If the stars are on board, the Brooklyn Nets should consider Tom Thibodeau

With the Brooklyn Nets searching for a new head coach, big names such as Tom Thibodeau are bound to come up. Let’s identify the potential fit.

According to Marc Berman of the New York Post, the Brooklyn Nets are considering Tom Thibodeau as their next head coach to replace the recently departed Kenny Atkinson.

In that article, Berman touches up on Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving‘s respect for Thibodeau, who was their assistant coach on Team USA.

"“Kevin’s a basketball junkie, he loves him,’’ one NBA source familiar with the situation told Berman. “Great players want to be coached, except the lazy ones. If they think the coach has a higher basketball IQ than them, they’re all in.’’"

Thibs has been known to play his players an exorbitant amount of minutes, which doesn’t bode well in an era of load management; especially when you consider that Durant is coming off a major injury, and Irving is known to have his fair share of injuries throughout the course of the season.

One thing is certain, however. Both players want to be out there if they can help it. Durant put himself at major risk by suiting up for Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals with a really bad calf strain, which unfortunately led to his ruptured Achilles injury.

Irving, on the other hand, tried to push through his right shoulder impingement injury this season with a cortisone shot, and actually performed pretty well, but he ultimately needed to get season-ending surgery to treat the ailment.

One of the several things that Irving, Durant, and perhaps some of the other players on the roster didn’t like is how Kenny Atkinson tried to erase the mid-range shot and make his team primarily shoot three-pointers.

However, Thibodeau seems to understand that an offense needs to have a way more balanced attack beyond just three-point shooting as pick-and-rolls, catch and shoot and post-ups are still very important to him according to a transcript at Boston’s Sloan Sports Conference printed by The Athletic (subscription required).

The Nets, as currently structured, have the personnel to make that type of offense work, as Irving and Durant can get their looks anywhere on the floor, Caris LeVert and Spencer Dinwiddie thriving when they can get shots in the mid-range and on drives, Jarrett Allen and DeAndre Jordan being great pick-and-roll big men and finishers at the rim, and Joe Harris being their knockdown shooter from three-point range.

There is no doubt that Thibs has the basketball IQ for the job, but there are still concerns about him playing his players too many minutes and potentially burning them out for when the playoffs come around when they’ll have to face teams such as the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Clippers, who are known to rest their star players throughout the season to keep them fresh.

But if the stars push for him to become the next head coach, then the Nets will probably have no choice but to bring him on knowing the potential downfalls.