Jacque Vaughn out as coach of Nets

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The Brooklyn Nets are moving on to a new coach as Jacque Vaughn was dismissed as coach Monday. The team announced Tuesday that assistant coach Kevin Ollie will take over as interim coach.

“This was an incredibly difficult decision, but one we feel is in the best interest of the team going forward,” Nets GM Sean Marks said in a statement. “Jacque has represented this organization with exemplary character and class for the past eight years. The consistent positivity and passion he poured into our team daily will remain with the players and staff he interacted with throughout his tenure.”

What this means: The Nets are No. 11 in the Eastern Conference (21-33) and are 2 1/2 games behind the Atlanta Hawks for the No. 10 spot and a place in the Play-In Tournament mix. Brooklyn started the season solidly and was .500 as recently as the day after Christmas.

The Nets dropped five of their final six games before the break and their 136-86 loss to the Celtics on Wednesday was their worst defeat since moving to Brooklyn in 2012 and the second-worst in franchise history. Additionally, leading scorer Mikal Bridges seemed particularly frustrated in his postgame comments.

Ollie, a veteran coach and former NBA player, brings a variety of coaching experience to the interim role. He played 13 seasons in the NBA, and coached in the NCAA with UConn for six seasons, where he won the national championship in 2014. He coached Overtime Elite for two seasons and joined the Nets’ staff before the 2023-24 campaign.

Vaughn’s bio: Vaughn took over as coach of the Nets in November of 2022 after the team fired Steve Nash. He initially served as interim coach of the team after Nash’s ouster for four games before being given the role full-time. Last summer, the team agreed to a multiyear contract extension with Vaughn, the terms of which were not disclosed.

He went 64-65 over his last two seasons with Brooklyn and helped the team make the playoffs in 2023, where it lost 4-0 to the Boston Celtics in the first round. Before serving as the Nets’ coach, Vaughn had also coached the Orlando Magic from 2012-15 (58-158) and served as the Nets’ coach in 2019-20 (7-3) as the team closed out the season with him after firing Kenny Atkinson.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.