Nets Are Scorching

Russia Today has a video up of prospective Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov who is talking publicly since it was announced that he had purchased the team last week. In the clip, Prokhorov talks about establishing “links” between Russia and the United States.

This is no surprise. There has already been a lot of speculation of what Prokhorov and his connections to Euroleague clubs like CSKA could mean for the Nets and the NBA. A recent Yahoo report even implied that the Nets, with Prokohorov’s influence, could be interested in Russian and Lithuanian legends Sarunas Marciulionis and Arvydas Sabonis. The fact that Prokhorov is already talking about linking the two countries is very telling.

Training camp continues. Lawrence Frank is still preaching defense over offense which seems to be confounding the beat writers who want to know where the offense will come from without Vince Carter. Still some notable things:

• Fred Kerber captures some praise about Yi Jianlian from Brook Lopez and Tony Battie.
• Dave D. of Eduaro Najera, who is still nursing a sore back, warns readers: “Don’t sleep on this guy. or all the prattle about how the defensive intensity must go up, it was impossible not to notice how much more competitive practices were when Najera was in a practice jersey last year. They need him, more than ever, even if he’s not always in the rotation.
• Al Iannazzone quotes Lawrence Frank joking about the offense: “We’re walking the ball up the court.”
• NJNets.com has some post practice video with Brook Lopez.

In others news, an editorial about the Atlantic Yards Development in the Brooklyn Eagle paints a grim picture for opponents of the Nets move to Brooklyn: “Daniel Goldstein and his Don’t Destroyers are now waging verbal warfare against the Prokhorov Oligarchs, but they are into a game where money talks louder than insults.”

The Nets have renewed deals with 20 corporate sponsors and signed agreements with 10 new partners to help generate more revenue.

Matt Anaya of Hoop Doctors is on the “Net’s aren’t that bad” bandwagon and picks them ahead of the Knicks in their season preview.

Rick Johannessen of Beyond Bowie believes Mikhail Prokhorov could give the Nets a distinct advantage in attracting Euroleague players.

Meanwhile, Vince Carter is already getting chewed out by Magic coach Stan Van Gundy on his *ahem* defense.

With the first day of training camp in the books, the media really focused on the defensive end today.  Right now though, I want to talk about some stuff that kind of got buried under the Mikhail Prokhorov happenings, and that is how Rod and Lawrence Frank think the offense will break down this year.  After sitting in on a breakfast meeting with Rod Thorn and Coach Frank, Ben Couch hits us with this:

So with the roster likely to remain the same, the question becomes one of maximizing personnel. That means playing a faster game this season, in an attempt to utilize speedy, über-athletic wings and bigs who can run, hopefully providing easy buckets in transition. But that means an improved focus on the defensive end, where the team should be able to take advantage of additions like Courtney Lee and Terrence Williams.

They’ll join Jarvis Hayes, who was the team’s best perimeter defender last season, and Harris, who earned a reputation as a strong defender in Dallas, though most of his energy has been expended on offense since coming to New Jersey. While the perimeter talent is notable, interior defense and rebounding will be key to the endeavor. Natural improvement from second-year center Brook Lopez (8.1 RPG, 1.84 BPG) should provide a strong base, but strong efforts from players like Yi Jianlian and Josh Boone are crucial to the defense’s success.

Ben got this vibe after talking with both Rod and Lawrence Frank, so there is a reason to take this as the truth, and boy does it get me excited.  When I picture the offense for this year, I see what the Golden State Warriors are trying to do, except better.

Let me explain, the Warriors love to run up and down the court and score like crazy, but they play no defense.  At times it doesn’t even look like they are trying to play defense.  The Nets on the other hand are looking to run and gun this year too, but they have guys who are willing to get stops on the offensive end.  Let’s look at a lineup I think could get a lot of time this year (hopefully it will become the starting lineup):

1. PG – Devin Harris
2. SG – Courtney Lee
3. SF – Terrence Williams
4. PF – Yi
5. C – Brook Lopez

All these guys with maybe the exception of Yi and Devin are above average defenders.  That isn’t what gets me excited though, look at that line-up one more times.  There are three guys that I am comfortable with bringing the ball up and playing the point.  Four of those guys can run the court as good as any for their position.

Allow me to dream for a moment.  Let’s say that Brook rebounds the basketball, with three guys who can run the point, he doesn’t need to find Devin Harris for an outlet, all he has to do is get it to the guy closest to him.  This gets the ball in the hands of a ball-handler much quicker and leads to more fast breaks.  So lets go back to this dream…Brook gets the rebound and gets it to the man standing right next to him…it happens to be Terrence Williams this time.  Devin, Courtney, and Yi fill lanes as Terrence starts the fast break, if there is an opportunity to score on the break we take advantage of it.  If not Terrence being able to run point effectively slows it down, and they start to run the offense (with Devin sliding in at the two and Courtney handling the 3 spot) as Brook catches up with the guys.   Next time down it could be Courtney or Devin.  This isn’t even taking into consideration that Terrence Williams rebounds great for his position, and that he can just rebound the ball, turn, and go.  No outlet needed, and when you can eliminate the need for an outlet, it allows you to start the fast break so much quicker.

Having three guys (four when you count CDR who was working on his PG skills this summer during workouts) who can interchange positions on the fly is an incredible advantage, especially when you are trying to run an uptempo type offense.  There is no need to situate yourself in a fixed position, you can just fill in lanes and go.  Also, if the break doesn’t develop and there is a need to run the offense, there is no need to find Devin to start it since you have 3 (4) guys able to start the offense.

