Championship window can't close if you break it first

PLUS: Jacque Gone again.

Good morning. Let’s basketball. But first: how about a Canadian? Here’s one of Alice Killaly’s six watercolors in the 1868 series A Picnic at Montmorency, titled “Coming down is easier but more dangerous.” So true!

---

Jacque Gone

Jacque Vaughn has again been relieved of his duties as the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets. You may recall that he was the successful interim head coach of the 2019-20 Nets after the team let Kenny Atkinson walk away just before the bubble. Despite Vaughn getting rave reviews in his time leading the Nets that summer, the team hired Steve Nash as its head coach and Vaughn returned to the bench. Nash was fired before Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving were granted their demanded trades last season, leading to Vaughn’s second elevation. Now he’s gone, one assumes for good.

Kevin Ollie is on track to be the new interim. Ollie is an interesting name given that he was a rising star in coaching circles immediately from his retirement, jumped to college basketball, won a national title with UConn in 2014 (word to Shabazz Napier), fell short the next few years and got hit with massive NCAA sanctions. He ran the Overtime Elite program that produced the Thompson twins until joining the Nets’ staff this summer. And now he’s going to be an NBA head coach. A circuitous path back.

The Nets aren’t far off from where you’d expect them to be: they went 13-17 (.430) after trading Irving and Durant last season, and they are 21-33 (.389) this season. Ben Simmons has played infrequently due to continued injury struggles. The Spencer Dinwiddie experience wore thin. There is a certain level of roster confusion and uncertainty that the front office — who successfully rebuilt a playoff team from scraps before the Durant-Irving era — might have pinned on Vaughn. But it could also be that the mid-2010s version of this rebuild got luckier on the edges, and the players Sean Marks has brought in around Mikal Bridges (the only clear star here) aren’t going to work.

The roster is mostly locked in for next year, too, complicating the outlook. The only unrestricted free agents are Nic Claxton, Dennis Smith Jr. (who has definitely earned an NBA job) and Lonnie Walker IV. Claxton is 24 and probably at minimum a top-10 defensive center. There’s going to be a market, even if non-stretch centers are out in the current paradigm. But can Brooklyn re-invest in a roster this middling?

Putting my neck out to say that I think the Nets make some major trades this summer, maybe even involving Bridges.

---

Window Can’t Close If You Break It First

The Timberwolves announced a two-year extension with the integral Mike Conley. The veteran point guard was on track to be a free agent this summer, but Minnesota reached a modest and fair deal with him to prevent that drama. Conley has been a total offensive security blanket for the Wolves this season, helping bridge the age gap for Anthony Edwards, who is still learning how to play safe and sane basketball in tough spots like crunch time. The offensive attention that Ant Man and Karl-Anthony Towns draw has also helped rewrite Conley’s role into taking more spot-up threes.