Details continue to emerge explaining why and how the relationship between Jason Kidd and Lawrence Frank devolved to the point Kidd “re-assigned” the man he used to play under in New Jersey and recruited to come to Brooklyn to be his lead assistant this past summer.
An NBA.com report delved into the issue Monday, saying Kidd told Frank during a coaches meeting earlier this season: “Sit the [expletive] down! I’m the coach of this [expletive] team! When you’re on the bench, don’t [expletive] move!”
Frank, who signed a six-year deal worth a total of $6 million, has hired prominent attorney David Cornwell to represent him, presumably to try and negotiate a buyout of the remainder of his contract. Cornwell is representing both Alex Rodriguez and Jonathan Martin in their current legal battles.
Paul Pierce hadn’t spoken to the media since Frank’s re-assignment, but said Monday he didn’t know the details behind the falling out that resulted in Frank being assigned to file daily reports on the team’s games, and no longer be present at games or practices.
“I don’t know,” Pierce said of Frank, who was an assistant under Doc Rivers during part of Pierce’s run with the Celtics. “That’s something for the coaching staff, I think. He worked hard, he did the things that they asked him to do that I thought were on the court.
“But obviously some behind scenes things that probably went down that didn’t go well with the coaches and that’s why the decision was made.”
It has taken long enough, but the Nets finally are starting to get healthy.
Between Deron Williams declaring he’ll be back for Tuesday’s game against the Celtics, as expected, and Paul Pierce making a surprising return to practice on Monday, the Nets could finally have their full starting lineup back on the floor for the first time in over three weeks.
“Today was the first day we practiced and had the bodies to practice,” said Williams, after going through all of Monday’s practice at the team’s New Jersey practice facility. “So it’s good to be out there.”
Williams has sat out nine straight games and 11 of the last 12 because of a sprained left ankle, which he initially suffered in the first quarter of the Nets’ game against the Suns in Phoenix on Nov. 15 — the last time the Nets had their full starting five available. He came back two games later, only to re-injure the ankle when he landed on Bobcats guard Kemba Walker’s foot.
“It’s hard,” Williams said. “It’s hard to tell when you’re not practicing. That was the thing with the first time I came back. Either I use games as practice or I don’t because we’re an older team and we’re not going to practice that much, and when we do, we really don’t have enough [healthy players] to scrimmage.
“So it’s kind of a dilemma. … I have to come back and kind of use these games to get back into a rhythm.”
After spraining his right ankle in a September workout in Utah that held him out of virtually the entire preseason and then dealing with a sprained left ankle the last three weeks, Williams was asked if there was anything he could do to prevent the ankle issues he has had, or if it was just bad luck.
“No matter what you do, you land on somebody’s ankle you’re going to twist your ankle,” he said. “I don’t know how I could avoid it.”
After a moment, however, he did come up with something.
“I could try shooting like Brook [Lopez] and not jump,” he said with a smile.