Brooklyn Nets Hiring Kenny Atkinson As Head Coach Is A Great Move

The Brooklyn Nets hired Kenny Atkinson, one of the hottest coaching candidates in the NBA, as their head coach on Sunday. The former Atlanta Hawks assistant comes with a reputation for player development, and he will certainly have his work cut out for him with the Nets.

New Nets GM Sean Marks is trying to do what former GM Billy King couldn’t — build a winner from the ground up. King, with encouragement from Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov, tried contending right away by acquiring players like Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Joe Johnson and Deron Williams to make a run at an NBA Championship. It didn’t work and the Nets sacrificed a lot of draft picks for that chance, so rebuilding the roster will not be an easy job.

The Nets don’t have their first-round pick until 2019, so rebuilding will have to be done the hard way. Atkinson has experience in the international game, an area the Nets might have to rely on to find prospects. He played in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. He also served as director of player development and assistant coach for the Republic of Georgia’s national team in 2006 and was an assistant coach for Ukraine in 2011.

As far as the NBA is concerned, Atkinson has extensive experience. He served as the Houston Rockets’ director of player of development in 2007-08. He then joined Mike D’Antoni’s staff on the New York Knicks as an assistant and helped the team to the playoffs in 2011 and 2012 before moving on to the Hawks.

The hiring of Atkinson signals a change in the Nets’ philosophy. They are now committed to building a team from the ground up which is the right way. They learned the hard way that buying a championship is almost impossible and offers a limited window to achieve that goal.

The Nets are moving in the right direction, but it will be a while before they compete. They will try to lure some free agents to Brooklyn to team up with Brook Lopez, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Thaddeus Young. Having a coach who is highly regarded and a GM committed to building a winner from the ground up will go a long way to making Brooklyn attractive. Atkinson and Marks represent a new age in Brooklyn, one that could produce a much happier ending than King and company provided.