Message to Moscow: Remove "interim" from coaching title

Dave D'Alessandro echoes a lot of fans' and even players' sentiments Wednesday in asserting that it's time for a change in Brooklyn: "the interim tag should come off — today." It's not a Billy decision, of course. It's a Mikhail decision and it won't be made in Brooklyn or East Rutherford but in Moscow, at the imposing headquarters of ONEXIM.

Dave D gives short shrift to the idea that the Nets have embarked a coaching search. A new coach, an outsider, is going to be hired this late in a season? It's succeeded twice in recent years, but most times it fails. Moreover, he suggests the Nets' coaching list begins and ends with one name who's currently sunning himself in Marina del Rey.

And he notes that the Nets players are on board with making their new coach permanent, at least for this season. "If you’re gonna make a change in mid-season, you have to maintain some familiarity with what’s happening, as opposed to some guy coming in and trying to teach a completely different system," Jerry Stackhouse tells the Star-Ledger writer.

P.J. Carlesimo, the coach in question, won't say he needs it or even wants it, but he knows how to argue for it.

"Well, continuity is the big one: You just don’t have a chance to change things," he notes. "Honestly, the way it’s going is great — it wouldn’t be any different if they gave me a 10-year extension or told me we’re not going to meet again until the end of the year," P.J. says. "The players are great, they’ve responded." They have indeed ... and that's the point.

• Nets coach P.J. Carlesimo doing everything right to keep the job long-term - Dave D'Alessandro - Star-Ledger