Official Fire Sean Marks thread

[TheNetsFan]

I have yet to see Marks construct a good roster since KD signed here.

I think we've vastly overrated Marks. Vastly.

You're not wrong, and this is why I said earlier that Marks seems to think that constructing a good team involves emulating Doctor Frankenstein, searching for enough (typically mismatched) parts to construct his title-winning monster.

It just rarely works that way in sports, and it almost seems like a slap in the fact to the Pop culture that he supposedly developed under.

At the same time, Marks deliberately chose to build around two guys who fled title-winning teams in order to play together. And they weren't even two-way players at that, like PG13 and Kawhi.

Say what you want about the Clips' stars' injuries, but right now they still look way ahead of us.

When you clear your books enough to sign two veteran max players, you're depending on your young cost controlled assets that you had in place before those signings. Then when you trade the above young assets for another max vet, your team will resemble Frankenstein. You have to maximize the talent around your stars with tax MLEs, late draft picks and minimums. Normally, in that scenario, your stars are reliable enough to cover for any roster deficiencies. However, when your stars miss 30% every season, it gets ugly.

[NyCeEvO]

I have yet to see Marks construct a good roster since KD signed here.

I think we've vastly overrated Marks. Vastly.

No, he was great until he got KD and Kyrie to sign. But since then, it’s felt like he mailed it in.

[MrDollarBills]

I have yet to see Marks construct a good roster since KD signed here.

I think we've vastly overrated Marks. Vastly.

No, he was great until he got KD and Kyrie to sign. But since then, it’s felt like he mailed it in.

Rolling into the playoffs with 6 centers was amateur hour. I'm not sure how anyone can have confidence in this guy right now.

[gigantes]

I have yet to see Marks construct a good roster since KD signed here.

I think we've vastly overrated Marks. Vastly.

You're not wrong, and this is why I said earlier that Marks seems to think that constructing a good team involves emulating Doctor Frankenstein, searching for enough (typically mismatched) parts to construct his title-winning monster.

It just rarely works that way in sports, and it almost seems like a slap in the fact to the Pop culture that he supposedly developed under.

At the same time, Marks deliberately chose to build around two guys who fled title-winning teams in order to play together. And they weren't even two-way players at that, like PG13 and Kawhi.

Say what you want about the Clips' stars' injuries, but right now they still look way ahead of us.

When you clear your books enough to sign two veteran max players, you're depending on your young cost controlled assets that you had in place before those signings. Then when you trade the above young assets for another max vet, your team will resemble Frankenstein. You have to maximize the talent around your stars with tax MLEs, late draft picks and minimums. Normally, in that scenario, your stars are reliable enough to cover for any roster deficiencies. However, when your stars miss 30% every season, it gets ugly.

Well said.

And when you look at teams that try to bring Frankenstein to life versus teams that build organically, going on to win a title?

Outside of adding LBJ, how many times does it actually work...?

[GTR11]

Looking back and learning from history definitely important. However if you not keeping up with current events and how new generation of players are, you setting yourself up for failure.

Most important thing for big market teams to keep in mind. You can't compare yourself to small market teams at all. Top ten players, young millionaires will most likely will join your team at some point. YOU MUST CREATE A FORMULA THAT WORKS FOR YOU, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!!!

[BRO klyn]

I would make the move for Lebron. And it is not because I am some Lebron fan boy, because I think it is some cant miss move or because I think Ben is un-salvageable.

I make it for one reason and one reason only. It increases our odds in the KD title window of winning a title. I love the idea that Ben bridges the KD era to whatever the next era is. But i'm just not confident in that. Not having missed 1+ years. not with the nets historic bad luck on these things.

I also think Fans don't realize that it may be 20+ years before we have a top 3 player again. those dont come easy. even if they want to be on your team. Jason Kidd was the closest we had prior to Durant, that was 22 years ago. We can get great players, we can build great teams. when you get a top 3 guy, go for it for as long as you can. Rebuilds are hard.. even ones with talent (Look at philly, look at minny, look at new orleans, etc...).

Lebron fits great. Plays the Harden role of defacto PG. Rebounds. defends 2 through 5. is still elite in transition. can carry the scoring load if needed. protects the rim. He needs more nights off.. but he could get that here. doesnt need to carry scoring like he did in LA. or carry wins like he did in LA (KD can carry better then AD, by a wide margin).

