Nets Are Scorching

Joe Favorito of Jersey Newsroom gives an interesting breakdown of all of the marketing efforts undertaken by the Nets in recent months.

Terrence Williams on Twitter today: playoffs is not wishful Thinking this year, no not cause of me but this team is fast an hungry an we work hard so we giving 110%

Former Nets head coach John Calipari was on WEEI’s Dennis & Callahan show in Boston today where he talked about his new book and how his experience getting fired from the nets “knocked me on my knees.”

We linked to a story yesterday about Jay-Z, Brooklyn and Lebron. The Plain Dealer in Cleveland links up today and the comments section features some pretty irked responses by Cavs fans regarding King James and Jay-Z.

In a report that’s straight out of bizarro world, the Minneapolis Star Tribune is reporting that Isaiah JR Rider is looking to make a comeback in professional basketball this season and the Nets are one of the NBA teams interested in inviting him to training camp.

Rider, who hasn’t played in the NBA since passing through the Denver Nuggets during the 2001-02 season, currently has offers from the North Teaxas Fresh ABA organization and from a possible team overseas, according to the report. His agent, Joe Lee, acknowledges that the Nets aren’t likely to invite Rider to camp, but lists them as a potential destination regardless.

Rider is probably best known as the 1994 slam-dunk king in the NBA, whose between-the-legs dunk was poorly imitated by dumb suburban junior high kids on seven-foot-high basketball hoops (or was that just me?).  He was also a member of the infamous “Jail-Blazers” Portland teams, racking up a number of arrests for drugs and other charges.

There are nine million reasons why JR Riders is not coming to the Nets, most notably there just isn’t any room on the roster for him with the max 15 guys already under contract. I guess I could sit here and speculate about the Nets maybe moving a point guard to Miami or buying out Tony Battie, as has been discussed around the web this summer, but there are really no scenarios out there where I can imagine the Nets making those moves to make roster space for a 38-year-old Rider. Still, I found great amusement from this report, which totally came out of left-field for me so I felt obligated to throw this up there.

A recent post by CelticHub’s Zach Lowe about the merits of the Spurs possibly retiring Bruce Bowen’s number, has sparked some discussion amongst the TrueHoop network bloggers. Many team’s seem to have at least a player or two in their history that don’t have flashy statistics, but have earned the love and respect of their organization and fans, thus leading to their numbers being retired. So the question was asked to all of us TrueHoopers, which beloved, but statistically undeserving player’s number would you retire (or has been retired)?

In the case of the Nets, the team has retired six numbers, Drazen Petrovic (3), Wendell Ladner (4), John Williamson (23), Bill Melchionni (25), Julius Erving (32) and Buck Williams (52). Outside of Dr. J and Petro, I honestly can’t say if anyone of that list could be considered an immortal NBA player.

Trying to think of another possible Nets number to retire in the mold of Bruce Bowen is a tough one considering the history of this franchise. I think Jason Kidd is a no-brainer, but he’s a certain Hall of Famer, not a Bruce Bowen-type player. When you think of other heralded Nets players, they were either egomaniacs who played their way out of New Jersey (Derrick Coleman and Kenny Anderson), draft busts (Ed O’Bannon and Yinka Dare), or non-consequential (Chris Morris).

Which brings me to Kerry Kittles. When Kittles was first drafted by the Nets in 1996, he instantly became my favorite player on an otherwise dreary team. I remember traversing all of Long Island trying to find a Kittle #30 jersey until finally finding one at a Foot Locker at Roosevelt Field Mall in Westbury, NY.

A fairly accurate three-point shooter for his career (37 percent on 1838 attempts in 8 seasons), Kittles will probably be best remembered as one of Jason Kidd’s fast-break mates during the 2001-02 and 2002-03 finals teams. Kittles  could either finish while streaking towards the rim or could sneak outside the three-point line to wait for the kicked-out pass from the paint, and probably took advantage of the Nets passing attack during their glory years more than any other player. In 2002-03, 82 percent of Kittles shots were assisted on, leading the team. Meanwhile, for his career, Kittle amassed solid, albeit, unspectacular numbers: 14.1 ppg, 1.6 steals, 52% true shooting and 49 % eFG. He also set an NBA rookie record of 158 three-pointers made which was eclipsed this past year by Portland’s Rudy Fernandez. The guy battled chronic knee and leg issues throughout his career, but was never an attitude problem and never demanded a trade, which may be a first for Nets players who have spent that much time with the team. He still works with the team as a part time scout, showing his loyalty.

No, I don’t think Kittles should be nominated for the Hall of Fame, but I think he deserves to have his jersey retired. He had a unique skillset that, when inserted into the proper system, made him a key, if understated player. So now the question is extended to you, the readers. Which player numbers do you think the Nets should retire?

Update: Here are some other TrueHoopers and their musings on retired numbers:

Hoopinion: Mookie Blaylock, Lenny Wilkens and others

Bucksketball: Questions Bob Lanier

Hornets 247:  Muggsy Bogues

CelticsHub: Danny Ainge, Paul Silas, M.L. Carr and others

Daily Thunder: Down the road, Desmond Mason?

