A few notes on Hall of Fame point guard Steve Nash taking over as Nets head coach:

Why it could work well…

One of the most important elements of this Nets coaching search was a simple one: Who would work best with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving? That’s not to suggest that Durant and Irving were making the final call on whom the Nets hired. I have no idea if that was the case, though I strongly doubt that it was.

But finding a coach who Durant and Irving were comfortable with had to be near the top of the list of priorities for the team.

They’ve seemingly done that with the Nash hire. His connection with Durant is well documented. Nash worked with Durant extensively during his time as a Warriors consultant. So you’d think that Durant is on board with the Nash hire.

I’m not going to pretend to know how Irving feels about playing for Nash, but people who have spent time with Irving say that he has an appreciation for coaches who have experience playing in the NBA. Given that, it’s fair to assume that he’s on board with the Nash hire.

Another important element for the Nets: Jacque Vaughn will be Nash’s top assistant. Vaughn coached the Nets after the club parted ways with Kenny Atkinson and has been with the organization for five years.

During his stint coaching the club, he was in touch regularly with Irving, Durant and the other Nets who weren’t in Orlando. So you can assume that Vaughn, a longtime NBA point guard, has a solid relationship with both Irving and Durant.

It’s not a stretch to say that the success of Nash’s tenure hinges on how he coaches his two top players. If Nash, Durant and Irving work well together, everyone else should fully buy in and the Nets should be able to reach their ceiling as a team, whatever that is.

Why it’s a risky move…

Nash’s lack of experience makes this hire a bit of a gamble. Ex-players going straight to the bench have had mixed results (Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas, Jason Kidd, Derek Fisher, etc.). Every situation is different, so this isn’t to suggest that Nash will fail/succeed based on how those coaches performed.

But it’s a risk to hire someone with no experience as your head coach when you have championship expectations.

Vaughn, a former head coach, can help Nash get acclimated to life on an NBA sideline. But Nash will have to figure out a lot on the fly.

It will be interesting to see who the Nets hire to fill out Nash’s staff. It seems safe to say that Adam Harrington, who is close with Durant and introduced him to Nash, is likely to remain on staff.

What happened to the other candidates?

Several outlets reported that the Nets were interested in seeing if they could hire Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. SNY reported last week that the Nets were expected to do their due diligence on Popovich. Either they did that due diligence weeks ago (if so, we apologize for the error in our reporting last week) or their due diligence led them to determine in the last week that Popovich wasn’t a possibility.

Several outlets reported that Tyronn Lue was a main candidate for Brooklyn. But that wasn’t the case. As SNY reported last week, some members of the organization had expressed pessimism about the possibility of the Nets hiring Lue. It’s unknown why, exactly, the club was pessimistic about it. But some in coaching circles say there was reason for the Nets to have some concern over the way things ended in Cleveland when Irving was traded as Lue was the coach at the time.

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