With New Jersey Nearing NBA Record 0-17, Nets Sack Coach Lawrence Frank

Yahoo's super reporter Adrian Wojnarowski is reporting that the Nets have offered their coaching job to GM Kiki Vandeweghe and will likely bring aboard veteran Del Harris as his lead assistant.

Wojnarowski reports that Vandeweghe is currently milling the offer over and will only take the job if he's joined by a veteran assistant coach (hence, Harris being included in the package deal).  Wojnarowski also threw out P.J. Carlisemo's name as someone who might be that veteran assistant.

The funny thing about this is that if Del Harris does come aboard, it means that he will have voluntarily gone from being an assistant coach on a playoff team (the Chicago Bulls) to being an assistant coach on the worst team in the league, as Kelly Dwyer notes. 

That reflects badly on the Bulls, Harris, or both.  Probably both.

Now that Lawrence Frank has officially been fired from the New Jersey Nets, a search for his replacement is underway. According to several sources (CBS Sportsline, New York Post, New York Daily News, among others), Nets general manager Rod Thorn will decide on Frank’s interim replacement for the rest of the season on Monday.

Ken Berger of CBS Sportsline:

The Nets will hold day-long organizational meetings Monday in New Jersey to decide whether Sunday night’s coach, Tom Barrise, will carry this team to the finish line. In addition to [general manager Kiki] Vandeweghe, Thorn also is considering assistant coach John Loyer and has interviewed at least one candidate outside the organization. (Who? Rollie Massimino?)

Barrise has been a Nets assistant for four years, while Loyer, who Julian Garcia of the New York Daily News says we shouldn’t “rule out,” was just hired this year. My money is still on Vandeweghe, because he’ll likely come cheapest and won’t stick around past this season, but the New York Post quotes a team source that said Vandeweghe is not being considered.

Of course, as is custom when an NBA coaching vacancy opens, Patrick Ewing has thrown his own hat into the ring. But I helped the best center in the game! Without me, he’d be nothing! Please hire me! Something tells me the Nets will look in another direction.

The larger issue is whether anyone would really want this job for the long term. Ownership has clearly indicated that cutting costs and preserving cap space is the goal, not winning. That’s shown with the lack of talent the Nets possess and the lack of support the franchise receives from its fans and the local market. It was bad enough that, according to Berger, former Net Vince Carter, who was just traded to Orlando in a salary dump this summer, refused to comment when asked about the Nets’ issues.

So, if you’re a Nets fan hoping that the franchise will hire a proven coach, think again. As Dave D’Alessandro of the Newark Star-Ledger writes, whoever takes over in the interim will have a nearly impossible job that most known coaches tend to avoid.

The outsider who lobbies Thorn would be viewed as a shameless opportunist — willing to elbow more qualified guys aside just for a five-month payday, run someone else’s system without the benefit of a camp, work without the loyalty of a staff that knows it’s getting fired in June anyway, and be management’s toady since he would have no other choice but to bluff his way through the next 64 games. He’d get to say this a lot: "Just working from Kiki’s suggestions right now."

"I hear what you’re saying," [Rod] Thorn said, "but for some guys, this is an opportunity. They don’t look at it as shameless. They can be familiar with the team — they could easily watch every game." (Pause here for raucous laughter).

Thorn knows the game better than anyone, and he wouldn’t dream of stepping into an environment as an outsider in midstream. Yes, Hubie Brown (Memphis) and George Karl (Denver) did it brilliantly. But they knew ownership was behind them, with a multiyear reward pending. This team can’t even pronounce the next owner’s name.

Over at SB Nation’s Nuggets blog, Denver Stiffs, Andrew Feinstein offers a look at Nets GM Kiki Vandeweghe, who spent a number of years in Denver, as well. A closer look at the Nets show Vandeweghe pulling the strings the same way he did in Denver—content to lose, cut salary, and build through the draft. But in both cases, a talented young coach was a casualty of that strategy.

First it was Denver’s Jeff Bzdelik, and now, New Jersey’s Lawrence Frank:

During Vandeweghe’s tenure with the Nets, the franchise has dealt the aging, overpaid Jason Kidd to Dallas for Devin Harris and several soon-to-be-expiring contracts including Trenton Hassell’s, sent the overpaid Richard Jefferson to Milwaukee for Yi Jianlin and Bobby Simmons’ soon-to-be-expiring contract and recently traded another max player, Vince Carter, to Orlando for the expiring contracts of Rafer Alston and Tony Battie.

