Promoted to “head coach” during the season to replace Steve Nash, then extended in February, Jacques Vaughn is guaranteed to restart next season at the helm of the Nets. According to ESPNthe New York franchise set out to redraw the contours of its staff by parting with three assistants: Igor Kokoskov, Brian Keefe and Tiago Splitter.
Igor Kokoskov, who was head coach at the Suns in 2018/19 and has more than 15 NBA experience as an assistant, arrived in Brooklyn at the start of the season from Dallas. Brian Keefe has also been a long-serving assistant since 2007, having been launched at Spurs as video coordinator in 2006/07. He, for his part, arrived in 2021, from Oklahoma City (2019-2020) where he had already spent eight years (2007-2015).
Their departures are in any case not surprising because Igor Kokoskov is close to Steve Nash and Brian Keefe to Kevin Durant. The two men had already left, their places in Brooklyn were in danger…
As for Tiago Splitter, he had been there since 2018, first as a scout before quickly switching to player development, mainly interiors.
The three could quickly bounce back to other staffs such as Detroit, Houston or Toronto, which will also review their assistant teams during the offseason. For his part, Jacque Vaughn will now have the leisure to compose his own staff in order to best pursue a project which has evolved along the way following the departures of Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, but which is nonetheless interesting.
