Sports Radio Interviews

Kiki Vandeweghe is Fine with the Nets Not Winning Games This Year

I’veheard of rebuilding years before, but this New Jersey team isn’t even competitive.  I understand what they are trying to do in building for the future and looking ahead toward free agency in 2010, but they are not even putting a watchable product that resembles and NBA team on the court.  Some of it has to do with injuries that they are currently dealing with right now, but another part of it is a lack of overall talent and a lot of youth and inexperience on the roster.

After starting the year 0-16, the Nets decided to fire their Head Coach Lawrence Frank.  You certainly can’t blame them for that.  When you’re in danger of breaking a record that nobody wants to hold, somebody has to go and in this case, it was Lawrence Frank.  So now the Nets will turn to General Manger Kiki Vandeweghe.  In case you didn’t know, he was the guy that helped put this roster together that looks more like a D-League team than an NBA team.  Although, as you can hear in the interview, that was a decision that he and Rod Thorn decided to make a couple of years ago.  They knew that it would be tough, it would be a rebuilding process and they are looking more towards the future than the present.

Kiki Vandeweghe joined WFAN in New York to talk about taking over as head coach of the Nets, the direction of the team and how he is dealing with the rebuilding process.

On getting the job as interim head coach:

“It’s actually kind of exciting.  Rod Thorn had called me on Sunday and we talked about obviously Lawrence (Frank) and Lawrence is a great coach.  He really is, great x’s and o’s man, knows his stuff, and just tough, tough circumstances with all the injuries and things like that.  He called me up and said you know I’m gonna interview a couple of people and he said you know I’d like you to just think about it.  So I said ‘okay, I’ll think about it’, but I really didn’t think that seriously about it.  I came in, we flew the red-eye back on Sunday night, got into the office around 7:30 and Rod and I talked probably around 12:00 or 1:00 and he said what do you think about that.  I said you know what, it’s interesting and as we got talking about it  either Rod is extremely persuasive or I just got excited about it and said you know what, this is a developmental year, we’re trying to help young players get better, it affords me the opportunity as you’re trying to go through rebuild of this team to get to know them on a first-hand basis and then get to know the rest of the league and all the other players that will be free agents on a first hand basis.  It’s a unique opportunity and I’m excited about it.”

On bringing in Del Harris to help out: 

“Obviously I worked with Del in Dallas and obviously one of the smartest guys I think in basketball, but Del is going to be my top assistant.  I will make the final call, but I will rely heavily on Del and all the assistants.  We have great assistants here and more so I was familiar with Del and I had a working relationship with him before and Del has been in this situation.  First with Don Nelson and then with Vinny Del Negro in Chicago.  (I’m) Very comfortable with Del, I think he will give great advice and counsel, but obviously during the game you’ve got to make the final calls and the final decisions.”

On the timing of the firing:

“I think it was more that things had gotten out and obviously when you’re 0-16, 0-17, whatever the number is, it’s a tough situation and you’re probably going to have to make a change.  Rod had decided on a course of action.  Leaving Lawrence sort of hanging out there coaching the game when and if a decision had already been made…I think he handled it the right way and let him know and didn’t leave him in that situation.  Lawrence has been with the Nets for ten years, is an excellent basketball coach, has done an excellent job.  Once you make the decision and Rod had made it yesterday then you go ahead and inform him and make the change.”

On going through a rebuilding process:

“I think a couple of things on this.  Obviously we are all competitors, nobody wants to lose any games, I can tell you that.  We made a conscious decision last year or a year and a half ago I guess that we were going to go through a rebuilding process to get to a championship caliber team.  We sat down and we looked at all different types of ways.  How were we going to get it done.  We obviously had some very, very good basketball players on the team, but they were older and we weren’t accomplishing what we wanted to accomplish.  They had large contracts, were over thirty and we just decided alright, if were going to do this we’re going to have to do this all the way.  During rebuilding processes, there is always a little bit of a pain and they’re tricky there’s no doubt about it.  This year, again it’s about developing young players, building a foundation, getting better everyday.  The wins will come eventually, but that’s not the focus.  I was very, very lucky to go to UCLA and be around a great coach by the name of John Wooden.  Coach Wooden never spoke about wins or losses, everyday he said I want you to come in here and I want you to do something to make yourself a better player to make this team better.  That’s what we will try to do.  Everyday in practice, every day that we go out to play a game, we want our fans to walk away and say hey that was enjoyable to watch, they may not win that game, but they played extremely hard and they played a style that I like and that’s what I will try to do.”

Host: I think you have a lot of talent to build around:

“I think you’re right.  That’s sort of the idea or the plan.  We went through it in Dallas and in Denver.  This is the quickest way to turn around the team and to build it the right way and to build it to last.  You just don’t want to have a one  year when you’re good.  You just want it to be able to last consistently.  You try to accumulate as many assets as you can.  Assets being draft choices.  We accumulated extra draft choices going forward, we have good young players, we have two positions where we are particularly strong at and that’s point guard in Devin Harris, center in Brook Lopez and we have young players around them to build with as a foundation.  What I mean as a developmental year it’s about building that foundation.  We have a lot of cap space going forward and we have a new building that we are going to go into in a couple of years.  It’s a great way, you have flexibility along with your assets and you can move in a lot of different directions to build your team.  We’re very excited and I think that as our players get healthy as you mentioned, who knows what will happen.  I think that everyday you continue to improve and as we can do that good things will happen.”

Listen to Kiki Vandeweghe with Joe and Evan on WFAN in New York

Tags: Kiki Vandeweghe, Lawrence Frank, NBA, New Jersey Nets, WFAN