‘How will Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant react?’: Mike D’Antoni and Ime Udoka join Steve Nash’s Nets staff

The Brooklyn Nets are building a superteam with their backroom staff. Mike D’Antoni and Ime Udoka will be joining Steve Nash as assistants.

Newly out of a job with the Houston Rockets, Mike D’Antoni was in talks with the Philadelphia 76ers earlier. He has coached Steve Nash to a historically great Seven Seconds or Less offense with the Suns. The expectation is that the Nets will establish a similar motion offense with the players in their ranks.

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Ime Udoka, on the other hand, is one of the numerous coaches out of the Greg Popovich academy. He served for 7 years on the Spurs coaching staff, before moving to the Philadelphia 76ers for the 2019-20 season.

How Kyrie and KD will react to the recruitment of D’Antoni and Udoka

In all probability, the Nets stars knew of the ongoing recruitment when they went on Durant’s podcast. Kyrie’s comments about ‘anyone can be the head coach’ on a given day make more sense in that context.

With this superstar coaching staff, a freely moving, fast-paced offense is on the cards for the franchise. Both Kyrie and Durant have played in this kind of an ‘all-mouths-fed’ offense in their careers before, with the Celtics and Warriors respectively. They are great off ball players and will be able to slot into this scheme effectively.

Mike D’Antoni and Ime Udoka are finalizing deals to become assistant coaches under Steve Nash with the Brooklyn Nets, sources tell ESPN. Together, D’Antoni and Nash were the architects of the Seven Seconds or Less Offense with the Phoenix Suns in the mid-2000’s.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) October 30, 2020

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The Nets were tipped to be championship contenders with Durant and Irving fully fit and a well-rounded out roster around them. The likes of Caris LeVert, Spencer Dinwiddie and Joe Harris are amazing role players to operate alongside.

There has been much speculation regarding how bad the Nets locker room situation could be. Neither KD nor Kyrie is looked at as a good leader off the court. It remains to be seen how they operate in arguably the best backroom conditions they’ve had in their careers. There will be few willing to excuse them if they don’t at least make the Conference Finals.