In his introductory press conference Monday morning, new Brooklyn Nets head coach Lionel Hollins stressed that his staff wasn’t going to come together right away, and that he and GM Billy King would take the time needed to put together the right staff.
But it looks like we’ve got some things cleared up. Assistants Eric Hughes and Sean Sweeney are gone, and will join Jason Kidd in Milwaukee. Ditto for Joe Prunty, who Kidd chose as his official head coach for the first two games of the season while Kidd served a two-game suspension for a DUI. It looks like offensive guru John Welch will stick around.
Meanwhile, Hollins appears primed to make his first two official hires. The Nets will bring on assistant coaches Joe Wolf and Tony Brown, according to Ken Berger of CBS:
Mavs assistant Tony Brown and Ukrainian national team assistant Joe Wolf also coming aboard as assistants in Brooklyn, sources say.
— Ken Berger (@KBergCBS) July 9, 2014
Wolf was an assistant coach with Hollins when Hollins worked with the Milwaukee Bucks. He played for nine NBA teams in a professional career that spanned from 1987-1999, not including one stint overseas in Spain. He’s also worked as a head coach in the NBA D-League and the Continental Basketball Association.
Brown was a fourth-round draft pick in 1982 (when the NBA draft had ten rounds) for the then-New Jersey Nets, and played with the Nets during the 1986-1987 season. Like Wolf, Brown also worked as an assistant with the Bucks, but the season before Hollins joined Scott Skiles’s staff. He has been an NBA assistant every year since 1997. The Nets are his eighth team.
As for the league’s best-paid daily reporter, Lawrence Frank? It looks like he’s getting courted by Clippers coach Doc Rivers in Los Angeles once again. Don’t be surprised to see him go: the Nets would have to negotiate a buyout for Frank, who has five years left on his contract, but Frank and Rivers have a history and Frank’s a workhorse who doesn’t like sitting around.
