The Man Who Can Fix Brooklyn’s Mess
The Nets should turn to a friend from the past to help save their future.
Murphy’s Law states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Seven games into this season and the stars above the Barclays Center appear to be aligning for all the wrong reasons. At this rate, the Brooklyn Nets seemed destined to finish among the worst in the league only to win the draft lottery for the Boston Celtics.
As I wrote here, there were many possible consequences of this Nets’ rebuild. One of which was the tarnishing of the Brooklyn brand thus making it an unattractive free agent destination. Why is this so important? With the Nets unable to rebuild their roster with blue chip, first round talent over the next three years, free agency seems to be the only way to prevent this team from sinking further into an abyss.
Despite all the negatives, there are still some redeeming qualities of this team. Brook Lopez is still an All-Star caliber center, Thaddeus Young is still a very solid, complementary “glue guy”, and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson has shown flashes of being an elite defender and difference maker on the court even if the box score doesn’t show it. There are some nice pieces already in place, and with an upgrade to the starting backcourt there’s potential for a competitive team in the Eastern Conference.
With Joe Johnson’s contract coming due and the expansion of the salary cap, the Nets will have over 40 million dollars to spend in the open market. The problem is, getting a difference maker (or two) to voluntarily relocate to this mess will be harder than selling a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves. After all, there has been a paradigm shift in NBA free agency where players are taking less money in order to join a team on the cusp of elite status.
The Nets will have money to spend, but what if their shopping spree ends up similarly to 2010 when they had to overpay for the likes of Travis Outlaw and Johan Petro? Will any premier free agent really take Billy King and Lionel Hollins’ pitch seriously at this point? Probably not, and that is precisely why a change needs to occur at the top.
With so little to sell, the Nets need the ultimate salesman — John Calipari. If there was anyone who could persuade marquee free agents to join him in Brooklyn, it’s him. He is someone who is well respected and beloved by players in the league, which obviously would go a long way in the recruiting process.
I know what you are already thinking, why would Calipari leave what he has in Kentucky to come to an organization that seems to be imploding before our very own eyes? Supposedly it eats at him to this day that New Jersey is the only place where he has ever failed. For a coach as successful as he has been all his life, his winning percentage during his 184 game NBA career registers at a paltry 39.1%.
There’s some unfinished business with the Nets organization and Brooklyn would be wise to hand the keys over to a more mature Calipari, who at age 56 is unlikely to commit the same mistakes he made when he was a 37 year old NBA newbie. He will probably cost a ton and demand total control in personnel decisions (what Jason Kidd wanted all along), but if he’s the difference in attracting free agents to Brooklyn, then the price tag is well worth it.
The Nets organization has put an emphasis on continuity and structure after so much instability since their move to Brooklyn. Those principles are great for any organization but not when the general manager is responsible for much of this turmoil and the coach isn’t exactly someone who appeals to the modern day athlete.
Certainly making a change at general manager and head coach (yet again) would be subject to ridicule, but at this stage it is justifiable. To continue down the same path with the same leadership could be catastrophic for this franchise’s long-term health.
The Nets have been accused in the past of making moves simply to steal back page headlines from their crosstown rivals. Hiring Calipari would certainly be a splash and generate plenty of buzz, but this is a team in need of making a bold move for the sake of their short and long-term futures.
Coach Cal was brought in back in 1996 to change the culture of a team that was the laughing stock of the league. New Jersey was headed in right direction only to have a lockout and a key injury (Sam Cassell) derail that progress a year after making the postseason.
Nearly two decades later, Calipari can be the leader the Nets’ organization has been craving all along — someone to restore credibility and respect into a team that has become the butt of all jokes, mostly from Bill Simmons.
He may just be the only man who can prevent the NBA’s version of The Great Depression.
