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Sure, the Nets have already Kevin Durant, MVP of the Olympics, to an extension that can preserve the very best participant on the earth by means of 2026. And sure, that they had the Co-MVP within the Summer season League, a twenty seventh choose who seems to be like a (if not the) steal of the Draft. To not point out getting Patty Mills’s signature on the taxpayers’ MLE, an addition a couple of pundit has referred to as the very best match amongst low season signings.
However the Nets have additionally reconstructed their teaching workers, including two assistant coaches in David Vanterpool and Brian Keefe, a participant growth assistant coach in Kyle Korver and a training marketing consultant in Steve Clifford.
Vanterpool left Minnesota for Brooklyn and Keefe final labored with the Thunder earlier than the Nets. Brooklyn did lose Ime Udoka to Boston and Mike D’Antoni to New Orleans, however Vanterpool and Keefe are hardly comfort prizes. Each have nice reputations with Vanterpool a possible head coach within the not-too-distant future. Earlier than that, although, he’s going to be working with Brooklyn’s finest. Per week in the past, actually, he was noticed in Houston, coaching with James Harden and Nic Claxton.
As Alec Schiffer of The Athletic notes, the Nets obtained perhaps the very best assistant coach within the NBA to affix their workers.
As Udoka had, Vanterpool has interviewed for a number of head positions prior to now, however he’s nonetheless ready to listen to his identify referred to as for a high job.
Those that know him finest consider a powerful stint with the Nets can change that.
In his abstract of low season strikes, Sam Vecenie, considered one of Schiffer’s colleagues on The Athletic, referred to as the rent a strong “rebound” after dropping Udoka and D’Antoni.
Within the final a number of years, Vanterpool has been NBA’s final teaching bridesmaid, being interviewed for head teaching gigs with the Nuggets, Magic, Cavaliers, Rockets, Pelicans and Bulls. He was thought-about however handed over for the top teaching job in Minnesota final February. The Timberwolves as a substitute went exterior the group to rent Chris Finch, a Raptors assistant with out speaking to the 48-year-old . That angered a number of advocates for hiring black head coaches, together with excessive profile gamers who had labored with him.
Schiffer talked to a lot of individuals who know Vanterpool and he guarantees to convey a uniqueness to the Nets workers along with his emphasis on growing gamers and defensive toughness. Whereas with the Blazers, Vanterpool was credited with serving to Portland’s Damian Lillard and C.J. McCallum turn into one of many NBA’s high backcourts. In reality, it was that success that first put him on Steve Nash’s radar.
Vanterpool’s work with Lillard and McCollum helped get him on Nash’s radar. (Blazer coach Jay) Triano was doubling as the top coach of the Canadian Nationwide Workforce, and he invited Vanterpool to work with the workforce over the summer season. Nash was the workforce’s common supervisor and obtained his first up-close take a look at Vanterpool, whose work with the Canadian workforce grew to become so lauded that McCollum needed in.
“I do know I’m not Canadian, however can I come up and work out with you guys?” McCollum requested Triano, who acquiesced and McCollum set to work with Vanterpool and Nash.
One factor Nash likes about Vanterpool, Schiffer notes, is that he isn’t afraid to precise his opinion to superstars, which is large when your roster options Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving.
Additionally, KD and Harden have a long-standing relationship with Vanterpool. He served within the Thunder entrance workplace (with Keefe on the teaching workers) when OKC was a Western Convention contender.
“He’s a hooper,” Nolan Smith, an assistant coach for Duke who performed for Vanterpool in Portland, grew up with Durant and performed with Irving in faculty, informed Schiffer. “He likes to be within the health club, he likes to compete, likes to win, he’s going to provide these gamers the creativity and the liberty to be Kyrie to be KD to be who they’re, however he’s additionally going to problem them intellectually, bodily, emotionally, he’s going to make them higher. And people guys need that problem.”
Though Royal Ivey, the Nets assistant, isn’t a newcomer to the workers, he’ll have some new credentials when the Nets begin coaching camp in San Diego on September 27.
Ivey is the brand new coach of the South Sudan nationwide workforce. The nation, the world’s youngest nation, is enjoying in FIBA’s AfroBasket for the primary time. On Thursday, he obtained South Sudan into the AfroBasket quarter-finals with a win over Uganda. They play defending champion Tunisia Tuesday morning.
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