The reshuffling of the Nets’ coaching employees is continuing, with the envisioned using the services of of Mavericks assistant coach Igor Kokoskov to serve as an assistant to Steve Nash.
The pair have a extensive-standing romance from their days jointly on Mike D’Antoni’s “Seven Seconds Or Less” staff with the Suns. Nash had tried using to employ Kokoskov when he took in excess of the Nets in 2020 and, two years later, is at last established to get his gentleman. The news was to start with reported by Marc Stein on Substack.
Kokoskov has a popularity for player progress, which is a thing Nets standard supervisor Sean Marks mentioned final month his workforce ought to get back again to. Kokoskov, a Serbian, also received an NBA title as a Pistons assistant in 2004.
The 50-calendar year-old Kokoskov will be not only an skilled sounding board for Nash, but also a trustworthy one. He has three many years of pro coaching encounter in the NBA and overseas, and was an assistant in Phoenix from 2008-2013, with Nash the star place guard for the 1st 4 of all those five campaigns.
In addition to Nash, Kokoskov is common with Kyrie Irving from getting spent the 2013-14 time as an assistant with the Cavaliers. Following assistant stints with Orlando and Utah, he took the head-coaching publish for Slovenia and guided them to an upset earn in the 2017 FIBA EuroBasket championship, with Luka Doncic and Nets no cost agent guard Goran Dragic.
Kokoskov parlayed that into a return to Phoenix in 2018. Currently possessing been the initially European-born assistant in the NBA (with the Clippers from 2000-03), his lone period jogging the Suns created him the first head mentor in the league born and lifted outside the house of North The us.
From 2019-21, he coached the Serbian Nationwide Group (with present-day Nets stash decide on Nikola Milutinov), and he expended past time reunited with Doncic in Dallas.
Now, he would seem set for a reunion with Nash (and Irving) in Brooklyn.
A lot has been made about the Nets getting rid of previous assistant Ime Udoka to Boston last offseason, and how their disappointing season ended at the arms of Udoka’s Celtics, who defeat the Warriors in Activity 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday evening.
Development coach Amar’e Stoudemire (who was with Nash and Kososkov in Phoenix) has already still left the Nets’ workers. Assistants David Vanterpool and Adam Harrington — who doubles as director of player development — are envisioned to adhere to, leaving extra vacancies on the staff members.
It is unclear if Steve Clifford — a former head coach with equally Charlotte and Orlando — will return as a consultant. He interviewed and was a finalist for the Kings position.
Previous Hornets head mentor James Borrego is on the open up current market, and has been joined with the Nets by NetsDaily.
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