

aka…thrown out in the desert with no shade or lemonade.

This was about a classless a move as Lionel Hollins made throughout the season. If Young is supposed to be a leader, this is not what you want to do when the organization makes changes.

Look, we’ve all had bosses we couldn’t stand (Then I found Editors at TrueHoops Network at ESPN.com and suddenly the sun started shining in) but Thaddeus Young’s words may come back to bite him. No disrespect to Tony Brown but it’s only two games. Start talking after two months.

I mean, it took you about two months to change your mind about Lionel Hollins.

Check out what he said about Hollins before the start of the season…

“The good thing with Coach Hollins is you can lay it on the table and he’s going to lay it on the table,” Young said then. “He’s very, very tough. He’s hard on you. And I was telling some of the guys in the locker room, you have to be tough to be able to play for Coach Hollins. If you’re not tough, then you don’t need to be here. This is not the place for you.”

Thaddeus Young may not need to be in Brooklyn if what he said earlier was the case. Look, Hollins needed to go but he was FAR from the only reason this team was and is terrible.

Thaddeus Young cost the Nets two games by himself.

I realize that this is a long season, Mr. Young, so let me give you two examples…

1) How about that five-second call against the Los Angeles Lakers that cost the Nets a chance to get their first win?

This was when Kobe Bryant was going to retire but hadn’t let the world in on his plans yet. Both teams were winless and something had to give. With under one minute to go, Thaddeus Young gets caught holding the ball out of bounds for over five seconds.

Writers note: The rule states that a player must inbound the ball in under five seconds.

I understand that Lionel Hollins is a little heavy handed and can nag the ears off a billy goat. However, I will assume he thought you had the ability to remember that rule. If that is a serious issue, most coaches would panic too and it’s hard to stay positive. Plus it’s easy to harp on the fact to give up leads and plays when you turn the ball over when…

YOU GIVE UP LEADS AND TURN THE BALL OVER!

I’m not saying that Hollins couldn’t lighten up a little, but when the Brooklyn Nets lose nine games in a season in which it had double digit leads, to quote Chris Rock…

“I’m not saying he’s wrong… but I understand.”

If the Nets win five of these games, your team would have an outside chance of getting the eighth seed. Think about if they won them all?

But I digress…

2) How about the Golden State fiasco?

Look, I realize if Jarrett Jack had passed the ball ahead to the frontcourt instead of trying to be Marques Haynes, he would have beat the eight-second count and the Nets win.

Look, I realize that Brook Lopez is seven feet tall and it stands to reason that he could hit a two-foot shot in front of the rim. If he hits the shot, the Nets win.

But they did not speak out… you did.

The Warriors were down three. Now only you, Lionel Hollins, and the rest of the bench knows the conversation. You say that there was not supposed to be a foul. Hollins said otherwise.

Anyway, it was you taking a selfie under Andre Iguodola while he knocked down the game tying three to send it into overtime. Do you really need Lionel Hollins to understand that your team is up three and fouling Iguodola would send him to the line for two free throws?

Writer’s note: Two is less than three.

This means that the Nets would get the ball back with the lead. Throw in the fact that Iguodola is an awful free throw shooter, it makes that much more sense.

I’m going to assume that Lionel Hollins knew that and I’m praying that you could have figured that out going forward. If not Pat Riley could come back and this team would be in trouble.

Tony Brown is the most popular guy in the Nets organization right now. It doesn’t mean that things are better.