NEW YORK — Jacque Vaughn says he never gave it much thought, but it’s been the elephant in the room regarding his coaching tenure in Brooklyn.
What if the Nets passed him over again?
When the Nets fired Kenny Atkinson, Vaughn piloted a 7-3 run in the Orlando Bubble and led the team into the playoffs as interim coach — only to be demoted back to an assistant for a rookie head coach in Steve Nash.
And when the Nets dismissed Nash seven games into this season, all indications pointed toward the team poaching Ime Udoka from the Boston Celtics, even though Udoka had been suspended the entire season for sexual misconduct with a female staffer.
What the team needed was on the bench the entire time: Vaughn, who shed the interim title earlier this season and was rewarded with a deal for the rest of the season. The Nets signed Vaughn to a contract extension on Tuesday. The extension is expected to keep Vaughn in Brooklyn through the 2026-27 season, and it came from the same organization that realized — maybe a few seasons too late — it had a star coach in town all along.
“I just kept doing my job, and it’s a great lesson for my kids,” Vaughn said on a Zoom conference call with reporters on Wednesday. “It’s like, ‘good news, bad news, who knows?’ that old fable. So you just continue to do your job, and you persevere, and you love to grind, and they know that’s a part of me. I’ve seen it all here, whether it’s multiple coaches, it’s the bubble, whether it’s a toenail over the three-point line, whether it’s trade requests, whether it’s all of the above. So to still be a part of this organization means a lot to me.
“That means the way I carry myself on a daily basis, people appreciate it. And so there’s something to that, but at the end of the day, I just kept doing my job and showing up every single day and ready to rumble every single day.”
Vaughn has a 32-19 record as Nets head coach this season, turning the tide after Nash started the season 2-5 as coach. He has been integral in holding players accountable and demanding everyone play their hardest no matter how many minutes they are getting on a nightly basis. He is no longer the same young coach who amassed a 58-158 record as head coach of the Orlando Magic.
Now, his long, gray beard represents the experience and wisdom he’s gained on the sidelines over the years.
Nets general manager Sean Marks called Vaughn the “catalyst” for saving this team’s season after an abysmal start to the year. Marks not only doubled down on that sentiment with his words, but the organization put its money where its mouth is by signing him to a long-term extension,
“Jacque has made an immediate and immeasurable impact on our entire organization since assuming the role of head coach earlier this season,” Marks said in a statement. “On the court, he’s clearly demonstrated his leadership through his ability to connect and communicate at a very high level while displaying tremendous instincts for the game. As a person, they don’t come any better than Jacque. His character is impeccable, and there is not a better representative for our team and our borough. We are thrilled to have Jacque lead the Nets for years to come.”
And yet the work is only getting started. There’s no question that superstar players like Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving make life easier for a head coach on the court. Now, Vaughn’s coaching chops will be put to the test: The Nets traded their star power for length, depth and versatility.
It’s on Vaughn to make these new pieces fit. The Nets enter the second leg of the season with the Eastern Conference’s fifth-best record, but they have the seventh-most difficult remaining schedule in all of basketball, and they no longer have superstar scorers to bail them out down the stretch in games.
They do, however, believe they have a superstar coach, as evidenced both the contract extension and how the team has rallied around their leader on the sidelines during one of the most tumultuous seasons in Nets history.
“I think it’s a huge acknowledgment, just for the staff, for the comfort of the players knowing my voice, and the direction going forward,” Vaughn said. “I think being able to really lean into loving this grind and the challenge that’s ahead. Never feared or not walked through those doors before; and so to get rewarded for it, it’s pretty cool. For my family and for the borough of Brooklyn, and how important and what that’s come to mean to me, it’s great to be on the same page with the organization.”
