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It's been nearly four years since the Brooklyn Nets fired Kenny Atkinson. He now has his eyes on a championship while leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to an NBA-best 22-4 record.
Atkinson will return to Barclays Center as a head coach on Monday for the first time since his Nets tenure. Ahead of the matchup, he revealed how his Brooklyn exit has fueled him.
“I just look at it as part of the story, a part of my growth,” Atkinson said. “You have good things happen, and you have setbacks. And it's like a player: how do you bounce back? And it was definitely a bounce back. I think, in the long run, the journey after Brooklyn really helped me grow as a coach. Who knows, if that doesn't happen, maybe I'm not in Cleveland. Maybe I don't improve as much as a coach if that didn't happen. So I kind of look at it more as a positive now.”
“But I will tell you, I'm competitive. And when you have setbacks, you remember things. Players do the same thing. If something happens or a team beats you or you get fired, you're motivated. You're motivated to prove people wrong, and that's kind of how I took it. It's a chip on your shoulder or whatever you want to call it. There's definitely some of that. I think any competitor feels the same way.”
Atkinson led the Nets to the Eastern Conference's sixth seed in 2018-19, a team widely regarded as the most beloved of the Brooklyn era.
Kenny Atkinson returning to Brooklyn with league-leading Cavaliers
The Nets signed Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in free agency the following summer. It wasn't long before Atkinson was on the outside looking in. His conviction about starting budding center Jarrett Allen over DeAndre Jordan, who joined the team alongside Durant and Irving, reportedly became a source of turmoil.
Brooklyn fired Atkinson in March of the 2019-20 season. Not long after, the team hired Steve Nash.
During that time, Irving appeared on Durant's podcast and disputed reports that the star duo contributed to Atkinson's firing. Yet, in the same breath, he explained why he felt Nash could “coexist” with him and Durant.
“First off, I want to give a shoutout to Kenny Atkinson. Some people came out and were like ‘Ky and KD got Kenny fired.’ Look, that was completely false,” Irving said. “Listen, Kenny was great for the group that he served and I was very appreciative of what he was giving us throughout the season when we were playing. We always heard and saw how great Nash was as a player; but also when you get to know him as a person, you understand why he can coexist with us.
“We don’t need someone to come in with their coaching philosophy, change everything we’re doing, change up the wheel, and we’re going to start running on the first day of practice. No; I want somebody that’s going to understand that I’m a human being first, I serve my community first. And then basketball is something I come and do every day because I love… That’s no disrespect to Kenny or any coaches I played [for]. It’s just Steve coming in at this moment and following up with putting together a great coaching core was going to make us more successful… It’s going to change the way we see coaches. I don’t really see us having a head coach. KD could be a head coach; I could be a head coach.”
After highly successful assistant coach stints with the Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors, during which he turned down a head-coaching offer from the Charlotte Hornets, Atkinson landed the Cavaliers job.
He's returning to Brooklyn alongside Allen and Caris LeVert, two of his most successful development stories with the Nets. DeMarre Carroll, a trusted Brooklyn veteran during the 2018-19 season, is an assistant coach with the Cavaliers. Former Nets assistants Trevor Hendry and Jordan Ott also joined Cleveland's staff.
Atkinson's Nets exit has stuck in the minds of the Cavaliers' players and coaches with Brooklyn ties. LeVert said the group knows how much a win would mean to their head coach during his return to Barclays Center.
“Yeah. I think as competitors, you always think about those things,” he told the New York Post's Brian Lewis ahead of Monday's matchup. “You know, myself, JA, Kenny, DeMarre — DeMarre wasn’t really traded away, but Trevor Hendry, who was also on staff as well, JO, Jordan Ott, we got a lot of guys who were here. So, as competitors, I think that just naturally comes to mind. So for sure. Definitely.”
