National Basketball Association

Out in the Cold

Updated Jul. 17, 2020 4:08 p.m. ET

The Brooklyn Nets won the summer when they signed Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant this past offseason.

Fast forward to now, and it appears the honeymoon phase has already ended in New York's largest borough.

Less than a full season into the Durant-Irving era, the Nets and head coach Kenny Atkinson have parted ways, without him ever coaching Durant and having only coached Irving for 20 games.

And so far, nobody really knows what caused the split.

Well, DeMarre, it might have been his own doing.

But that doesn't make much sense, does it?

Oh. Well...

We're not quite sure what Atkinson saw, but what we saw was a coach in the middle of guiding an injury-riddled Nets team to the playoffs for the second consecutive season, after getting them to the playoffs for the first time since 2015 last season.

Brooklyn's 'championship or bust' aspirations weren't scheduled to kick-in until next season, when a fully healthy Durant returned to the court.

Now, the Nets find themselves back at square one, trying to find a coach to lead this franchise to heights it hasn't seen before.

Finding their next head coach won't be easy for Brooklyn, considering they have two superstars who have notoriously clashed with head coaches in the past.

Durant had his issues with not only Billy Donovan in Oklahoma City, but Steve Kerr in Golden State.

And in the case of Irving, this is now the third coach in four years that he seems not to have meshed with, after stints in Cleveland with Tyronn Lue and in Boston with Brad Stevens went awry.

Interestingly enough, Lue has been the name floated around the most in recent days as a potential candidate to replace Atkinson on the Nets' sidelines.

And, to be honest, he makes the most sense.

Lue coached Irving for three seasons in Cleveland, two of which he served as the head coach.

In those three seasons the Cavaliers went to three NBA Finals, winning it all in 2016.