EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.—The winless record remains tied for the worst start in NBA history, and Lawrence Frank is no longer the head coach after 6 1/2 seasons, but Tuesday morning, it was time for the Nets to look forward.

With a snowballing press conference preamble, President Rod Thorn explained the situation, thanked Frank for 10 years with the Nets and finally introduced General Manager Kiki Vandeweghe as the team's interim head coach, citing Vandeweghe's extensive basketball background (as an NBA player, coach and executive), personality and ability to positively influence the development of young players. Tom Barrise coached Tuesday's practice and will hand over the reins following Wednesday's game against the Mavericks.

"I talked to six different people over the course of the last three days, starting with Sunday afternoon, and felt that Kiki would be the right guy for this particular job," Thorn said. "We're not giving up. We're going to continue to try to win games. We're going to continue to develop our young players. We feel have a few really good building blocks here, and feel that over the course of time can be not only a playoff-contending team, but a team that can perenially be a team that goes deep into the playoffs. That’s our goal. That's what we're trying to do."

Vandeweghe accepted the position after some initial reluctance, joking that he had never thought about being a head coach before Thorn suggested the possibility. But Thorn can be persuasive, and after two years of partnership, Vandeweghe knew that "Why don't you think about it?" meant "Why don't you consider this strongly?"

To ease the transition, longtime NBA coach Del Harris will join the team as Vandeweghe's lead assistant once a contract is finalized. Vandeweghe coached alongside Harris in Dallas, learning more about X's and O's than he ever did as a player, coming to appreciate Harris' basketball genius.

During those two years with the Mavericks, Vandeweghe worked out Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash nightly, watching film, shooting and perfecting moves as the duo developed into superstars. Additionally, Vandeweghe assumed duties charting the individual tendencies of upcoming opponents, staying up until 2 or 3 a.m. to watch game tape.

He left Dallas in 2001 to become general manager of the Denver Nuggets, a position he held until 2006. Vandeweghe then joined the Nets as a special assistant to Thorn in December 2007, assuming the role of general manager in May 2008.

While acknowledging that there will be a learning curve as he adjusts to new duties, Vandeweghe revealed his general plans for the team.. He envisions a running team that perhaps applies more full-court pressure as part of an aggressive defense.

"You don’t have a training camp, you can’t make radical changes," Vandeweghe said. "What we might do is simplify things a little bit for the young players. We’re going to really focus on the development of our young players – keep them getting better and winning that way. On the court, I would expect we might play a bit quicker, might turn this into a 94-foot game. We have a very fast point guard, we have players who are athletic and can run. We want to get out and open up the court a little bit."

That will echo a newfound practice focus on shortening the time, but increasing the effort and amount of running, a byproduct of Vandeweghe's 11 years as an NBA player. Following Tuesday's practice, several players cited that experience as a beneficial factor of Vandeweghe's nascent coaching stint.

"I think he just understands what we go through," said Nets center Brook Lopez. "That 82-game grind, from the players' perspective: getting back at 6 a.m. from the West Coast trips, stuff like that – the toll that takes on a player's body."

Lopez, along with Devin Harris, Yi Jianlian, Courtney Lee, Chris Douglas-Roberts and Terrence Williams, is one of the young Nets viewed as the foundation for the perennial contender Thorn and Vandeweghe have portended since making the decision to reconstruct the team 1 1/2 years ago. His development, and that of the others, now becomes the official measure for this season.

Vandeweghe and Thorn credited Frank and the current crop of assistants for their stellar work with this group, taking particular note of Douglas-Roberts' ascension following a tough rookie season. Douglas-Roberts committed to a summer of working to avoid a repeat, and though that kind of drive is internal, it was certainly channeled positively by the staff, who recognized and rewarded it.

By season's end, Vandeweghe hopes to tell similar stories about all the Nets, and that an attractive nucleus has made itself evident to any potential free agent in one of the strongest classes the league has had. And the philosophy that will get him there is this:

"Basketball is a simple game, and the simpler you can make it the better off you are. It’s a game of counters and reads, but there aren’t that many counters: you’ve got a move and a counter move. The greatest players of all time kept the game very simple. Tthey stuck to what they did well, they maximized those things, and played as hard as they could. Not a complex formula."

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