Nets Are Scorching

Dear Daily News:

I think everyone who’s an NBA fan is well aware that LeBron James is going to become a free agent at the end of this season. The summer of 2010 may be the most ballyhooed free agent class in the history of the NBA, which has already captured the imaginations of fans of teams who have cap room opening up after the season. This includes two teams that you cover regularly, the Knicks and the Nets.

So it’s with that in mind, I question both the concept and the placement of your “Countdown to LeBron” graphic, which you’ve been running since training camp opened last week. Counting down to something that everybody knows is coming and is about a year away seems a bit frivolous. I’m sure Macy’s is very excited about the holiday shopping season this year, but walking by Herald Square in the morning, I don’t see any “Countdowns to Christmas” signs in the front window. They’re just stocking the shelves with Christmas paraphernalia – just as the Daily News could probably ingratiate itself to its readers if they mention LeBron’s pending free agency when it’s relevant, which I just don’t think it is in October 2009.

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The big news out of practice today is that defensive specialist Terrence Williams seemed to have inadvertently injured both Devin Harris and Courtney Lee. Rumor has it, he read Sebastian’s scouting report from last week and was so excited he ran them both of the court. Get the details from the beat writer of your choice: Daily News, Record or Star-Ledger.

Fred Kerber notes the erratic play this weekend of Sean Williams – he was fantastic in the open scrimmage on Saturday, but fouled out after playing less than 14 minutes against the Knicks on Sunday. Williams, could be playing for his NBA career this year.

Over at Nets Insider, Al Iannazzone talks about having that energy, or spark, off the bench a la Nate Robinson on the Knicks. Terrence Williams and Chris Douglas-Roberts are too candidates to be that spark, Iannazzone writes.

Ball Don’t Lie has their Nets season preview up. Real Cavs Fan also has a team preview up with some clever use of photoshop and perhaps a deluded opinion of Sean Williams’ worth.

Despite three events in Newark over the next two weeks, the Nets say their future is still in Brooklyn.

In his latest blog post, Chris Douglas-Roberts talks about his practice habits, Twitter, and the two shows that keep him up late at night.

Ridiculous Upside looks at training camp invites.

The Huffington Post has a slideshow of Russian oligarchs.

This is something that was posted a little while ago and that was just brought to my attention (Big ups NetsDaily).  David J. Berri of Wages of Wins wrote a fascinating article on the Nets.  The gist of it, Jason Kidd made the Nets:

This reaction begins with what the Nets looked like before the 2001-02 season. Across the Nets first 24 seasons in the NBA the team averaged 32.9 wins per season and only won more than half their games seven times. And never once did the team win more than 49 games.

In 2001 Jason Kidd arrived. Across the next seven seasons the Nets averaged 45 wins per season (winning 52 games in 2001-02), won at least half their games six times, and reached the NBA Finals twice. Kidd was a big part of this success. As a Net, Kidd produced 135.4 wins and posted a 0.347 WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes]. To put that number in perspective, the Nets have won 1,128 games since the franchise entered the NBA. Twelve percent of these wins can be linked back to Kidd.

To see how much Kidd meant to New Jersey, let’s look back to these seven years and imagine what the Nets would have looked like had Kidd been replaced by a player who was just as productive as Kidd’s actual teammates.

Projecting the Nets without Kidd

2001-02: 37.5 Wins Produced

2002-03: 40.3 Wins Produced

2003-04: 37.1 Wins Produced

2004-05: 20.9 Wins Produced

2005-06: 24.6 Wins Produced

2006-07: 17.2 Wins Produced

2007-08: 15.9 Wins Produced

Average performance without Kidd: 27.6 Wins Produced

Looking at the numbers, it appears the Nets from 2001-02 to 2007-08 without Kidd look similar to the Nets from 1977-78 to 2000-01 (when Kidd didn’t play). In sum, the Nets have historically been a bad NBA team. And only the play of Jason Kidd changed that reality.

