The Nets Fire Lionel Hollins and Reassign Billy King...Everything Coming Up Ainge!
(ESPN) The Brooklyn Nets have fired coach Lionel Hollins and reassigned general manager Billy King in the midst of their worst season since moving from New Jersey.
The Nets said Sunday that assistant Tony Brown will serve as the interim head coach, and the GM position will remain open until a replacement is hired.
Clem covered this news from the NY side of the coin, but I fell as though it is my duty to shed some light on this from the Boston side. WHAT A DAY! It’s not often that a Celtics fan and a Knicks fan can join forces and point and laugh at those idiots from Brooklyn, but here we are. Two years later, this trade is simply the trade that keeps on giving. The Nets are every bit as terrible as we hoped they would be when this trade was first announced, and frankly there are no signs that they are headed in a direction that would be described as “good”. To make things even better, there are rumors that they are looking to move/buy out Joe Johnson, so things could get even worse in the coming weeks, if that’s even possible.
At 10-27, and 3-12 over their last 15, things are clearly going according to plan. What I fear is that with these moves, the Nets could actually get slightly better. See now that Billy King isn’t there to ruin the franchise, and Lionel Hollins isn’t there to mismanage games, there is the possibility that the Nets actually win some more games. This has me a bit conflicted, because the more games they win, the less likely they are to have the worst record and highest lottery percentage. On the other side, the worst record in the league has only won the lottery once in the last 10 YEARS.
With this news, if you were to ask me, I think this encourages Danny Ainge to keep his pick, but it’s an interesting argument because there haven’t been back to back worst record winners in the HISTORY of the lottery. Sort of unrealistic to think this could be the year that it happens. That’s why I’m starting to warm up to the idea that the Nets either stay at their current pace, or even get slightly better. There is a chance that the worse the Nets get, the more inclined Danny is to move the pick simply for this reason. But maybe not.
Either way, it’s safe to say that all the pain that came with losing Garnett and Pierce was clearly worth it, and if he hasn’t already, it’s time for Danny Ainge to take another victory lap. Now if the Kings could just hire Billy King to run their team, we would really be onto something.