Lebron is also the most influential guy in the league. we would get better minimum guys, we would increase the view of our franchise. we would, in the shorterm, overcome the knicks in popularity (in a real way, not the fake way the past year or so). We would attract future young people to want to wear a nets uniform. we would finally get BS whistles in our favor.

Also, he expires/retires sooner and at some point you cant carry 3 supermaxes.

[GTR11]

I would make the move for Lebron. And it is not because I am some Lebron fan boy, because I think it is some cant miss move or because I think Ben is un-salvageable.

I make it for one reason and one reason only. It increases our odds in the KD title window of winning a title. I love the idea that Ben bridges the KD era to whatever the next era is. But i'm just not confident in that. Not having missed 1+ years. not with the nets historic bad luck on these things.

I also think Fans don't realize that it may be 20+ years before we have a top 3 player again. those dont come easy. even if they want to be on your team. Jason Kidd was the closest we had prior to Durant, that was 22 years ago. We can get great players, we can build great teams. when you get a top 3 guy, go for it for as long as you can. Rebuilds are hard.. even ones with talent (Look at philly, look at minny, look at new orleans, etc...).

Lebron fits great. Plays the Harden role of defacto PG. Rebounds. defends 2 through 5. is still elite in transition. can carry the scoring load if needed. protects the rim. He needs more nights off.. but he could get that here. doesnt need to carry scoring like he did in LA. or carry wins like he did in LA (KD can carry better then AD, by a wide margin).

Lebron is also the most influential guy in the league. we would get better minimum guys, we would increase the view of our franchise. we would, in the shorterm, overcome the knicks in popularity (in a real way, not the fake way the past year or so). We would attract future young people to want to wear a nets uniform. we would finally get BS whistles in our favor.

Also, he expires/retires sooner and at some point you cant carry 3 supermaxes.

If you run stable program in a big market, star players always will come over. This far player friendly environment that Marks created proved to work.

Thinking LBJ can maximize chances of winning title with KD and Kyrie is absurd to me. He can't even get them into playoffs. Also how much damage will he do if he becomes disgruntled. He's a huge diva. I'll take my chances with younger player who still has upside and complements our star players, which is D and passing.

[Stone]

Was Prok right all along?

Is anyone else starting to get comfortable with the uncomfortable decision of letting go of Marks?

We know KD is right about Nash.

Is Sean Marks irreplaceable? The guy who hired a friend who had no experience to be our head coach at one of the most critical times in franchise history.

If we do get rid of Marks and Nash, will KD stay?

Do we even want him to stay?

Are we better off without KD, Marks, Nash and Kyrie?

[MrDollarBills]

Was Prok right all along?

Is anyone else starting to get comfortable with the uncomfortable decision of letting go of Marks?

We know KD is right about Nash.

Is Sean Marks irreplaceable? The guy who hired a friend who had no experience to be our head coach at one of the most critical times in franchise history.

If we do get rid of Marks and Nash, will KD stay?

Do we even want him to stay?

Are we better off without KD, Marks, Nash and Kyrie?

Marks deserves to be fired. However, it should be done on Joe Tsai's terms, and not Kevin Durant's.

If Tsai fires Marks and Nash, KD will move the goalposts again.

[gigantes]

Was Prok right all along?

Is anyone else starting to get comfortable with the uncomfortable decision of letting go of Marks?

We know KD is right about Nash.

Is Sean Marks irreplaceable? The guy who hired a friend who had no experience to be our head coach at one of the most critical times in franchise history.

If we do get rid of Marks and Nash, will KD stay?

Do we even want him to stay?

Are we better off without KD, Marks, Nash and Kyrie?

This isn't a fair take IMO.

KD's feelings on anything at this point are virtually irrelevant, and even moreso on Nash, who's clearly the kind of milquetoast, star-enabling coach that Snake & Flake wanted & needed in order to be happy in the near-term.

People need to understand that Marks arguably made one colossal screwup (a screwup that ~80% of other GM's would deliberately make, and make again) in signing those guys and letting them run the show, and that the following screwups weren't really errors so much as downstream consequences based on staying 'all in' on the original screwup. This is why keeping context in mind is so important when you look at specific moves Marks made in the wake of that.

Another way of looking at it-- *who* are the Nets going to get that winds up being better than Marks? Likely nobody AFAIK.

When we get rid of Snake & Flake, get done with overpursuing a championship, now we're back to having a GM who's been great at finding and developing talent, as well as building a positive culture. Not to mention, I imagine that Marks is rather furious with himself for temporarily abandoning some of his principles to appease the doofus brigade. Indeed, I have no doubt he's learned a lot the past couple years (as a young GM, too), and almost certainly will grow from all this. Shouldn't we all be looking forward to that instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

To me, saying that you want Marks gone makes perfect sense from a frustrated and emotional POV. It's only human. At the same time, it makes almost zero sense to me from a rational, strategic POV.

