It was a sleepy, cloudy morning outside HSS Training Center on Monday, hours before the Brooklyn Nets were set to take on the Philadelphia 76ers in their third pre-season game. James Harden was never expected to take the court for the affair, and during Brooklyn’s shoot-around, we learned that Joel Embiid would be missing the action as well…
Jacque Vaughn did not speak with the media at Monday’s shoot-around, given that we’ll see him during pre-game at the Barclays Center. Thus, no injury updates on Dennis Smith Jr. (ankle), Cam Johnson (foot), or Nic Claxton (glute). Day’Ron Sharpe did speak, however, and told reporters that he is “back on the court, playing with the coaches, so I feel pretty good…I wouldn’t say [his sprained left ankle] is 100%, but about to be there.”
Sharpe, however, wasn’t as interested in discussing his ankle — which he rolled after just two minutes of playing time in Brooklyn’s first preseason game — as he was in discussing the coaching staff he’s been competing against.
“These guys, they’re out here playing just as hard as us, even demonstrating the drills,” said Sharpe. “I just feel all the coaches got the same energy, the same vibes as the team is trying to have.”
For Sharpe and his fellow 2021 draft alumnus, Cam Thomas, this cohesion throughout the coaching staff represents a stark change from the beginning of their careers. Remember, Sharpe and Thomas joined the Nets during the summer in which Ime Udoka and Mike D’Antoni, Steve Nash’s top assistant, departed.
Then, of course, their sophomore years were marked by Nash’s firing just eight games into the season, and Vaughn’s subsequent elevation into the Interim Head Coach role. Brooklyn didn’t remove the “interim” tag on Vaughn’s position until February 21, after the departure of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, when they announced a four-year extension.
When asked if he’s seen a difference from his head coach entering this less tumultuous season, Thomas acknowledged the weight now absent from Vaughn’s shoulders:
“I probably would say just being more comfortable as far as knowing that it’s his team. You know, he’s running the team instead of last year. He was still the assistant and he got thrown into the fire, you know, the sixth, seventh game ink,” said Thomas whose own relationship with Thomas — and Nash — had been up and down.
“So, you can’t really change too much because we already went through everything in training camp, our sets, personnel, terminology and you can’t change too much on the fly like that,” said the 22-year-old, referring to the departure of KD and Kyrie, then the arrival of four new starters. “So I feel like this training camp, he’s been more comfortable, just knowing that, you know, it’s his team. So I feel like he’s been real comfortable this year.”
It’s not just Vaughn’s disposition either. The 12-year NBA veteran is surrounded by a coaching staff of his choosing, one which he basically overhauled this summer, adding Kevin Ollie, Will Weaver, Jay Hernandez, Corey Vinson, and Ronnie Burrell (the 2023 G-League coach of the year with Long Island.) All come from a player development background as do holdovers Ryan Forehan-Kelly and Adam Caporn.
Sharpe has noticed the difference: “I just think all the coaches are more like JV, I would say … They’re all high-energy.”
Tangibly, Thomas expects the offense to diversify and improve as a result, given that this year’s Nets are starting with a normal foundation given a full training camp, with the full roster:
“I mean I feel like it’s a continuation [of last year’s schemes], but we just add a little more layers, you know, to throw teams off a little bit, not doing the same thing every time down like we did last year,” said Thomas of an offense geared to the unique ability of KD and Kyrie. “Close to it last year. So that’s kind of just the training camp aspect of us going through certain looks, certain sets to do with our personnel, so that’s really nice to do.”
The Brooklyn Nets may have the same head coach as they did last year, but much has changed both within Vaughn and around him. In 2023-’24 Brooklyn is banking on internal improvement from players already in the building, whether it be guys whose careers have hardly gotten off the ground, or guys approaching 30. Players with chips on their shoulder and/or expiring contracts.
Brooklyn’s head coach lies somewhere in the middle between baby-faced — not literally, of course, with that beard — and a grizzled veteran. Vaughn’s been around the block, both as a player and a coach; remember, he led the Bubble-Nets down in Orlando in 2020. But he hasn’t gotten a chance to lead the team his way, fully, quite yet. Thus, the Nets are certainly banking on improvement from him and his staff as well. His players are confident it will happen.
That doesn’t mean they can’t tease him, though. Said Sharpe: “JV be getting low man, he maybe still can play some defense, I ain’t gonna lie. I don’t know about the offensive end. I don’t think he can dribble high enough to get it around us.”