Nets round out coaching staff with Igor Kokoskov, Adam Caporn and Trevor Hendry

The Nets have named Igor Kokoskov, Adam Caporn, and Trevor Hendry as assistant coaches, per the team. The three assistants join Jacque Vaughn, Brian Keefe, Tiago Splitter, Royal Ivey, and Ryan Forehan-Kelly on Steve Nash’s staff.

The announcement confirms Adam Harrington, David Vanterpool and Amar’e Stoudemire have not been renewed while Jordan Ott, who served as the Nets offensive coordinator last season, is headed to the Lakers. The Nets decision not to renew Harrington reportedly irked Kevin Durant, his long-time friend.

Kokoškov has more than two decades of NBA coaching experience. He most recently served as an assistant coach with the Dallas Mavericks during the 2021-22 season — a team that went to the Western Conference Finals. The Serbian native was an assistant on the Clippers, Pistons, Suns, Cavaliers, Magic, Jazz, Kings, and Mavericks as well. More importantly, Kokoškov was an assistant with Phoenix when Nash played for the Suns. His latest stop before coming to Brooklyn was with Dallas as an assistant (2021-22).

Outside of his NBA coaching experience, Kokoškov has extensive experience coaching internationally, having served as the head coach of the national teams of Georgia (2008-15), Slovenia (2016-17), where he guided the team to the gold medal at EuroBasket 2017 in Turkey, and Serbia (2019-21). He spent the 2020-21 season as the head coach of the Turkish League’s Fenerbahce.

Photo by David Dow/NBAE via Getty Images

Caporn, who is the head coach of the Nets Summer League team in Las Vegas, joins Brooklyn’s coaching staff after serving as head coach of the Long Island Nets, the Nets G League affiliate, for the 2021-22 season. He led the team to its second playoff berth in franchise history with an 18-15 overall record and earning NBA G League Coach of the Month honors in February after Long Island went 8-2 for the month.

The Australian native spent the previous seven seasons (2014-21) as head coach of Basketball Australia’s Centre of Excellence — the country’s leading player development program. He also currently serves as an assistant coach for the Australian National Team, a position he has held since 2017. He helped lead the Australian Boomers to a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games last summer. Previously, he served two years (2014-16) as head coach of Australia’s U19 National Team and was an assistant coach at Saint Mary’s College of California for four seasons (2010-14).

Caporn also spent one season (2010-11) as a scholarship assistant coach at the Centre of Excellence, one season (2009-10) as head coach of the East Perth Eagles in Australia’s NBL1 and one season (2007-08) as an assistant coach for the Willetton Tigers in Australia’s NBL1 while still in the midst of his playing career.

Before he pursued coaching, Caporn played two collegiate seasons (2001-03) at Saint Mary’s and six professional seasons in Australia and New Zealand’s National Basketball League with the Illawarra Hawks (2003-06), Wellington Saints (2004) and Perth Wildcats (2006-09). He was teammates with Nets guard, Patty Mills at Saint Mary’s.

Photo by Johnnie Izquierdo/NBAE via Getty Images

The biggest surprise addition to Nash’s coaching staff is Hendry. He has been named assistant coach after spending the last four seasons as the Nets’ head video coordinator. He has been with Brooklyn since 2014 and served in a variety of basketball operations roles prior to entering the video room. In that span, he spent one season (2016-17) as a video and player development seasonal assistant for the Long Island Nets and one season (2017-18) in the same role for Brooklyn before becoming head video coordinator.

Before joining the Nets organization, the Waterford, Connecticut native earned both a Bachelor of Arts in business and a Master of Business Administration from Clark University.

• What does Igor Kokoškov bring to Steve Nash’s staff in Brooklyn? - Alex Schiffer - The Athletic