Jacque deserves this
Leaving the Getty watermark on is “my thing”
Before the NBA restart, Brooklyn Nets GM Sean Marks told Nets media members that, contrary to speculation, Jayhawk legend and interim Brooklyn Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn would be considered for the full-time job next season when Kevin Durant returns. Like all good upper management statements, Marks’s comment served as both a challenge to Vaughn while also giving the current HC a good dose of incentive. No matter your reading, the takeaway was clear—Vaughn had at least eight games to show that he was the man for the job.
Vaughn has lived up to the moment, and then some, and has extended his trial even further with the Nets clinching a playoff berth on Friday. In the bubble, he’s performed better than anyone could ever have imagined, leading the Nets to a 4-2 record despite many notable roster absences from expected participants (Spencer Dinwiddie, DeAndre Jordan) and a handful of completely new players. (Eight current Nets spent time in the G League this season, and that doesn’t include veteran gunner Jamal Crawford, who hasn’t played pro ball at all in 2020). Some of those wins were incredibly impressive, including a three-point win over the 19-point-favorite Milwaukee Bucks, the NBA’s biggest spread upset since 1993. On Sunday night, the Nets beat the other conference’s best team, the Clippers, by nine. It wasn’t really a fluke—Kawhi played 37 minutes. The Nets were 10-point underdogs. In six games, the Nets are +37 against the spread.
But the most impressive thing about Jacque’s run isn’t what he’s done at Disney’s Wide World of Sports—it's how he’s done it. The Bucks game, in particular, revealed how Vaughn’s coaching philosophies have evolved since he presided over an ill-fated rebuild in Orlando. The Bucks—whose offense has been the league’s best for two straight years—rely on Giannis striding into the paint, where the eventual MVP twists toward the cup or draws extra defenders, leaving the Buck’s group of shooters to pick apart the defense. Although you don’t see it a lot in the NBA, Jacque showed the Bucks a 3-2 zone early in the game, a formation that tactically took away the lane from Giannis while also leaving defenders patrolling the wings. They stuck with that strategy throughout the game.
The Bucks couldn’t figure it out until it was too late, and Vaughn essentially handed the rest of the Eastern Conference a blueprint for the Bucks’ blitzing style. (I expect the Bucks to adjust once their full lineup is in playoff shape, but still!)
But defense hasn’t been the only boon for Vaughn’s Nets—the offense has moved the ball better (to my eye, at least) in the bubble than they had during the preceding portion of the season. The Nets have always had good chemistry; their surprising 2018-2019 campaign surprised everyone except the people who watched their games or saw it in person. At their best, the ball rarely stuck to any one player. Everybody ate. They played fast and hard under then-head-coach Kenny Atkinson, who pushed the pace-and-space concept before it was en vogue league wide. The Nets had to grow into it a little bit, and the early experiment made for some extremely bad basketball, but eventually their roster came of age—they led the league in PACE in 2017 and the offensive efficiency eventually caught up.
But with new pieces coming in—and All-Star reinvention project D’Angelo Russell outbound—the shape of the offense changed, and the ball moved slightly more station-to-station. With a fully healthy Irving and Kevin Durant coming in the fold for the 20-21 season, it was inevitable that Atkinson’s democratic style would be at odds with the usage rate diet that superstars command.
In Orlando, Vaughn had a reputation for being rigid with his philosophies for both coaching and player development. My guess is that a piece of that ideology is a holdover from a successful five-year stint in the Spurs organization, where he played for three seasons and spent two more as an assistant on Gregg Popovich’s bench. But he inherited a much different situation in Orlando; players adhere to Pop’s accountability-demanding culture because it has a track record. In Orlando, Vaughn’s first roster included a handful of rookies and unaccomplished young players, a rapidly declining Dwight Howard, and veteran role players that didn’t tack to any specific vision.
Three years into his time with the Magic, the franchise’s on-floor success was stagnant. (Vaughn’s coaching record, 58-158, is the second-worst ever for a coach with at least 200 games under his belt). He gained the unfortunate reputation of being unable to connect with young players. While many Jayhawk fans will remember Jacque as a pretty straight arrow during his Kansas playing career, this designation was troubling—at this point, Vaughn was only three years out of his NBA playing career. Being unable to reach young NBA players in your mid-30s is… not ideal. After Orlando picked up his fourth year option, Vaughn was fired for the lack of the franchise’s progress. No one was that surprised.
This is why the version of Vaughn we’re seeing in Brooklyn is so refreshing. Brooklyn’s player-forward culture seems to have left an impression on the characteristically stern Vaughn; he even grew out a sweet quarantine beard and has made comments like “We talked about as a group the symbolism of bamboo” in post game press conferences. When Representative John Lewis passed away, Vaughn broke practice with a concise and powerful tribute—”You get to play basketball today,” he told his team.
In general, Vaughn seems much looser and more open to on-the-fly adjustments, necessary traits for a more wide-open NBA playing style. His gameplans in the bubble achieve what all great gameplans achieve—they heighten the Nets’ strengths (aggressiveness, Caris LeVert in general) while obscuring its weaknesses (defense, the fact that very few of the players know each other). While a six-game sample size is a small one—the Nets have two more games in Orlando—Vaughn has already proven that he deserves the Nets job next season. And while they’ll almost certainly get thrashed in the first round by the suddenly scary Raptors, it shouldn’t matter. He’s done his part.
But if not Brooklyn…. it seems like a job might be opening up in New Orleans.