Steve Nash getting fired by the Brooklyn Nets happened recently, and there’s no doubt that this was a huge shock to the NBA community. We rarely see coaches get fired this early in the season.
Perhaps one of the reasons that Steve Nash and the Brooklyn Nets decided to part ways was due to the coach losing the locker room. In fact, Sean Marks previously stated that Steve Nash told him that the team stopped responding to him.
“He’s an intelligent man, he has great feel, great poise… When we’re having these conversations, he’s aware of, ‘Hey, they’re not responding to me right now’ or ‘That was not the performance I needed to see out there.’ We were open with our dialogue.”
Even beyond Nash’s own admission, it seems as though there are documented instances of players simply not doing what he asked. It seems as though one of those situations was recently revealed.
Kyrie Irving Refused To Execute Steve Nash’s Play Calls
A recent report by NBA insider Marc Stein revealed that during one of Steve Nash’s final games with the Brooklyn Nets, there were “10 easy-to-spot occasions” where Kyrie Irving disregarded Steve Nash’s play calling and “ran something completely different.”
In just the sixth game of the season, Brooklyn lost at home to an Indiana team presumed to be rebuilding around the nascent duo of Tyrese Haliburton and rookie Bennedict Mathurin. A grim-faced Nash, at the postgame podium, openly called the loss “a disaster” and said the Nets were lacking in “will.”
“Without that sustainability of effort, that will, it’s not going to turn, so we’ve got to make some decisions,” Nash stunningly said.
When the head coach, before we’ve even made it to Halloween, is publicly admitting that he’s not seeing those basics from players, it’s usually over.
In various corners of the NBA scouting community, furthermore, it had already become clear that Nash was being tuned all the way out. Advance scouts have extensive knowledge of opposing team play calls … and I heard from one club that, in one of Nash’s final games, there were in the ballpark of 10 easy-to-spot occasions that Irving ran something completely different after Nash shouted the play he wanted.
Obviously, this action is disrespectful to Steve Nash, and it is unfortunate that he had to deal with that. There were reports that Kyrie Irving hated Steve Nash previously, and perhaps it is best that Steve Nash ended up leaving the Brooklyn Nets, as it is clearly not the optimal situation for him.
Hopefully, we see Steve Nash get another coaching job in the future. He had to deal with a lot of tough situations during his time with the Brooklyn Nets, and his time with the team shouldn’t be used as an indictment of his coaching ability.
