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Amar’e Stoudemire and Steve Nash are together again on the Brooklyn Nets.
No, this is not a sentence from 2014. Read it again: Amar’e Stoudemire and Steve Nash will be reunited on an NBA team for the first time since they last played together in 2010.
The only difference is this time, they’ll be doing so as coaches for the Brooklyn Nets.
In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last two months, Nash was hired in September as the team’s full-time replacement for head coach Kenny Atkinson and interim coach Jacque Vaughn. And while his longtime buddy Dirk Nowitzki may have turned down Nash’s offer to join Brooklyn’s coaching staff, his former Phoenix Suns teammate has decided to join the Nets.
The happy news was first reported by The Athletic’s Shams Charania Friday morning.
Amar’e Stoudemire and Steve Nash are back together again
While it’s unfortunate this star pick-and-roll duo never won a title together for the Seven Seconds or Less Suns, it’s pretty neat to see them reunited — even if it’s as coaches for a completely different franchise.
While there hadn’t been much buzz about the 37-year-old Stoudemire even being interested in coaching leading up to this surprising announcement, his relationship with Nash and his ability to relate to the Nets’ players could make him an effective assistant. He and Nash will have plenty of wisdom to impart when it comes to pick-and-roll action, and a Kyrie Irving-Kevin Durant pick-and-roll could be deadly.
Brooklyn has high expectations for the upcoming season with its two superstars healthy and Caris LeVert poised to make the leap to stardom. Nash will have his hands full managing all those locker room egos, but having someone he can trust on the sidelines like Stoudemire could go a long way — especially if STAT’s experience in the league can rub off positively on bigs like DeAndre Jordan and Jarrett Allen.
And who knows? Maybe Nash and Amar’e will finally be able win a title together after all.