Brooklyn Nets Trying To Lure John Calipari Back To NBA
Brooklyn Nets team owner Mikhail Prokhorov decided that his team needed a big change, and he now wants John Calipari to turn around his franchise, according to NBC Sports.
On Sunday night, the Brooklyn Nets announced that they had fired head coach Lionel Hollins and reassigned general manager Billy King to another position within their organization.
With a 10-28 record, the Brooklyn Nets are only ahead of the lowly Philadelphia 76ers in the Eastern Conference standings. The NBA Playoffs are nowhere within reach for the Nets.
Lionel Hollins was hired as the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets in July of 2014. The roster was already falling apart by the time he got there, so Hollins wasn’t expected to win much.
Even with the lowered expectations, Lionel Hollins did not stand much of a chance of getting through the end of the regular season. Hollins being relieved of his duties was not a shock.
Billy King now finds himself in a really weird situation. King is now a special consultant to Mikhail Prokhorov and will actually be helping the Brooklyn Nets find his own replacement.
Mikhail Prokhorov really wanted to win an NBA Championship as soon as he could, so he instructed Billy King to bet the house by acquiring Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett in a trade.
Now that Mikhail Prokhorov has a clean slate with the Brooklyn Nets, he wants to search far and wide to find the right man for the job. Prokhorov needs a really special person for that.
Reports have surfaced that Mikhail Prokhorov has on top of his list is John Calipari, who currently the rules college basketball as head coach of perennial contender Kentucky Wildcats.
Since being the head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats is one of the best jobs in sports, John Calipari is going to need to hear a lot of right things for him to step away from a cushy gig.
For starters, John Calipari is going to need complete control of an organization. That’s something that every single coach wants because it enables him to build the team his own way.
Fortunately for John Calipari, the Brooklyn Nets no longer have a general manager. If the Nets sign Calipari, then Billy King can be kept as a special consultant to help Calipari out.
John Calipari was handed a $52.5 million contract with the Kentucky Wildcats. To get him to return to the NBA, the Brooklyn Nets might have to shell out more than $100 million.
Several of John Calipari’s former Kentucky Wildcats players are set to become NBA free agents in the near future, and Calipari would love to stack his roster with players that he knows.
DeMarcus Cousins becomes a free agent in 2018, but the Sacramento Kings could possibly be inclined to get rid of him now and start fresh sooner with a brand new franchise player.
Rajon Rondo has made quite the comeback with the Sacramento Kings, but he is only on a one year deal. After the season, Rondo could be persuaded to rejoin John Calipari out east.
Julius Randle doesn’t become a free agent for quite some time, but his situation with Los Angeles Lakers head coach Byron Scott is getting uglier and uglier as the season goes on.
The Brooklyn Nets are hoping that John Calipari can do for them what he did for the Kentucky Wildcats.
[Featured Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images]
