|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
Great Scott Nets name new head coach just in time for draft
Posted: Wednesday June 28, 2000 02:54 AM
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) -- Byron Scott, who helped the Los Angeles Lakers to three NBA championships, was hired as the new coach of the New Jersey Nets on Tuesday. "Byron possesses all the qualities we are looking for in a head coach," Nets owner Lewis Katz said. "He has championship pedigree, and we feel very confident that he will be able to mold the Nets into a team that will be able to contend successfully with the elite teams in the NBA." The announcement of the new coach came one day before the NBA Draft, where the Nets have the No. 1 pick. Scott said he was offered the job on Monday by Nets president Rod Thorn and jumped on a plane to come to New Jersey. "I'm just looking forward to coming to New Jersey, having some fun, and getting this team to the top of the Eastern Conference," said Scott, who was an assistant with the Sacramento Kings the past two years. Contract terms were not immediately available. Scott, who was the shooting guard on NBA championship teams led by Kareem Abdul-Jaddar and Magic Johnson, has been an assistant coach the last two seasons with the Sacramento Kings and will now replace Don Casey, who was fired on April 26. Casey took the head coaching job when John Calipari was fired in March 1999. Scott had been a leading candidate for the coaching job with the Indiana Pacers. But he met last week with new Nets president Rod Thorn and decided to come to New Jersey. "I just heard it from someone else less than an hour ago," Indiana president Donnie Walsh told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Tuesday's editions. "And I've had so many calls today, I can't remember who told me. But Byron hasn't called, nor has his agent." The Pacers' job was left vacant when Larry Bird followed through on a three-year pledge and retired following Indiana's six-game loss to the Lakers in the NBA Finals. Scott, 39, played in the NBA from 1983-97 with the Lakers, the Pacers and the Vancouver Grizzlies. The former Arizona State guard, the fourth pick in the 1983 draft, spent two years as an assistant at Sacramento.
With stars such as Jayson Williams and Kerry Kittles sidelined with injuries, the Nets stumbled to a 2-15 start last season, then dropped their last 11 games en route to a 31-51 record.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
