Mikhail Prokhorov has seen his win-now philosophy blow up in his face.
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Centre Brook Lopez led Brooklyn with 18 points and forward Joe Johnson added 16 for the Nets, who lost their 10th consecutive home game. Thanks to the Garnett/Pierce trade, the Nets don’t control their own first round pick until 2019, which would seem to make rebuilding through the draft almost impossible.
After his dismissal as Brooklyn Nets general manager, Billy King’s reassignment is expected to include advising ownership on its search for King’s successor, league sources told Yahoo Sports. It was said that King would stay within the organization, or “reassigned”, but Mikhail Prokhorov clarified what type of role he may have. “I think we have been really bold, and we did our best in order to reach a championship”. San Antonio has been relevant for almost 20 years because of great players, certainly, but also because the teams doesn’t lose sight of the future for short sided goals.
He’ll try to do that with new leadership that he hopes will help clarify what kind of team the Nets want to be and what kind of personnel they will need.
He was swayed by the Nets’ strengths – the NY market, a state-of-the-art arena and new training facility soon to follow, salary cap space – in thinking a quick turnaround is possible.
“We have everything the best”, he said. “So for me it’s a very important lesson”. “I am all in”. Frank Zanin, the assistant GM, will temporarily field phone calls from other teams and perform other personnel chores.
Brooklyn Nets interim head coach Tony Brown talks to San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich before an NBA basketball game between the Nets and the Spurs, Monday, Jan. 11, 2016, in NY. “He’s a fighter and he’ll go out and do it the way he thinks is best to do it and he won’t apologize for it. And [if] it works, it works”. The John Calipari’s don’t deserve the job and the Tom Thibodeau’s won’t be interested, so Brooklyn needs a different strategy.
“We battled tonight”, coach Randy Wittman said.
San Antonio won 100-99 over NY on Friday to get to 22-0 at home and extend its winning streak to seven, its second such run of the season separated from the first one by an 88-84 loss in Houston on Christmas Day. We put a lot of names on the list.
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The differences this time around are that Calipari reportedly already has salary demands, and his first time as Nets head coach was such a flop that his ego may require him to fix that mistake and cement his legacy with success at the professional level.
