Pounds and pounds of shrimp. A telltale luggage claim ticket. A team learning a coach’s fate from a motivational speaker. Players refusing to re-enter games.
Welcome to some of the memorabilia, memories and moments associated with the end of Nets coaching reigns.
So when Lionel Hollins is introduced Monday as the Nets’ latest head coach, it might be worthwhile to reflect on how past coach-team marriages ended.
Often, it was not pretty.
Larry Brown
In 1982-83, the Nets were storming toward what would stand as their most successful NBA season until Jason Kidd arrived to play nearly two decades later. Under Brown, the Nets already had surpassed the franchise’s NBA high of 44 victories.
But reports surfaced about Brown leaving for Kansas. Owner Joe Taub confronted Brown, who told Taub the reports were untrue. The Nets were headed for a road trip to Detroit and all their luggage was in the locker room.
As the luggage was being carried out, Taub looked at Brown’s bag and saw a Kansas airport luggage claim tag. He flipped out. He ordered then-PR director Jim Lampariello to drive him to Newark Airport to confront Brown.
“That was the angriest I’d ever seen Joe,” Lampariello said. “He was hurt because he really felt Larry was an unbelievable coach.”
Soon, ex-coach. On April 7, 1983, Taub fired Brown at the airport and Bill Blair coached the final six games. The Nets went 2-4 and were swept in the first round of the playoffs.
“We were a mess,” center Mike Gminski later said.
“We were sitting by the gate at the airport when Joe walked down and met with Larry,” recalled forward Mike O’Koren. “Then everybody got on the plane — except Larry. That night, assistants Bill Blair and Mike Schuler held a team meeting and said Larry was ‘released’ to coach at Kansas. They never said fired.
“It was very disruptive,” O’Koren said. “It came out of nowhere. A good season went down the drain in a hurry.”
Rollie Massimino
Finding a successor for Stan Albeck, the man who succeeded Brown, brought another strange-but-true episode in franchise coaching history. The search centered on Massimino, the Villanova coach who engineered the Wildcats’ stunning NCAA championship upset of Georgetown earlier that year.
On the night of June 19, 1985, the Nets reached agreement with Massimino. Or so they thought.
A press conference was called for the morning. Lampariello called a caterer and ordered food, including “a lot” of shrimp for the starving media masses. He went to sleep thinking all was set.
At about 3 a.m., the deal was off. Massimino balked after failing to gain several contract concessions, including a larger daily food allowance.
“Greatest press conference no one ever attended,” O’Koren said.
Bill Fitch
Fitch succeeded Willis Reed, who succeeded Bob MacKinnon, who succeeded Dave Wohl, who succeeded Albeck. Fitch, in 1996 was named one of the top 10 coaches in NBA history — but not for his time in New Jersey. His final Nets season, 1991-92, would have tried the patience of Job.
Early in the season, the Nets signed holdout top draft pick Kenny Anderson by restructuring contracts and waiving two Fitch favorites, Dave Feitl and Jud Buechler. At a celebratory press conference, Fitch alternately labeled management’s decision as “horrible” and “horsesh–.”
But at least the shrimp didn’t go to waste.
Later that season, in the next-to-last regular season game, April 16, Chris Morris refused to re-enter a game with 25.1 seconds left. Fitch resigned two weeks after losing three of four to Cleveland in the playoffs.
Chuck Daly
Fitch was succeeded by Daly, the late, great Hall of Fame coach who directed two runs to the playoffs then said goodbye when he simply could no longer take the knuckleheads that populated his roster.
A 3-1 playoff ouster in 1994 by Pat Riley’s Knicks proved to be the last straw. Jayson Williams had guaranteed victory over the Knicks, who, you know, sort of disagreed. Then Williams and Derrick Coleman allegedly partied until 4 a.m. after a playoff loss. There was a street fight and three injured teenagers.
“I have no feeling at this point,” Daly said at the conclusion of the playoff series. “Obviously, when a season is over you sit down and evaluate a lot of things.”
And that evaluation led to conclusion he wanted out of New Jersey. He resigned shortly after.
John Calipari
But nothing — not the shrimp, not the luggage tag, not 4 a.m. carousing — compares with the axing of Calipari.
The Nets were struggling horribly in the 1998-99 lockout season. In Miami for what would be a seventh straight loss and Calipari’s last game, the late principal owner Lewis Katz met in the rear of the arena at halftime with co-owner Finn Wentworth, team president Michael Rowe and general manager John Nash.
At the conclusion of the game, Katz and Calipari walked and talked around the arena. The team left and flew to Toronto. Calipari and Katz entered a waiting limo. The only thing missing was Clemenza in the backseat.
Katz and Calipari flew by private jet to Toronto, where the firing determination was made. But nobody told the team. At their hotel, the 3-17 Nets were addressed by motivational speaker Tony Robbins, who informed them of Calipari’s fate. The entire staff was let go, except Don Casey who was named interim coach. But there was a game that night and he had no staff.
“I was getting on the elevator and Case comes up and says, ‘Hey, you want to help me coach?’ ” recalled O’Koren who handled radio duties and traveled with the team. “I said ‘Sure.’ It was supposed to be for one game. Luckily, I had a suit.”
That suit helped O’Koren stay with the Nets as a successful assistant with Casey, Byron Scott and Lawrence Frank before jobs in Washington and Philadelphia.
The weirdness continued. Katz held an impromptu press conference for several beat writers in a hotel conference room with Calipari sitting to his right.
Byron Scott
Scott was high on Rod Thorn’s list after Thorn left the NBA executive offices and ventured over to New Jersey, where he served as GM and team president through two ownership changes. He hired Scott and endured a wretched first rebuilding year.
But Jason Kidd, the player, arrived and allwas well — except for Kidd’s eventual relationship with Scott. Sources maintained Kidd wanted Scott out, and the coach was fired in January 2004 with a 22-20 record at the time after two consecutive trips to the Finals.
Kiki Vandeweghe
Vandeweghe moved down from the front office to replace Lawrence Frank, who was whacked after a dismal 0-16 start in 2009-10. Vandeweghe’s strength was not on the bench but rather in roster manipulation and salary-cap maneuvering. He worked 64 games, winning 12. Vandeweghe, as did many, assumed he would remain in the front office.
But Russian billionaire owner Mikhail Prokhorov killed all the suspense when in his first public appearances and comments since buying the team, said of Vandeweghe, “His agreement expires in summer and I wish him well.”
Vandeweghe learned his fate through a phone call from a reporter.
Jason Kidd
Kidd, the greatest player in the franchise’s NBA history, proved to be a pretty fair coach in his first season on the job. But after Derek Fisher and Steve Kerr signed more lucrative and longer deals, Kidd tried to gain a broader power base. His coup was rejected by the Russian ownership, who then wanted him gone. The Bucks received permission to talk to Kidd, who was announced as Milwaukee’s new coach Wednesday.
So welcome to the fold, Lionel Hollins. May your reign know normalcy.