The day Kenny Atkinson was fired the Nets beat the shit out of the Spurs, 139-120. It was March 6, 2020. Brooklyn stood at 28-34 with 20 video games left within the season (or in order that they thought), a playoff staff within the East, respectable when you think about their not too long ago signed superstars, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, had performed a complete of 20 video games, all by Kyrie (then on the shelf for the rest of the season following shoulder surgical procedure), as Durant was nonetheless rehabbing the achilles tendon he ruptured in Recreation 5 of the prior yr’s NBA Finals, as a Golden State Warrior.
GM Sean Marks and staff proprietor Joe Tsai have been diplomatic, giving credit score to Atkinson for turning the franchise round not simply in document, however in tradition, which is allegedly what led the aforementioned pair of contrarian superstars to return to Brooklyn over Manhattan within the first place. And but, Kenny needed to go. Within the post-mortems, there was speak of Atkinson’s waning voice within the locker room, in his failure to outline roles on the staff, however actually, his cardinal sin was refusing to start out a totally washed DeAndre Jordan over Jarrett Allen, going in opposition to his stars’ needs.
I’m going to repeat that rapidly if the total pressure of that assertion didn’t land as I supposed, as a result of everyone knows this however historical past will assume there needed to be another shit happening on the time. There was not: KENNY ATKINSON WAS FIRED FROM HIS POSITION AS HEAD COACH OF THE BROOKLYN NETS FOR NOT STARTING DEANDRE JORDAN OVER JARRETT ALLEN.
It will go down because the nadir of the participant empowerment period — which seems to be nearing a detailed within the aftermath of the NBA Gamers Union dashing its demise with a CBA that ought to be thrown out by the Supreme Court docket regardless of the gamers willingly collaborating in its consecration — and naturally the sufferer was Kenny, the antithesis of this form of diva-ish, fuck-the-team-start-my-friend, player-using-every-ounce-of-leverage-simply-because-they-can meddling. It’s pretty apparent there was little Atkinson may do to outlive. Durant and Irving needed to flex institutional energy, which meant hand-selecting their very own coach, and so they ultimately did, going with present Thoughts the Recreation podcast co-host Steve Nash over present Coach of the Yr Atkinson.
Kenny Atkinson is an Irish 57-year-old from Huntington (Lengthy Island). He each attire and seems like a Freeport fishmonger. He’s listed as six toes tall, which suggests he’s 5’11 at finest and his enjoying weight by no means exceeded 160 kilos in soaking moist cargo shorts. He appears to be like like a man who has seen Billy on the Backyard over a dozen occasions and doesn’t personal a ship, however has a rod named “Alexa”. His youth was devoted to the pursuit of enjoying basketball, his grownup life has been devoted to teaching it. He performed highschool ball at St. Anthony’s Excessive —a program described by the New York Submit as “a Lengthy Island powerhouse” — for an Adam Sandler character named Gus Alferi.
All little Kenny needed was to hoop for St. Johns, which led him to enjoying a prep yr in Maine, then settling for the Colonial Athletic Affiliation’s College of Richmond in Virginia. The spotlight of his enjoying profession got here early, in 1988, when Kenny’s Spiders upset Bob Knight’s reigning champion Indiana Hoosiers within the NCAA match. From there, he nearly made Larry Brown’s Spurs, nearly made Matt Guokas’ Orlando Magic, however by no means broke by. He bounced across the minor leagues {of professional} basketball in America in the course of the pre-G-League Jurassic interval. Then he spent 10 years in Europe, by no means enjoying for a similar staff a couple of season. The stats inform the story of an unexceptional pass-first level guard who was maxing out his extraordinarily restricted potential and may most likely have thought-about taking a flier on becoming a member of an area ironworker union or stonemason union again in LI. However Atkinson is a person who clearly has basketball in his blood and would by no means have thought-about another profession path, a real testomony to the concept that in case you dedicate your self single-mindedly to something your total life, you truly can obtain it on the highest degree.
Atkinson’s subsequent teaching CV reads like one thing out of le Carré: Director of participant improvement for each the Paris Basket Racing Membership and the Republic of Georgia’s nationwide staff, then an assistant coach for Ukraine on the 2011 Euro Championships, and head coach of the Dominican Republic’s nationwide staff. He was a mercenary fanatic who went wherever there was basketball to teach. I prefer to think about that in France, his fellow coaches taught him the way to delicately crack the caramelized shell of a crème brulee, and he taught them the way to decide blue level oysters out of a mud financial institution.
Finally, as an NBA assistant, Atkinson had gigs from Houston to New York to Atlanta over the course of eight seasons. What you hear time and again when gamers, former coaches, and assistant coaches speak about Atkinson is that he’s maniacally aggressive, intense and extremely ready, devoted to each facet of the sport, to bettering gamers who’re already the perfect on this planet and have succeeded on the highest ranges. There’s no signature type or technique he brings with him from job to job, when he was helping coaches as polarized and polarizing as Mike D’Antoni and Mike Budenholzer. He’s an govt chef who will roll up his sleeves and wash dishes if that’s the service required on a given evening.
