Brooklyn Nets decision to fire Jacque Vaughn had everything to do with star power

With the Nets standing out of play-in tournament contention, the franchise decided to fire head coach Jacque Vaughn.

According to Ian Begley of SNY Sports, "several players had lost confidence in Vaughn" and some members of the franchise thought the coach could "hinder" their chances at getting a top veteran coming here via a trade or free agency.

Brooklyn is heading nowhere fast with Mikal Bridges as the franchise's best veteran. They are looking to trade for a superstar with the focus on not undergoing a giant rebuild like they did before signing Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving a couple of years ago. With all of this in mind, where do the Nets go from here?

Where exactly do the Brooklyn Nets go from here?

To be quite honest, the Nets are in a very weird spot. The franchise clearly doesn't want to head into a rebuild even though they could have likely gotten a good haul of draft picks for Mikal Bridges and others at the trade deadline. While the Nets don't have control of their own picks until 2028, they either outright or swap control of the Suns picks until 2029.

The squad wants to trade for a superstar this offseason and will probably have a chance to acquire one with the rate of superstars that have been moved every trade cycle. With that in mind, it's easy to see why the Nets would want to hire a coach who is player-friendly. It is probably not right for this franchise to go chasing after a star, but it's also quite obvious that owner Joe Tsai wants to retool rather than rebuild.

While coach Vaughn's rotations were not perfect, Tsai wanting to retool rather than rebuild is a flawed concept. Going forward, the franchise will likely target a coach who can bring stars with him.