Rick Pitino was never in the picture for the Nets. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo, they appear to be trying to reel in a much, much bigger fish.
After the Toronto Raptors ownership exercised the 2010-11 option on general manager Bryan Colangelo’s contract this week, there’s a growing belief that Prokhorov could be turning his gaze toward Colangelo’s father, Jerry, to hire as New Jersey’s president.
The reasoning would be simple. This way, (incoming Nets owner Mikhail) Prokhorov could have the executive capable of delivering him the biggest, shiniest coach available to the Nets: Duke’s Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski. The plan, sources say, would be to make him GM and coach.
Coach K has been approached by NBA teams before -- most notably the Lakers at the insistence of Kobe Bryant -- but has never left Duke. He has said the 2012 games will be his last for Team USA and that he never wants to leave Duke.
However, coaching the Redeem Team to gold in Beijing, he has formed a special bond with some of the elite NBA players. So, if you were the Nets trying to lure a top free agent of two, Coach K becomes a very nice addition. The chance to coach a couple of those guys and be with his buddy Colangelo to build a franchise back up, that might be a tempting offer.
Probably not enough of one, though. Krzyzewski has it pretty good.
