You can’t just buy an NBA title anymore.

You can spend a lot of money on stars but you need to do it wisely (see the Miami Heat), but you can’t just throw a random roster of stars together. Mark Cuban tried it and learned he needed to build a team differently, one with parts that meshed.

Mikhail Prokorov and the Nets are learning that this season — and will pay the price for that lesson for years to come.

Stan Van Gundy was on the Amani and Eytan show on NBC Sports Radio Monday night and summed up the situation well. He was asked if Brook Lopez’s season-ending injury could save Jason Kidd’s job as coach.

“I think with all the injuries it’s been hard to evaluate Jason Kidd. It’s been easy to jump on him not just because of the record, but the things coming out of their locker room, the situation with Lawrence Frank, the incident of spilling the drink on the floor. I mean this has looked like a bush league organization much of the year, they don’t play with much effort at all, a very uninspired team. But at the same time they had so many people hurt you just don’t know. And now they are not they are not going to be healthy all year…



“You can do whatever you want with the coaching situation but it is not going to change the situation with their roster. They just don’t have a lot of options — they don’t have draft picks, they are way over the salary cap. They are probably in the worst situation of any team in the NBA right now.”



There already have been reports that Kidd could be gone by the All-Star break if the Nets do not turn things around.

Two thoughts to add.

First, this quote comes from Stan Van Gundy, one of the NBA’s best available free agent coaches — you think you are going to get an elite coach to replace Kidd?

Second, as I have said before, if the Nets fire Kidd management needs to step up to the podium at the press conference and own this was their mistake. Jason Kidd may or may not pan out to be a good NBA coach, but any first-time coach is going to go through a learning curve. The Nets put Kidd in charge of a team with a one (maybe two) year window to really do some damage, then be retooled. There was no time for a learning curve, and we are talking about one of the most intense media markets in the nation. That’s not all on Kidd, it’s on the choice of putting him in there in the first place.