This would all be vastly different if Marks had made a bunch of bizarro, backfiring moves the last couple years. Any fan who's paid attention should know very well that's not the case, though. You should know perfectly well it's all been in service to the idea that these two guys could bring a championship, and other than some unpredictably bad luck, it did come fairly close to happening.

How many people here were outraged or pessimistic when Marks first picked up these guys? Anyone?

And now you're mad at Marks for doing pretty much everything he could (with Nash being his most questionable decision) to make it all work. See the problem here?

[MGrand15]

Was Prok right all along?

Is anyone else starting to get comfortable with the uncomfortable decision of letting go of Marks?

We know KD is right about Nash.

Is Sean Marks irreplaceable? The guy who hired a friend who had no experience to be our head coach at one of the most critical times in franchise history.

If we do get rid of Marks and Nash, will KD stay?

Do we even want him to stay?

Are we better off without KD, Marks, Nash and Kyrie?

KD's feelings on anything at this point are virtually irrelevant, and even moreso on Nash, who's clearly the kind of milquetoast, star-enabling coach that Snake & Flake wanted & needed in order to be happy in the near-term.

This is what I feel like people are glossing over. I don't like Nash but look at Kyrie's exact quote on Kenny with KD nodding along beside him.

"We don’t need somebody to come in and put their coaching philosophy on everything that we’re doing and change up the wheel and, ‘Yo, you guys need to start doing this,’ and we start running on the first day of practice, and it’s just like, ‘No.’"

Then you throw in the fact that Kyrie and KD are the type to not respect coaches who weren't NBA players. Nash checked all the boxes Kyrie and KD wanted in a coach. It's easy to say Lue was the better choice but he literally wasn't on speaking terms at the time with Kyrie. That could have been a disaster. Udoka is the funniest suggestion. He was incredibly hard on the Celtics and called them out constantly. Imagine that with our weak ass group?

I also agree with the rest of your post. I think we - along with the Nets organization - were so excited by the star signings thinking that it was fueled by the right things. The culture we built that was making waves around the league, the family environment, the commitment to playing hard and smart every night, all the performance stuff that helped develop young players AND vets alike. I personally thought KD and Kyrie were excited about that. I'm sure Marks did too. Now it's pretty clear they both came here because they wanted to do whatever they wanted and run things since we weren't an established team.

Marks has definitely made some mistakes but I think that's the biggest one he'll learn from.

[gigantes]

Marks has definitely made some mistakes but I think that's the biggest one he'll learn from.

Just out of curiosity, do you have specific mistakes in mind that differ from the popular ones, like signing DeJordan, trading for Harden, and hiring Nash?

Also, how much of said mistakes would you say are on Marks in a vaccum vs. Marks trying to make the KD&KI situation work?

I think we - along with the Nets organization - were so excited by the star signings thinking that it was fueled by the right things...

Not to toot my own horn too much, but I actually did feel gloomy and pessimistic when we signed these two. While I respected their games, I didn't like their chronically weird behaviors* and tendency to bolt winning situations. I was hoping Marks was going to do something else... almost anything else, really.

*To be fair, the 'behaviors' were 99% just odd stuff they'd say. But as a window in to their personalities, it wasn't a good look IMO.

[MGrand15]

Marks has definitely made some mistakes but I think that's the biggest one he'll learn from.

Just out of curiosity, do you have specific mistakes in mind that differ from the popular ones, like signing DeJordan, trading for Harden, and hiring Nash?

Also, how much of said mistakes would you say are on Marks in a vaccum vs. Marks trying to make the KD&KI situation work?

Nothing we haven't rehashed a million times

Last season - we went too far away from shooters. I understood the moves in the off-season but when it was clearly a disaster mid-season - Marks was way too slow to pivot. Nash was forced into lineups that had no business playing in the NBA.

The season before - KD was our only guy that could really guard wings. Coming off a major injury and as a 1 option, I thought that was irresponsible.

None of these are disastrous but we had some critical weaknesses for teams that wanted to win the championship. Not worth firing over but enough to say he made some mistakes.

