Nets on the Net 8/28/09 Edition
Aug 28, 2009 Nets on the Net
Today’s wrap-up of Nets-relevant web content.
- Page 6 of the New York Post reports that News owner Bruce Ratner has sold his Montauk estate and is now seeking cheaper digs in Brooklyn Quogue. Oh the horror!
- David Thiessen at Project Spurs makes me and other Nets fans relive the pain of the 2003 NBA Finals by ranking Tim Duncan’s top 5 playoff games with game 1 in the at #3 and the clincher, game 6 at #1.
- China Basketball Association vice director Hu Jiashi said the national team lacked a leader without Yao Ming at the FIBA Asia Championship earlier this month, and some of the criticism may fall on Yi Jianlian’s shoulders.
- Speaking of Yi, Aron Phillips of Dime lists him on his “10 Guys that Need to Break Out This Season.”
More Courtney Lee Quotes
Aug 28, 2009 Courtney Lee, Quotes
I know we talked about Courtney Lee at length already today, but I did come across some more quotes from yesterday that I wanted to throw up here. Enjoy:
“I’m going to be a man on a mission,” Lee said Thursday afternoon after a training session at the IMG Academy. “I just hope they’ll be happy for me when I grow into the player that they wish they had. I’d like them to one day say ‘I wish we would have kept him.”’
and
“The trade shocked me. After the Finals, Dwight and I were talking about things we had to do to get back and win a championship together. He joked about us being the next Shaq and Penny [Hardaway] with the Magic,” he said. “I know it’s a business, and trades happen, but it’s not something you forget, even when you look forward like I am.”
and
“I’ll take what I learned in Orlando and put it to use in New Jersey. It’s a great opportunity for me,” he said. “It’s more of an opportunity to be one of the go-to guys, to really showcase my full talents. New Jersey has a good young team, and I’m going to be a big part of it.”
Good stuff. I am excited to see him in a Nets uniform.
Courtney Lee Happy To Be A Net. Should We Believe Him?
Aug 28, 2009 Courtney Lee
We linked to the story yesterday, but this is something we felt we should take a little longer look at. Right around the time of the trade, we heard rumblings that Courtney Lee wasn’t happy about being traded from the team he helped lead to the Finals to the team that passed up on him in last year’s draft. While we didn’t hear from Lee directly, Nets fans believed that his silence spoke for itself, and the rumors of him being unhappy were true. As the weeks passed, and Courtney Lee stayed silent, the rumors of him being unhappy were growing louder and louder, and they peaked when his former teammate claimed that he was “still hurting” from the trade.
Now, some Nets fans (including myself) were able to explain away first reports of Lee being unhappy as a young guy dealing with a trade, but for Lee to still be hurting so long after the trade? Well, that made even the most optimistic (again, including myself) of Nets fans start to panic.
On the Wide Range of Predictions
Aug 28, 2009 2009 Offseason, Opinion
What can often get tedious about the summer off-season is the endless amount of speculating. Most of the significant roster moves and changes were made weeks ago and with the season still a few months away, there’s not much NBA followers can do except interpret and reinterpret the same storylines until actual ball is played and the prognosticators are either proven right or wrong.
With that said, something I’ve found fascinating this summer is the perception of how the Nets have fared in their roster construction and what their long-term prospects are. In the various posts and columns that have been published since the Nets traded Vince Carter in June, there have been two themes that tie these posts together:
1. The Nets are going to be pretty bad in 2009-10.
2. The Nets will have significant salary relief headed into next summer.
But all opinions beyond that have been varied and unpredictable.