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What’s Next For The Brooklyn Nets?

By Anthony Parisi

Apr 8, 2015; Brooklyn, NY, USA; Brooklyn Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov addresses media during a press conference before the Brooklyn Nets play the Atlanta Hawks at Barclays Center. Mandatory Credit: Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 8, 2015; Brooklyn, NY, USA; Brooklyn Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov addresses media during a press conference before the Brooklyn Nets play the Atlanta Hawks at Barclays Center. Mandatory Credit: Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports /
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Second worst team in the Eastern Conference.. No draft pick.. Starting point guard out for the season.. Coach fired.. No General Manager.. It’s safe to say the Brooklyn Nets are in complete disarray with an unclear present and future. Thaddeus Young and Brook Lopez are playing great basketball this season, but besides them there hasn’t been many other positives for the Nets.

The search for a new General Manager is now underway for Brooklyn. Billy King has been the Nets GM since 2010, but was reassigned on Sunday. For now, Assistant GM Frank Zanin will run the Nets front office. Brooklyn reportedly has interest in giving John Calipari full control of the team. Calipari continually denies that he will leave Kentucky, but at the right price Calipari could end up with the Nets.

Calipari is determined to get back into the NBA after his last tenure in the Association didn’t go as he had hoped. Calipari defiantly denied these rumors on Twitter saying “I plan on being at Kentucky for a long time.” Calipari is a guy that would make sense for the Nets to bring in. He’s a proven coach and recruiter.

Calipari has a ton of connections throughout the NBA, especially with Kentucky players that he coached in college. Calipari is going to want a huge contract to return to the NBA. The reported asking price that he wants is an absurd 10 years $120 Million.

Although this could just be Calipari trying to rip off the imperious Mikhail Prokhorov, it’s unlikely that any team will give Calipari a contract that most players would dream to be offered. If any team would even think to give Calipari that much money it would be Prokhorov and the Nets who love showing off their prosperity.

Prokhorov is determined to be more involved with the Nets now and he said at his press conference on Monday that he expects the Nets to be championship contenders next season. Yes. Next season. Prokhorov will never quit at his goal of bringing an NBA championship to Brooklyn and he wants it to happen sooner rather than later.

In Brooklyn’s search for a new GM, reportedly the man who was just removed from that role Billy King will help the team find his own replacement. In what other organization does pure blasphemy like this happen on a daily basis? King was the puppet of Prokhorov and Dmitry Razumov for all these years which explains why he was reassigned and not fired. Although King was pressured into making most of the trades that he made, it’s still ridiculous to expect him to pick the best possible replacement of himself.

Another name that has been thrown around as a head coaching candidate is Mark Jackson. Jackson is a Brooklyn native who worked as a YES Network analyst for three seasons. Jackson is currently an analyst on ESPN and he’s given credit by a lot of people for helping the Golden State Warriors turn into what they are right now. Jackson was the Warriors coach from 2011-2014 and he helped turn them from an irrelevant team into a playoff team.

Ettore Messina is a coach that Mikhail Prokhorov highly covets. Messina is a highly respected Italian coach who used to coach Prokhorov’s championship-winning team’s at CSKA Moscow in Russia. Other names that shouldn’t be ruled out are Tom Thibodeau and Jeff Van Gundy.

Besides Brook Lopez and Thaddeus Young, there hasn’t been too much to watch this season for Nets fans. Brooklyn doesn’t own their own draft pick until 2019, so to be championship contenders like Prokhorov wants they will need to either build through free agency or make more trades.

I don’t expect the Nets to trade Lopez or Young for assets/draft picks so those two will be apart of the core for the present and the future. Besides those two and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson/Chris McCullough, everybody else isn’t safe and come next season Brooklyn’s roster could have a totally different look.

Only time will tell what the future holds for the Brooklyn Nets organization. One thing that has been a consistent theme since the move to Brooklyn is bold decisions. That’s one thing that isn’t going to change and with $40 Million in cap space coming into Prokhorov’s wallet this summer, expect Brooklyn to do whatever it takes to make a huge splash.