Thinking about this possibility gets me so excited, and while it may not happen at first (rookies don’t really get too much time early on under coach Frank – see Brook last year for an example), once these five get on the court together, look at them to be incredibly effective and fun to watch.

While trying to determine where the Nets will get their points this coming season, a key to their offensive success will likely come from the corners of the field.

While the Nets were an above-average three-point shooting team last season – they shot .376 from beyond the arc, good for 9^th overall in the league – the Nets were nearly in a league of their own last season when it came to corner three-pointers.

Of the 18 teams who attempted more than 400 corners 3s last season, the Nets were the second most accurate from that floor spot with a .449 percentage, a few hundredths of a percent behind the Boston Celtics, who shot .451 from the corner. However, the Nets made 58 more corner threes than the Celtics last year (246 to 188) and also utilized them for a higher percentage of their total offense. Of the 98 points a game the Nets averaged last season, 9 points a game were the result of corner treys, good for 9.2 percent of the Nets total offense. Comparatively, 6.8 percent of the Celtics total offense came from the corner.

Here’s a breakdown of the Nets shooting tendencies via NBA Hotspots. Look at all that red in the corners:

When looking at some other teams that relied heavily on the corner three, about 9.4 percent of the Orlando Magic’s offense came from that spot, but they collectively only shot .392 from their. The Portland Trailblazers also produced 9.4 percent of their total offense from the corner, but they too, shot significantly less than the Nets, connecting on .403 from that spot. The Nets, despite being an average-to-below-average offensive team in almost every other area, seemed to be one of the league’s elite in this one particular spot on the floor.

Here’s a listing of all the teams that attempted more than 400 corner threes:

Read more…

Some news from the first day of training camp. Lawrence Frank is pushing defense. Keyon Dooling, Eduardo Najera and Tony Battie are feeling aches and pains. The presence of Russia’s richest man Mikhail Prokhorov looms over the state of the team. Read about it in the Star-Ledger, New York Post, Daily News, Bergen Record, and Sussman Sez.

John Brennan of the Bergen Record says revenues from Nets ticket sales dropped by about one-third last season.

The Baseline and Dime contribute their season previews of the Nets.

Mikhail Prokhorov’s publicist tells Dave D’Alessandro, “Mark Cuban is much more loud.”

Terrence Williams posts the results of his simulated NBA video game season. The results may surprise you.

John Jeansonne at Newsday talks about globalization in sports.

Ball Don’t Lie looks at the top 10 small forwards of the past decade, with former Net Richard Jefferson making the cut.

Third Quarter Collapse is at Orlando Magic training camp and talks to former Net Vince Carter.

Ball Don’t Lie also links to a “Brooklyn Nets” t-shirt:

While a lot of the reports coming out of today’s training camp session were the usual preseason musings about defense first, and who’s the leader, Rafer Alston came forward with a bit of news about the recent reports that he was demanding a trade to the Knicks or Heat because he doesn’t want to be coming off the bench in a contract year.

“You didn’t hear that quote from from me,” Alston told reporters. “It was a weird story. For somebody to put that out there right before camp, I immediately called in (to Kiki) and told them that the story didn’t come from me.”

Keep in mind that this wasn’t exactly an emphatic denial from Rafer. He just denied he was the source of the report in question last week.

Still, it would surprise me to see the Nets trade Rafer unless he really becomes a headache this season. Keyon Dooling’s hip issues are real and may cause him to miss the start of the season. Meanwhile, Devin Harris has never been the symbol of great health. While I understand the Nets are looking to the future this season, a trade of Rafer, with these circumstances in mind, could have potentially catastrophic consequences.

In the meantime, call me only mildly satisfied by Rafer’s response to all this. The recent buzz around Alston is a far cry from earlier this summer where he was coming across as the guy from Orlando who was happy to be here while Courtney Lee was still “hurting.”

Quick Update #2:

NJnets.com is now stating that the webcast will be tomorrow at 11.  Again NetsAreScorching will be watching and we will be giving you guys a breakdown of what we see.  The site says: “Tune in tomorrow at 11 a.m. to see the Nets Training Camp live exclusively on njnets.com. We are experiencing technical difficulties, we are sorry for the inconvenience. “

Quick Update:

NJnets.com now says to tune in at 11:30 for live training camp video, so we got another 15 minutes or so…

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With the Nets canceling media day yesterday, we as Nets’ fans got deprived of some of the great quotes and other stuff that the other teams got.  All we got is this video and some pictures of everyone in their jerseys.  Stuff like this:

So as Nets fans, we are just left in the dark right?  Wrong.  We get to see the Nets first official workout live.  Head over to NJnets.com at 11, and you see a link to watch it.  I will be watching, and if anything of note happens, I will be able to report it to you guys.

Name: Rafer Alston
Position: PG
Height: 6’2″
Weight: 175
Birth Date: July 24, 1976 (age 33)
Birth Place: Queens, New York
Number: 1
College: Fresno State
Drafted: 1998, 2nd round, 39th overall by Milwaukee
Experience: 9 season
Contract: $5.25 million in 2009-10

On offense:

It has been said a couple of times on this site already, but Rafter Alston is the first true backup PG the Nets have had in a very long time.  Rafer was the starting PG for the Orlando Magic the second half of the year, and he lead them to the finals with his solid play in the playoffs. Read more…