"Really smart hire" for a "bleak job"? Different takes on what Kenny Atkinson is walking into

Whenever Kenny Atkinson has his introductory press conference, he's bound to be asked why he would want a job with so few possibilities and so long a timeline for success.  More than one league insider has suggested that  the Nets coach will see his skills questioned if, as expected, the team rebuild is long and losses mount up.

Sports Illustrated, in fact, stated Monday that the Nets coaching job is the absolute worst.  Rohan Nadkarni writes... "don't take this job."

This is such a bleak job. No young talent. A somewhat oft-injured center. Jay Z doesn’t own part of the team anymore, and he was ruined by Beyoncé anyway. They should just change their color scheme from black and white to all gray.

Groan... in so many ways.

Of course, someone has already taken the job.

And while Nadkarni deems the job a bad one, no less of an authority than David Aldridge of NBA.com and TNT thinks Atkinson is just what the Nets need.  A few hours before Nadkarni disparaged the job, Aldridge wrote about Atkinson in his weekly Monday Morning Tip... even suggesting he should have spoken up sooner.

Been two weeks since I wrote a normal Tip, and this fell through the cracks during that interval: the Nets are making a bunch of really smart hires, but tapping Hawks assistant Kenny Atkinson as coach is among the smartest. He is one of the best player-development guys in the game.

Atklnson didn't seem so pessimistic.  "I am truly honored and humbled to be named the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets, and I would like to thank Nets’ ownership and management for this tremendous opportunity," Atkinson said in a statement the day he was. "Together with Sean and his staff, we look forward to building a winning tradition here in Brooklyn."

We can wait.

• NBA coaches: Ranking all 30 jobs, from Warriors on down - Rohan Nadkarni - Sports Illustrated