I think being fair - KD Year 1 mistakes were on Marks. Year 2 mistakes were on Kyrie+KD. Kyrie's vaccine stuff completely exposed our weaknesses. And after the Milwaukee series, I wouldn't be shocked if KD asked for more bigs + more vets on the team. Harden coming in way out of shape also played a role - which Marks couldn't predict.

[MrDollarBills]

This is what I feel like people are glossing over. I don't like Nash but look at Kyrie's exact quote on Kenny with KD nodding along beside him.

"We don’t need somebody to come in and put their coaching philosophy on everything that we’re doing and change up the wheel and, ‘Yo, you guys need to start doing this,’ and we start running on the first day of practice, and it’s just like, ‘No.’"

Once Kenny was gone, that was the canary in the coal mine moment for the Nets.

You can't win with guys like KD and Kyrie. KD was still as of last month taking shots at Steve Kerr, who has won more championships as a coach than KD will ever sniff.

Send him to Boston. Good luck to Ime, I hope he doesn't get fired.

[Stone]

Was Prok right all along?

Is anyone else starting to get comfortable with the uncomfortable decision of letting go of Marks?

We know KD is right about Nash.

Is Sean Marks irreplaceable? The guy who hired a friend who had no experience to be our head coach at one of the most critical times in franchise history.

If we do get rid of Marks and Nash, will KD stay?

Do we even want him to stay?

Are we better off without KD, Marks, Nash and Kyrie?

This isn't a fair take IMO.

KD's feelings on anything at this point are virtually irrelevant, and even moreso on Nash, who's clearly the kind of milquetoast, star-enabling coach that Snake & Flake wanted & needed in order to be happy in the near-term.

People need to understand that Marks arguably made one colossal screwup (a screwup that ~80% of other GM's would deliberately make, and make again) in signing those guys and letting them run the show, and that the following screwups weren't really errors so much as downstream consequences based on staying 'all in' on the original screwup. This is why keeping context in mind is so important when you look at specific moves Marks made in the wake of that.

Another way of looking at it-- *who* are the Nets going to get that winds up being better than Marks? Likely nobody AFAIK.

When we get rid of Snake & Flake, get done with overpursuing a championship, now we're back to having a GM who's been great at finding and developing talent, as well as building a positive culture. Not to mention, I imagine that Marks is rather furious with himself for temporarily abandoning some of his principles to appease the doofus brigade. Indeed, I have no doubt he's learned a lot the past couple years (as a young GM, too), and almost certainly will grow from all this. Shouldn't we all be looking forward to that instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

To me, saying that you want Marks gone makes perfect sense from a frustrated and emotional POV. It's only human. At the same time, it makes almost zero sense to me from a rational, strategic POV.

This would all be vastly different if Marks had made a bunch of bizarro, backfiring moves the last couple years. Any fan who's paid attention should know very well that's not the case, though. You should know perfectly well it's all been in service to the idea that these two guys could bring a championship, and other than some unpredictably bad luck, it did come fairly close to happening.

How many people here were outraged or pessimistic when Marks first picked up these guys? Anyone?

And now you're mad at Marks for doing pretty much everything he could (with Nash being his most questionable decision) to make it all work. See the problem here?

The problem I see is the we had three of the top players in league all want to leave. One is already gone and two are hanging by a thread. Does Marks not have any responsibility in all this? Nash deserved to be fired a long time ago, yet he is still here and will be at the helm next season.

Sean Marks is not a top 5 player in the league, KD is. It was less than a year ago when he was a strong MVP candidate. We are not going to replace that. OTOH with Marks we would lose a guy who might be able to rebuild a first round playoff elimination team.

Nash is above and beyond enough reason that Marks needs to go.

[gigantes]

The problem I see is the we had three of the top players in league all want to leave. One is already gone and two are hanging by a thread. Does Marks not have any responsibility in all this? Nash deserved to be fired a long time ago, yet he is still here and will be at the helm next season.

Sean Marks is not a top 5 player in the league, KD is. It was less than a year ago when he was a strong MVP candidate. We are not going to replace that. OTOH with Marks we would lose a guy who might be able to rebuild a first round playoff elimination team.

Nash is above and beyond enough reason that Marks needs to go.

What I said above, which is the same as many people here have observed-- Nash isn't some random coaching hire, and is here for a very specific purpose. The minute you lose sight of that IMO is the minute your analysis goes off track.

Sure, send Nash packing the moment it's necessary or desirable, but let's not forget why he's here, which is mainly to enable Snake & Flake, and secondarily to be Marks' coach-grooming project. And while I do agree his hiring was a poor look for Marks, I'm open to the possibility that Nash is a relatively average NBA coach at this point, and has actual prospects for growth. Or if I'm wrong, then screw him. Either way, he's not the core issue here.

