A long history of short exits

Fred Kerber has around the Nets for a long time, and seen a lot of coaches come again, so he couldn't have been shocked by what happened with Jason Kidd. He chronicles previous firings, releases, mutinies and bizarre occurrences hard to describe.

We have two favorites, the one where the owner fired the coach after realizing he had failed to remove some telltale luggage tags and the one where Tony Robbins, the motivational speaker, told the team their boss wasn't coming back.

First Larry Brown...

Reports surfaced about Brown leaving for Kansas. Owner Joe Taub confronted Brown, who told Taub the reports were untrue. The Nets were headed for a road trip to Detroit and all their luggage was in the locker room.

As the luggage was being carried out, Taub looked at Brown’s bag and saw a Kansas airport luggage claim tag. He flipped out. He ordered then-PR director Jim Lampariello to drive him to Newark Airport to confront Brown.

Brown was fired at the airport and took his luggage and went home. Still nothing was like the way John Calipari was dumped.

Calipari and Lewis Katz entered a waiting limo. The only thing missing was Clemenza in the backseat. Katz and Calipari flew by private jet to Toronto, where the firing determination was made. But nobody told the team. At their hotel, the 3-17 Nets were addressed by motivational speaker Tony Robbins, who informed them of Calipari’s fate.

There's also the one about the shrimp, the one about the mutiny, the one about the heartless oligarch and the one about 4 a.m. binge that led to another coach saying he'd had enough.

• Nets’ coaching exits have not been pretty - Fred Kerber - New York Post