In 2003, the Nets drafted Kyle Korver with the 51st pick in the second round and promptly sold him to the Sixers — and general manager Billy King — for $125,000. Every year for the past decade it seems, the Nets have tried to get him back. Maybe the 10th time is the charm — especially with King on the Nets’ side.
Multiple sources insist the Nets will take a long free agency look at Korver, who definitely fills the “shooter” requirement on the team’s offseason wish list. Korver shot almost 46 percent on 3-pointers for Atlanta last season, the second best mark in the NBA.
The Nets likely would use all or part of their $3.2 million mini-mid-level exception, which presumably had been earmarked for Bojan Bogdanovic. Korver is represented by Jeff Schwartz, whose clients include Deron Williams, Paul Pierce, Jason Kidd and Mirza Teletovic.
* A day after landing Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry from the Celtics, the Nets announced what Kidd’s new coaching staff will look like.
The team announced that Lawrence Frank, Roy Rogers and Eric Hughes have agreed to become assistants under Kidd, while Doug Overton was retained from last year’s coaching staff.
“I am very pleased to add Lawrence, Roy, Eric and Doug to my staff,” Kidd said in a statement. “They collectively bring a wealth of NBA experience to our bench, both from a coach and player perspective.This combination will not only prove beneficial to me, but will be an invaluable asset to our players as well.”
The biggest addition is Frank, whom Kidd publicly campaigned to add to the staff from the moment he was introduced as the team’s head coach two weeks ago. Frank coached Kidd for several seasons in New Jersey, and is the Nets franchise leader in wins as a head coach. He coached the Nets from 2004-09, before spending a season with Pierce and Garnett in Boston as an assistant under Doc Rivers before spending the past two seasons coaching the Pistons.
Rogers has spent the last five years working alongside Frank as an assistant. From 2008-10 he worked under Frank with the Nets, then moved on to Boston to work with Garnett, Pierce and Frank in 2010-11 before going on to work with Frank for the Pistons the last two years.
Hughes joins the Nets after spending the past six seasons with the Raptors, including the last four as an assistant coach. He was an assistant at Cal when Kidd was a player there. Overton will enter his sixth season with the Nets and fourth as an assistant coach, after spending the last three working under Avery Johnson and then P.J. Carlesimo last season.
* A source said the Nets are not interested in potentially signing free agent center Jason Collins, the first openly gay active player in the four major professional sports in the U.S., and bringing him back to the franchise he began his career with.
Though Collins has significant history with Kidd and Frank, whom he played for and under for several years with the Nets — including the back-to-back Finals teams in 2002 and 2003 — as well as playing alongside Pierce, Garnett and Terry last season in Boston and Joe Johnson in Atlanta, the Nets already have five big men under contract and are also hoping to re-sign Andray Blatche to further bolster their frontcourt.