PistonPowered: Chauncey Billups, Ben Wallace, Dennis Rodman

NBC New York talks some more about the new Barclays designs and links to video of Nets co-owner Jay-Z on the Late Show with David Letterman Wednesday night. Jay-Z sounded optimistic about the move to Brooklyn during the interview.

The New York Observer gives an overview of the many iterations of the Atlantic Yards development in pictures.

Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn discusses a new report released by New York City’s Independent Budget Office, which shows the Barclays arena would be a $40 million loss for New York City with an additional loss of $180 million in opportunity costs.

Continuing with their off-season trends of top 10 lists, Ball Don’t Lie lists the 10 best passers of the past decade with former Net and Devin Harris trading chip Jason Kidd ranking at the top of the list.

The Nets homepage has an interview up today with team president Rod Thorn who was the man who drafted Michael Jordan for the Bulls back in the day (in Rod we trust).

Fresh off of saying Brook Lopez will average 10+ rebounds this season, Dime says Devin Harris is one of five new players who will average 9+ assists.

Some photos of a recent Nets practice.

A couple of months back, I came across a great post over at Hoopinion, TrueHoop’s Atlanta Hawks blog, where they took a look at Win Shares and used them to try and predict the number of wins that they will have next year.  I have been wanting to do this for a little while now, but I also wanted to finish up my schedule breakdown before doing this, just to have two different views to look at it, objective and statistical.  Now that I finally finished my schedule breakdown, we can go on with this.  A quick note, all statistics used from now on come from Basketball-Reference.

So what we are going to do is look at career win shares per 1000 minutes played and then the same number from 08-09, and using those numbers we can come up with an estimate of their number for next year.  So here are the first three numbers mentioned:

We can take these rates, give out minutes, and then come up with a pretty good estimate of how many wins that they are worth for this year.  You total all that up, and you got an estimation for wins this upcoming year.  (Total Minutes = 19680 = 48 x 5 x 82)

A few things real quick.  For Terrence Williams, I used the estimate for Courtney Lee, because I think they could end up having similar rookie seasons.  The thing for him is just to find enough minutes.  So in the end, these numbers got us taking 38 games this upcoming year.  The thing to note though is that this doesn’t really take into consideration your opponents (I honestly don’t know if that factors into this at all).  I have them winning 30, looking at it game by game, so we will see at the end of the year which is more accurate.  What do you guys think?

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

After a brief hiatus, I am finally getting around to posting the 4th and final part of the schedule breakdown.  Since it has been a little while since the last one, let’s take a quick look at where we are.  After 60 games, I have the Nets with a 22-38 record.  Before I started this, I said I think the Nets could win anywhere from 30-35 games, and to get to 30 the Nets are going to have to go 8-14 over the final 22 to get to 30.  After the jump, see if I think they can do it.

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Some more round-up of the new Barclays Arena renderings courtesy of the Daily News, the New York Times, the New York Post, the Brooklyn Paper and Crain’s New York.

Curbed NY sits down with the architects and Bruce Ratner and comes up with 12 Notable Things about the new arena design. Said SHoP Architects Gregg Pasquarelli: “The building will change from day to night. Literally, the skin is responding to the program inside. It becomes more transparent when it needs to be, with lightness and form embedded in it. The skin [of the building] sits several feet away from the weather enclosure of the stadium. At night, when lit from inside, it will glow.”

The New York Times architecture critic weighs in.

In advance of his trip to London for the Adidas 5 NBA United Tour, Basketball 24/7 talked with Brook Lopez where Brook confirms he’s not “your average NBA player.” He also repeats his prediction that the Nets are potentially playoff-bound this year.

Speaking of Brook, Dime Magazine pegs him as being one of five new players that will average 10+ rebounds this season.

The Orlando Sentinel is running a reader poll regarding whether or not the Nets practice jersey sponsorship deal is a good thing for the NBA.

9/9/09 will not only be known as Beatles day around the planet. Forest City Ratner has released their latest iteration of renderings for the Barclays Center, the prospective future home of the Brooklyn Nets.  The designs are a collaboration of architectural firms Ellerbe Becket and SHoP Architects.

In a statement found on the Barclays Center web site Nets owner Bruce Ratner said:

“The Barclays Center will quickly become an iconic part of the Brooklyn landscape. The design is elegant and intimate and also a bold architectural statement that will nicely complement the surrounding buildings and neighborhoods. The Barclays Center will be innovative in its look and use of materials, including weathered steel and glass, and will be the best place in the world to watch a basketball game and other forms of sports and entertainment.”

Project oppoents Develop Don’t Design Brooklyn have already weighed in on the design.  “It’s all lipstick on a corrupt pig, window-dressing on a boondoggle,” DDDB spokesman Daniel Goldstein said in a statement today. The statement also notes how the renderings only include the arena and not the rest of the proposed development.

Yesterday, Nets CEO Bret Yormark told Fox Business News he expects ownership will receive the financing it needs to start construction before the end of the year, with a move to Brooklyn likely for the 2011-12 season. There are still a ton of legal obstacles to overcome, most notably a hearing up in Albany on October 14 on the eminent domain issues connected to the project.

More renderings after the jump.

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