INDIANAPOLIS – The Nets’ coaching search committee is scheduled to meet today with members of the team’s ownership group who will be told what the thinking has been for months.
There is Phil Jackson. There is Don Casey. There is everybody else.
While Jackson could have the job for the asking – and with it a three-year deal worth in the $20-million range – Casey, who did a near miraculous job considering the injuries as the interim, is looking more and more like the man who will get the job on a permanent basis. Nets officials are not convinced Jackson wants to coach next season.
But Jackson’s iffy coaching status does not diminish the Nets’ interest. The six-time-champion coach with the Bulls has been offered a “consulting” position with billionaire Net co-owner Ray Chambers’ charitable foundation in the event he wants to go in a holding pattern for a year or two.
Other names, of course, received consideration, including Mike Fratello, who was fired in Cleveland on Tuesday. But none were able to dislodge Jackson. And Fratello, who despite the running style he once employed with athletic Atlanta teams, is more associated with the grind-it-out, defensive style of the Cavs, who failed to advance beyond the first round of the playoffs in his six season there. Even his players said that was the cause for his dismissal.
“I wouldn’t buy a ticket,” said guard Derek Anderson. “If you came to see us play, you wouldn’t see excitement.”
Hardly what the Nets brass envision for their team, which is populated by young, exciting talent that includes Stephon Marbury and Keith Van Horn. And Net players have thrown their support behind Casey and his staff of Jim Lynam, Eddie Jordan and Mike O’Koren. Casey assumed the position after John Calipari was fired March 15 with the Nets wallowing with a 3-17 record. Under Casey, the Nets closed at 13-17. Granted, not vintage Celtics, Bulls or Lakers stuff but more than creditable considering injuries wiped away Jayson Williams, Van Horn, Jim McIlvaine and Scott Burrell for long stretches.
Officially, the Nets have recognized no one other than Casey as a candidate for the job and a team spokesman said that any new names entered into the ring have not changed the situation.
“Our process hasn’t changed,” the spokesman said. “Our committee is working to present to ownership their candidates.”