The Brooklyn Nets will look completely different when they resume the 2019-20 NBA season against the Orlando Magic on July 31.
Brooklyn will be without five key players, three of which tested positive for COVID-19. Another big-name player, Kevin Durant, will not resume the campaign after sitting out up to this point due to the Achilles injury he suffered in last year’s NBA Finals as a member of the Golden State Warriors
The two-time NBA Finals MVP is now making it clear who he wants to see the Nets replace recently-fired head coach Kenny Atkinson with. It’s a familiar face.
Kevin Durant reportedly wants Nets to hire Mark Jackson
“If you’re paying close attention to social media. Rich Kleiman, who is Kevin Durant’s business partner and is very influential, has been Tweeting about Mark Jackson recently,” ESPN’s Brian Windhorst reported Thursday. “He hasn’t Tweeted, ‘I want Mark Jackson to coach the Nets’, but there was a story in the New York Post just this last week where it was posited about Mark Jackson or Jason Kidd, who obviously was with the Nets before and left after one year. You know, (Kleiman) pretty much said he liked the idea. It is known that Mark Jackson and Kevin Durant have a good relationship.”
This would be somewhat crazy in that Jackson was fired by Golden State following a 51-win 2013-14 season. He was ultimately replaced by Steve Kerr. The rest is history in Northern California. The backdrop here obviously being a contentious relationship between the Warriors’ brass and Jackson years before Durant’s arrival in Oakland.
As of right now, Jacque Vaughn is the interim head coach for the Nets. He’s highly unlikely to hold that title on a full-time basis following the season short of Brooklyn putting up a shocking playoff run.
As for Durant, he also didn’t leave the Warriors on the greatest of notes following last season. One has to wonder exactly what type of relationship the future Hall of Famer has with Mr. Jackson. They have never crossed paths as player/coach throughout their careers.