Left in the wake of all these deals is the 26th lowest payroll in the NBA with the salaries of Simmons, Alston, Battie, Hassell, Keyon Dooling and Jarvis Hayes coming off the books in 2010. Plus, the Nets have one of the better young point guards in the NBA in Devin Harris, a solid center in Brook Lopez (even though my Uncle Marty claims he’s a Stiff after watching him up close against the Nuggets last week), a good swingman in Chris Douglas-Roberts and even Yi was playing well before going down with another injury. Oh, and the Nets have their own lottery pick plus the Mavericks’ first round pick in 2010.

But also left in the wake is a lost season that head coach Lawrence Frank – whom Vandeweghe inherited – is about to take the fall for. Saddled with a gutted-out, injury-riddled roster Frank is being Bzdelik’d. And it’s not fair. Lest we forget that Frank won his first 13 games in a row when he took over the Nets for Byron Scott several seasons ago. But life’s not fair (Frank does make – gasp – $4 million a year, so I don’t feel that bad for him) and unlike Bzdelik’s amazing performance in 2002-03, Frank’s team is losing all the games they’re supposed to lose.

Similar to the situation for Bzdelik in Denver, Vandeweghe won’t stand up for Frank (even though this is clearly Vandeweghe’s plan) and is just buying time before he can hire a big name coach to right the ship when LeBron James and/or other free agents and a top draft pick join the franchise next summer. Different from what happened in Denver, though, is that Vandeweghe is rumored to take over as head coach. I guess the bottom line is that when you lose your first 16 games (about to be 18), no matter how bad your roster/injury situation is your job isn’t salvageable. Good bye, Lawrence Frank.

Indeed, it’s clear that this season is part of a much broader vision for New Jersey. On Friday, I mentioned that the Nets are historically awful, and in a phenomenal situation. In fact, every game they lose this season actually helps them, provided it doesn’t affect the young players they have. As the losses mount, that just enhances New Jersey’s chances in the NBA lottery, where they’ll have the chance to add a budding superstar to go along with whatever free agents they can add this offseason.

But as Feinstein highlights, these gains don’t come without a cost. In Denver, it was then-Nuggets coach Jeff Bzdelik that was forced to fall on the sword and take responsibility for the failures of a roster that was, by and large, constructed to lose. Now, it’s happening in New Jersey and Lawrence Frank is the one taking the hit. Is it fair? Maybe not, but as mentioned in the first story Sunday morning, this is the nature of the business, and nobody understands that better than Frank, who’s making $4 million this season and will almost certainly work as a head coach again.

And for the Nets, getting rid of Frank will buy them some credibility with their fans, and take the heat off of management during a season that’s been underwhelming by design. It’s going to change soon, and when it does, KikI Vandeweghe and the Nets’ management are betting that the cost of essentially forfeiting a season will be worth it. Dispatching players like Brook Lopez and Courtney Lee to lead a team, hoping for lottery luck and lucrative returns in the offseason—it’s kind of like making a deal with the devil.

If Frank’s a casualty of that bargain, then so be it, in Vandeweghe's eyes. Frank was always looked upon as disposable, and as a veteran NBA coach, he surely knew as much. His dismissal isn’t an indication of his abilities or success as a coach, but of a broader strategy for the current Nets regime. The real success or failure of this strategy will come down the line.

Is it fair? Probably not. Is it smart? Time will tell…

Acoording to ESPN’s Mark Stein, the Nets have dismissed their head coach Lawrence Frank faster than anyone expected. With speculation mounting, it seems the media forced New Jersey’s hand, here—the Nets and President Rod Thorn had reportedly hoped to wait to make a move until after New Jersey returned from their West Coast road trip.

But again, after rumors concerning Frank’s imminent dismissal became more and more concrete in recent days—cresting with Sunday morning’s report from Yahoo! Sports—the Nets apparently felt they had to make a move immediately. So tonight, when the Nets attempt to avoid tying the Heat and Clippers for the worst start in history, they’ll do so without their head coach.

Taking over on an interim basis—like, really interim, as he’ll likely only coach tonight—is Nets Tom Barrise, while Stein reports New Jersey assistant Jon Loyer as the one of the leading candidates to take over full time for the rest of the season. Yahoo had previously mentioned Nets GM Kiki Vandeweghe as the likely interim candidate, so Loyer taking over would be a modest surprise. Time will tell…

At this point, though, we know that Frank is officially out, and Barrise will coach tonight. More to come as news emerges.