It doesn’t sound like Steve Nash is itching to get back in the coaching game. In Ljubljana, Slovenia, for Goran Dragic’s farewell game, Nash told reporters that he hadn’t planned on becoming a coach before the opportunity with the Brooklyn Nets came along in 2020 and spoke of his coaching career in the past tense.
“Coaching was a great experience,” Nash said, via Eurohoops’ Cesare Milanti. “I didn’t want to be a career coach. I don’t think coaching was about to be my career. I’m coaching my kids, teaching them life. I earned the opportunity to choose, and that’s rewarding. There are always projects, affiliates, and partnerships. I always have something going on. I’m focused on my family.”
A few months after Nash retired as a player in 2015 following two league MVP awards and eight All-Star selections, he joined the Golden State Warriors as a part-time player development consultant. There was little buzz about him becoming an NBA head coach before the Nets hired him to coach a championship-contending team featuring Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Weeks into Nash’s first season, Brooklyn traded for James Harden.
“I hadn’t planned to coach — there was a unique situation in Brooklyn that knocked on my door,” Nash said. “It was a quick transition. You deal with a different dynamic. A lot of it is managing personalities between front offices, players and agents. That’s a huge component of my job. All the dynamics, personalities, and power that the players hold nowadays.”
Nash, a renowned leader throughout his Hall of Fame playing career, said that coaching requires a “totally different” kind of leadership. “When you’re coaching, you have to lead in smaller moments,” he said.
“I was surprised when I coached, you’re not in the team that much,” Nash said. “You have five minutes with players before the game, at halftime, and after the game. Those are the only times when you address the team. I wanted to connect with every player individually. It’s important to build a culture and an environment where people believe and see them be their best. You need to feel that you want them to become the best version of themselves.”
The Nets went 48-24 in Nash’s first season as coach despite Durant, Harden and Irving playing just 202 minutes in eight regular-season games together. They might have won a title if Irving and Harden hadn’t both gotten hurt in the second round of the playoffs against the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks, but they wound up losing Game 7 at home in overtime.
Irving missed most of the following season because he wouldn’t get vaccinated against COVID-19, and Harden requested a trade midseason. Brooklyn traded Harden for a package headlined by Ben Simmons, but Simmons didn’t appear in a single game, and the team finished 44-38 before losing to the Boston Celtics in a first-round sweep. Seven games into the 2022-23 season, Nash and the team parted ways.
Until now, Nash has not publicly discussed his two-plus years with the Nets. Last summer, he met with the Toronto Raptors about their then-vacant head coaching position, but the team opted for Darko Rajaković.
