Lionel Hollins did not like the Brooklyn Nets’ ‘meddling’
Dating back to his playing days, Lionel Hollins has always been a pugnacious sort. Unafraid to go on the record to discuss things as he sees fit, always willing to lend an opinion and a quote.
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This has rankled those who he has worked for in playing outposts in Portland, as well as those who hired him to coach in Vancouver, Memphis, and Brooklyn. Hollins was infamously let go as Grizzlies coach in 2013 after butting heads with the team’s front office, and fired as Nets coach midseason after a half-year spent criticizing the playing hand he’d been dealt.
In a talk on Sirius XM radio recently, as transcribed by the New York Post, Hollins discussed those who dared get in his way:
“The main thing when you’re looking for a job is finding somebody that allows you to be you and lets you coach as you coach,” Hollins said on SiriusXM radio. “If you’re successful, great. If you’re not, get rid of him.
“But the micromanaging, the meddling of who should play and how you should talk to this guy and how you should talk to the media, what you should say or shouldn’t say because how it looks for the organization versus just speaking the truth — those things weigh on you when you spend so much time trying to massage everybody instead of just coaching.”
Frankly, this sound like more of a comment about Memphis than it does Brooklyn. The Nets had no incentive to lose, heading into 2015-16, what with former general manager Billy King dealing the team’s first round draft pick away a year before Lionel Hollins was even hired, so it’s hard to imagine King (who was relieved of his GM duties the same day the Nets fired Hollins) or owner Mikhail Prokhorov (an absentee owner for most of the year) were telling Hollins to ramp up the minutes for the young prospects.
That’s also assuming the Nets have any young prospects with an All-Star berth in their future, which they most certainly do not.
Brian Lewis at the Post does point out that some of Prokhorov’s associates were unhappy with Hollins’ critical comments, but unlike his vents while working in Memphis Lionel was actually spot on in his assessment. He can’t be shamed for taking on a Nets team with a lacking roster back in 2014 (when someone offers you one of 30 NBA coaching jobs, you take it), and the team’s ownership just about signed off on Hollins’ accurate characterization of his roster by moving Billy King elsewhere.
New Nets general manager Sean Marks likely isn’t a fan of what he’s inherited, as it’s hard to recall a field of crops so heavily salted in recent or even decades-old NBA history. Still, as it is with Hollins, when someone offers you a GM gig, you take it. Brooklyn was 10-27 upon the hammer falling on King and Hollins, and they’re 5-15 under interim head coach Tony Brown.
It will take Marks years to fix this. Prokhorov can be blamed for showy mix of impatience and absenteeism, but King’s moves in Brooklyn were not surprising to anyone who had followed his previous work as a personnel chief in Philadelphia. There is a way to run an NBA team while working with a competitive owner handing out blank checks, as Donnie Nelson has proven over the last 15 years in Dallas. Marks is about to attempt to do the same, even if his draft pick chest is shockingly low.
Hollins? He’ll be paid by the Nets for his troubles for the next year and a half, and he’ll likely be courted by another NBA team at some point. The guy can coach.
He just wants to be left alone, OK?
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
