Nobody expected Steve Nash to become a coach when he was the surprise hire to take over an on-paper contender Brooklyn Nets in 2020.
Nash doesn’t expect to coach again, he told Cesare Milanti of Eurohoops.
“Coaching was a great experience, I didn’t want to be a career coach. I don’t think coaching was about to be my career. I’m coaching my kids, teaching them life. I earned the opportunity to choose, and that’s rewarding, There are always projects, affiliates, and partnerships. I always have something going on, I’m focused on my family.”
Nash is in Ljubljana, Slovenia, for Goran Dragic’s farewell game for charity. There he spoke to the media about his more than two seasons coaching a Nets team that, on paper, had the talent to win it all — Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, James Harden — but never made it out of the second round. Nash did not sound like someone looking to build on that experience in his next stop. Coaching in the NBA, particularly that Nets roster, was more about managing egos than Nash seemed to realize (partly because he was a relatively low-maintenance superstar himself).
“I hadn’t planned to coach, there was a unique situation in Brooklyn that knocked on my door. 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…
“The easy part for me was being comfortable with my leadership role, leading by example. What is actually difficult from a coaching perspective is that it’s a totally different leadership. When you’re coaching you have to lead in smaller moments. I was surprised when I coached, you’re not in the team that much. You have five minutes with players before the game, at halftime, and after the game. Those are the only times when you address the team. I wanted to connect with every player individually. Building a culture and environment where people believe and see them be their best is important. You need to feel that you want them to become the best version of themselves.”
In Nash’s first season in Brooklyn, the Nets won 48 games and were the No. 2 seed in the East, but they fell to Giannis Antetokounmpo and the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks in overtime of Game 7 in the second round — the Kevin Durant toe on the line game. The following year, the Hardenless Nets won 44 games, were the No. 7 seed, and were swept out of the playoffs by the Celtics in the first round. Nash lasted just seven games into his third season as a head coach.
After that there have not been a lot of teams beating down Nash’s door to coach — the Nets went there because Irving and Durant wanted a former player as the coach and trusted Nash (they had forced out Kenny Atkinson as coach the season before). Nash is still going to be involved in the game in some ways, and returning to another team in a consultant role like he had in Golden State before taking the Nets job seems like the kind of thing that could happen again in the right setting.
Just don’t expect to see Nash on the bench again, he’s done that and is ready to move on.
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