Jacque Vaughn says he by no means gave it a lot thought, nevertheless it’s been the elephant within the room concerning his teaching tenure in Brooklyn.
What if the Nets handed him over once more?
When the Nets fired Kenny Atkinson, Vaughn piloted a 7-3 run within the Orlando Bubble and led the workforce into the playoffs as interim coach — solely to be demoted again to an assistant for a rookie head coach in Steve Nash.
And when the Nets dismissed Nash seven video games into this season, all indications pointed towards the workforce poaching Ime Udoka from the Boston Celtics, although Udoka had been suspended the whole season for sexual misconduct with a feminine staffer.
What the workforce wanted was on the bench the whole time: Vaughn, who shed the interim title earlier this season and was rewarded with a remainder of the season deal. The Nets signed Vaughn to a contract extension on Tuesday. The extension is predicted to maintain Vaughn in Brooklyn via the 2026-27 season, and it got here from the identical group that realized — perhaps a number of seasons too late — it had a star coach on the town all alongside.
“I just kept doing my job, and it’s a great lesson for my kids,” Vaughn stated on a Zoom convention name with reporters on Wednesday. “It’s like, ‘good news, bad news, who knows?’ that previous fable. So you simply proceed to do your job, and you persist, and also you like to grind, and so they know that’s part of me. I’ve seen all of it right here, whether or not it’s a number of coaches, it’s the bubble, whether or not it’s a toenail over the three-point line, whether or not it’s commerce requests, whether or not it’s all the above. So to nonetheless be part of this group means so much to me.
“That means the way I carry myself on a daily basis, people appreciate it. And so there’s something to that, but at the end of the day, I just kept doing my job and showing up every single day and ready to rumble every single day.”
Vaughn has a 32-19 document as Nets head coach this season, turning the tide after Nash began the season 2-5 as coach. He has been integral in holding gamers accountable and demanding everybody play their hardest irrespective of what number of minutes they’re getting on a nightly foundation. He is not the identical younger coach who amassed a 58-158 document as head coach of the Orlando Magic.
Now, his lengthy, grey beard represents the expertise and knowledge he’s gained on the sidelines over time.
Nets normal supervisor Sean Marks known as Vaughn the “catalyst” for saving this workforce’s season after an abysmal begin to the 12 months. Marks not solely doubled down on that sentiment along with his phrases, however the group put its cash the place its mouth is by signing him to a long-term extension,
“Jacque has made an immediate and immeasurable impact on our entire organization since assuming the role of head coach earlier this season,” Marks stated in an announcement. “On the court, he’s clearly demonstrated his leadership through his ability to connect and communicate at a very high level while displaying tremendous instincts for the game. As a person, they don’t come any better than Jacque. His character is impeccable, and there is not a better representative for our team and our borough. We are thrilled to have Jacque lead the Nets for years to come.”
And but the work is simply getting began. There’s no query that famous person gamers like Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving make life simpler for a head coach on the court docket. Now, Vaughn’s teaching chops will probably be put to the check: The Nets traded their star energy for size, depth and flexibility.
It’s on Vaughn to make these new items match. The Nets enter the second leg of the season with the Eastern Conference’s fifth-best document, however the have the seventh-most tough remaining schedule in all of basketball, and so they not have famous person scorers to bail them out down the stretch in video games.
They do, nonetheless, consider they’ve a famous person coach, as evidenced each the contract extension and the way the workforce has rallied round their chief on the sidelines throughout some of the tumultuous seasons in Nets historical past.
“I think it’s a huge acknowledgment, just for the staff, for the comfort of the players knowing my voice, and the direction going forward,” Vaughn stated. “I think being able to really lean into loving this grind and the challenge that’s ahead. Never feared or not walked through those doors before; and so to get rewarded for it, it’s pretty cool. For my family and for the borough of Brooklyn, and how important and what that’s come to mean to me, it’s great to be on the same page with the organization.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com