So long are the days of retread general managers and coaches who have failed in previous tenures and come to the Nets for another shot to reclaim past glory.
It’s obvious now — with the Nets’ hiring of former NBA player Trajan Langdon on Tuesday as assistant general manager to serve under Sean Marks — that the team is going about its business in a smarter, less flashy way that, ironically, mirrors how Langdon and Marks’ former organizations did.
Langdon, who played his college ball at Duke and spent three seasons in the NBA with the Cavaliers before eight seasons abroad (six with CSKA Moscow), was most recently Cleveland’s director of player personnel. But, before that, he spent time as a scout for the Spurs, where he worked with Marks.
At just 39 years old, Langdon is a year younger than Marks, making for one of the league’s younger front office tandems. The parallels between the journeyman player, Mikhail Prokhorov (former CSKA Moscow owner), Marks and the Spurs are undeniable, especially when San Antonio assistant coach Ettore Messina — who was targeted by the Nets before they hired Lionel Hollins — is considered as a potential candidate for the Brooklyn head-coaching vacancy.
Messina worked with both Langdon and Marks in San Antonio and even coached Langdon for four seasons with CSKA Moscow, so there is tons of familiarity between the three men, which lends naturally to him being linked to the job, as he was a few seasons ago.
With that said, regardless of who the Nets’ front office favors as the long-term answer at coach, the organization looks much different now than it did just a few months ago, and it’s a much smarter one. While it might be simplistic to say that Brooklyn is modeling itself in the image of the Spurs — much like NFL teams try to do when hiring former Patriots personnel — it’s definitely on the table, and it’s not the worst method for a rebuilding franchise to employ.
For a team that has been mired in salary cap and draft pick purgatory for what feels like its entire tenure in Brooklyn, constructing a front office that preaches intelligence and patience is refreshing. To be fair, the failed Deron Williams trade — which was no one’s fault other than Deron himself — is mostly what led to the downfall of Billy King, who made his worst mistakes trying to make the best of that move. If Deron had fully bought into Brooklyn and not gotten hurt so often, we might be praising King’s genius today instead of criticizing his weaknesses. But, sports are played in the present, not the past, and a front office with a thorough and defined structure is exactly what the Nets need.
Obviously, outside of the buy-outs of Andrea Bargnani and Joe Johnson, the Nets’ roster hasn’t changed much since King and Hollins were fired/reassigned a few months ago. Still though, the feeling around this team is already different, as the light at the end of the tunnel is now partially visible as opposed to being encased behind layers of thick concrete.
This summer, the Nets might actually have a head coach who is fully in sync with the front office and employs in-game strategy that echoes what his superiors have in mind. That clearly was not the case with previous coaches and management, lest we forget the one season fever dream that was Jason Kidd’s post-player tenure with the Nets.
It might sound like a shock to the system, knowing this team’s recent history, but the Nets might be well on their way to becoming one of the so-called “smart” teams in the NBA. Of course, hiring former Spurs employees is no guaranteed recipe for success as the Cavaliers and Hawks know from Danny Ferry’s time as the general manager in Cleveland and Atlanta.
What’s important is that the Nets are trending in the right direction; instead of sliding back into the future-mortgaging blockbuster deals that put them in their current predicament, they’re taking steps toward continued and sustained relevancy that doesn’t hinge on an aging star or risky signing. To construct a franchise that constantly churns out a winning product, you need to change the culture and bring guys in who have both a strong vision and a solid way to implement that vision.
Sean Marks, per all accounts, is one of those guys and he comes with a glowing recommendation from none other than Gregg Popovich himself. Trajan Langdon is another one of those guys and he and Marks seem to be perfectly in tune with each other. We don’t, right now, know who else will be in the Brooklyn front office or roaming the bench, but you can bet that it’s going to be another guy with a sterling pedigree and reputation.
Sure, success is not going to be instantaneous for this group and not one person around the franchise expects it to be. When the Spurs, during a six-season stretch in the 1980s, won just two playoff games, there wasn’t too much optimism about the team’s future prospects. But, they brought in Popovich and R.C. Buford — in addition to drafting David Robinson — and haven’t missed the postseason since.
David Robinson isn’t coming down the turnpike for the Nets, but the infrastructure needed to find someone of his talent and develop it into a cornerstone for the NBA’s longest-running success is already here and that’s a pretty darn good start.
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