Anyway-- KD's ultimatum simply doesn't matter at this point. What he has to say about anything shouldn't make the slightest difference to the Nets in the decision-making sense. This is just how things are after the Nets spent years appeasing he and Kyrie, with them repaying that by what is essentially a betrayal of trust. You simply cannot reward that as a professional, self-respecting mgmt / owner group.

Because these guys decided that they should be running the games and dictating GM decisions, and then got even weirder. Enough is enough. Now whether or not they wind up on the floor again in Nets jerseys, you can safely assume their main value going forward is as trade fodder. They simply cannot and should not be trusted ever again.

[shrink]

I know a lot of GM’s are blaming the Wolves for killing the trade market with their overpay for Gobert, and there may be some truth in that. Sean Marks may be the biggest victim of this, but I think he also has to take some of the blame.

Days before the Wolves completed their trade with Utah, talks had broken down. Then, rumors that Kevin Durant might be available started to emerge, and Tim Connelly asked Sean Marks what the asking price was. Marks told him that it would take Anthony Edwards, plus Karl-Anthony Towns, plus multiple picks. Two days later, they made the offer for Gobert.

Now, I’m a big Durant fan, and I think he is a top five player in the league and destined for the Hall of Fame. He deserves a big haul in a trade. And I get that at that time, most thought Marks really didn’t want to trade KD. But I have to wonder if he had made a more reasonable offer, even if they never made a trade, would the Wolves have gone back to the Gobert talks? And after hearing the KD price, maybe it made the price Ainge wanted for Gobert seem a little less crazy?

I don’t know. I’ve got no opinion on firing Marks, but I wanted to toss this idea up to you guys without starting a whole new thread about it.

[MrDollarBills]

I know a lot of GM’s are blaming the Wolves for killing the trade market with their overpay for Gobert, and there may be some truth in that. Sean Marks may be the biggest victim of this, but I think he also has to take some of the blame.

Days before the Wolves completed their trade with Utah, talks had broken down. Then, rumors that Kevin Durant might be available started to emerge, and Tim Connelly asked Sean Marks what the asking price was. Marks told him that it would take Anthony Edwards, plus Karl-Anthony Towns, plus multiple picks. Two days later, they made the offer for Gobert.

Now, I’m a big Durant fan, and I think he is a top five player in the league and destined for the Hall of Fame. He deserves a big haul in a trade. And I get that at that time, most thought Marks really didn’t want to trade KD. But I have to wonder if he had made a more reasonable offer, even if they never made a trade, would the Wolves have gone back to the Gobert talks? And after hearing the KD price, maybe it made the price Ainge wanted for Gobert seem a little less crazy?

I don’t know. I’ve got no opinion on firing Marks, but I wanted to toss this idea up to you guys without starting a whole new thread about it.

Marks had every right to ask for that price.

[TheNetsFan]

I know a lot of GM’s are blaming the Wolves for killing the trade market with their overpay for Gobert, and there may be some truth in that. Sean Marks may be the biggest victim of this, but I think he also has to take some of the blame.

Days before the Wolves completed their trade with Utah, talks had broken down. Then, rumors that Kevin Durant might be available started to emerge, and Tim Connelly asked Sean Marks what the asking price was. Marks told him that it would take Anthony Edwards, plus Karl-Anthony Towns, plus multiple picks. Two days later, they made the offer for Gobert.

Now, I’m a big Durant fan, and I think he is a top five player in the league and destined for the Hall of Fame. He deserves a big haul in a trade. And I get that at that time, most thought Marks really didn’t want to trade KD. But I have to wonder if he had made a more reasonable offer, even if they never made a trade, would the Wolves have gone back to the Gobert talks? And after hearing the KD price, maybe it made the price Ainge wanted for Gobert seem a little less crazy?

I don’t know. I’ve got no opinion on firing Marks, but I wanted to toss this idea up to you guys without starting a whole new thread about it.

Marks had every right to ask for that price.

Again that rumor was incomplete or flat out incorrect. KAT and Simmons can't be on the same team, so either Marks was also sending Simmons back (which is not a trivial piece) OR the rumor was BS.

Teams just didn't want to send back proven young talent. They wanted to do all picks deals, and that rightly didn't interest Marks.

[Educator]

He got absolutely fleeced by Morey. To trade Harden when he did was beyond idiotic.