Jeremy Lin asks for tape, to see how an opposing staff protection dealt with switching him off a decide and roll at one o’clock within the morning. Kenny has the tape in Lin’s locker by 6 AM. Al Horford would accept pulling up and popping, Kenny pushed him to place the ball on the ground. What Atkinson clearly excels at was his former job- as a director/guru of participant development- not taking any participant on his roster without any consideration, and thru manic obsession and tireless dedication, working to attract out the absolute best model of your recreation, demonstrating to the participant in query you give a shit about them and the staff and are keen to do greater than pay that idea lip service, to work as arduous as you anticipate them to. As no much less an authority than DeAndre Jordan as soon as stated, “Kenny’s loopy, man. He’s loopy, in a great way. He’s very aggressive. And he has that East Coast, like, New Yorker — he’s from Jersey, proper? He has that sort of angle about him and that will get us fired up.” That is how a scrappy no person from Lengthy Island turns into revered in a world he has no enterprise being in: by incomes it, by being plain.
Atkinson and Sean Marks got here to the smoking husk that was Barclays collectively, nonetheless mired within the devastation of the 2013 Celtics heist, and in brief order took the closest factor the NBA needed to The Mighty Geese (dir. Stephen Herek, 1992) — Caris Levert, Spencer Dinwiddie, D’Angelo Russell, Joe Harris Jarrett Allen, and a number of other half time Lyft drivers — and turned them right into a playoff staff.
He resurrected the franchise from a 20-62 catastrophe to a good 42-40 with no draft picks over the course of three seasons earlier than hitting what regarded like a jackpot, however was truly his loss of life knell.
Atkinson selected nicely following his exit from Brooklyn, each within the jobs he took and the roles he handed on. He labored as an assistant underneath Ty Lue in LA, then Steve Kerr in San Francisco, and was on the bench when the Warriors received the still-shocking fourth ring of the Steph period. The subsequent season he made the virtually unprecedented choice to show down a head teaching place with the Charlotte Hornets after he was chosen to fill the place (there have been stories it got here all the way down to haggling over assistant teaching price range). After which lastly, he moved to Ohio, a now apparent plum head teaching place that wasn’t apparent on the time Atkinson took it.
Atkinson’s specialty is working with level guards, so it is smart he lastly selected wine and gold as his blood sort. From a distance, you could possibly view this yr’s Cleveland Cavaliers as an island of misfit toys, once they have been truly a staff with large potential, filled with younger horses all on related timelines, accomplished with the addition of the rarest of NBA belongings, a disgruntled star in his prime who wanted a recent begin. However after a couple of runs, it regarded like Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland would by no means mesh, that perhaps the younger lottery huge Evan Mobley’s ceiling was nearer to Stromile Swift than Kevin Garnett. His interview for the gig was basic Kenny: A powerpoint presentation with annotated charts and color-coded sticky notes, Zodiac-level whiteboards and an hour of clips, all solely devoted to unlocking Mobley, who made the All-Star staff and was not too long ago named Defensive Participant of the Yr.
One of many nice quandaries of this season that philosophers will surprise about for many years is how JB Bickerstaff led this almost very same staff to the unsatisfying basement of their potential. Then he left, and was changed by Kenny, who coached the staff right into a league-leading common season powerhouse, whereas JB went to Detroit and in a single season tripled their win whole. Proof that within the NBA, each match is completely different and kinds make fights. Apparently what Atkinson delivered to the Cavs was levity. He calls Golden State his “ending faculty”, the place underneath Steve Kerr he noticed a staff totally purchased into the tradition of pleasure (No phrase on the veracity of this declare from Jonathan Kuminga or Jordan Poole, however we are going to replace as this story continues to develop). The Cavs make enjoyable of one another, make enjoyable of themselves, compete in high-stakes meat-off competitions — and with just a little continuity now that Mitchell prolonged with Cleveland and has stopped searching for methods dwelling to New York — they’ve gelled, because of Kenny, who injected some old school Lengthy Island ball-breaking.
The Cavs received out of rote, predictable PnR spamming iso-ball and now make use of a movement offense that sounds in league with Kerr’s lovely recreation, with maybe a splash of the coach Mikes Atkinson as soon as educated underneath, a wealthy soup that made for a record-setting explosive Cleveland offense. It’s all potential as a result of Mitchell sacrificed some utilization to include Garland and get him again to the extent of tantalizing promise he exhibited earlier than Mitchell’s arrival. The Cavs are one of many deepest groups within the league and so they now truly make the most of that power, enjoying 10-11 deep (particularly since including De’Andre Hunter on the deadline, a significant act of aggression of their arms race with the Celtics). It was a type of magic seasons through which each participant had a profession yr, unlocking new skills and features of their recreation.
And the way apt, how lovely that Atkinson ultimately finds a house reunited with the backup middle that price him his first head teaching job. In his Cleveland interview, he was pressed on whether or not he thought the Cavs’ huge lineup of Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley may proceed to share the ground. He believed they may, going as far as to dam commerce curiosity from different groups once they got here inquiring about Allen, and he’s been proper, with Allen seeing his minutes minimize barely, however handing over the perfect effectivity numbers of his profession. He’s been Kenny’s on-court avatar, who takes his benchings down the stretch within the fourth, or beginning when everybody else sits out, with grace. It’s the kind of relationship, constructed over years, by belief you earn, by being plain.
The Cavs will want all Atkinson’s technique and chemistry to win 4 of their subsequent 5 video games, dealing with a harmful Pacers squad that includes Tyrese Halliburton, who has apparently bought his soul to a nocturnal Irish musician. In the event that they do, it is going to be a testomony to the ability of teaching, and the years Atkinson spent within the trenches fulfilling his future.
