No more CEO role for Byron Scott this season. As he opens his fourth training camp this morning as Nets' coach, Scott expects to take a more "hands-on" approach than the last two seasons in particular, when his teams reached the NBA Finals.

These Nets will bear more of his brand in part out of necessity, with assistants Eddie Jordan and Mike O'Koren gone. The Princeton offense that Jordan served as caretaker now belongs to Scott and his lone holdover assistant, Lawrence Frank, as new assistants Larry Drew and Don Newman learn it.

In another way, it's a matter of circumstance. Scott finds himself without a contract extension, in the final season of his initial deal, and with the shadow of his reported rift with Jason Kidd still lingering from the off-season.

Scott insists their relationship is fine and that walking the lame-duck tightrope does not matter to him. Still, he expects to spend far more time in the trenches with his team, at least initially.

"I have to change obviously because I have two new guys [Drew and Newman] who don't know exactly everything that we do," said Scott, who opens camp today for players with four years or less experience before the rest of the roster reports Friday.

"It's going to take them a little bit of time. So obviously for me it's going to be much more hands-on the first two or three months until those guys get acclimated to how we're doing things."