At first read, I thought something that some of you are probably thinking right now.  Devin Harris has to be close to as productive as a Net right?  Well, David Berri then adds a spreadsheet to make you feel stupid.  Harris’ WP48 was 0.154.  Kidd more than doubled that in his career as a Net.

Sure Kidd’s WP48 in his final half season as a Net was .0633 (Devin doubled that last year), and Devin is younger.  The Nets clearly upgraded, but I don’t think that was Berri’s point.  I think Berri was just pointing out how important Jason Kidd was for the Nets as a franchise.  As someone who hasn’t been a big Kidd fan throughout the years (It is strange I know…I should love that guy…I don’t know…I just never grew a fondness for him), this really makes his impact sink in for me.

However, there is one point I disagree with Berri on (I am just taking on all the stat gurus today huh?).  This article is all based on a SI.com piece done in August.   This piece paints a bleak outlook for this year, but talks about a bright future.  So what does Berri think?  He thinks that is way off:

When we consider past performance, though, the Nets this next season look quite similar to the historical Nets. This team has a few productive players. But no one on this roster has shown that they can produce wins in large quantities.

To illustrate the problem of not having one extremely productive player, let’s imagine that Devin Harris is as productive in 09-10 as he was last season and everyone else on the roster manages to match the productivity of Bobby Simmons [the second most productive returning veteran with a 0.119 WP48]. Such a roster, consisting entirely of slightly above average players, would only be expected to win 51 games.

Of course, the Nets don’t have such a roster. What they have is a roster where the second most productive returning player is Bobby Simmons, and every other returning veteran offered less. And this means the 2009-10 season will not likely be a happy one for Nets fans.

Looking back at the words of Howard-Cooper, it doesn’t appear we disagree on the likely outcome of the 2009-10 season. Where we differ is on the assessment of where this team is going. Howard-Cooper sees some building blocks in place and consequently sees a glass that is half-filled. When I look at this roster, though, I see one huge building block that is missing and therefore the glass is more than half empty. And until a truly productive player is added to this roster, the Nets before Kidd will once again be the norm.

I agree with both Howard-Cooper and Berri on this year.  The Nets, despite being real fun to watch, may not put up a ton of wins.  Berri claims that there is one building block missing, and he talks about the Nets adding a truly productive player.  I guess he doesn’t think the Nets will land any big free agents in 2010 huh?

What I think Berri is missing is that the Nets have put together a terrific young core.  A young core that is still developing and that is full of potential.  That being said, this squad probably won’t have anyone putting up huge individual numbers, but going into the future the Nets may have a few of those (Lopez, Harris, TWill, CDR, Lee), and going into the next off-season they will have a ton of capspace to add a truly productive player, as Berri puts it.  That is why many, including myself, see the glass half-full.

Name: Yi Jianlian
Position: PF
Height: 7’0”
Weight: 238
Birth Date: October 27, 1987 (21 years-old)
Birth Place: He Shan, China
Number: 9
Drafted: 2007, 1st round, 6th overall by Milwaukee
Experience: Two seasons
Contract: $3.19 million in 2009-10

On offense:

Yi Jianlian may be the Nets most popular and marketable player, though that has a large part to do with the fact that he is one of a small handful of NBA players who hail from China – the most populous country in the world. The most common word associated with Yi is “potential.” After two some up, mostly down seasons in the NBA, that’s really the only positive word about Yi you can say because his numbers are plain ugly in most cases.

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For NBA stat heads, the day John Hollinger releases his PER projections is a big one.  Hollinger, who is the one who created the PER a while back and is generally considered the authority on  PER projections, released those numbers yesterday (ESPN Insider Only).  Before we get to the projections, let’s do a quick PER refresher.  PER, as John Hollinger explains, is:

To generate it, I created formulas — which I outlined in tortuous detail in the book “Pro Basketball Forecast” — that return a value for each of a player’s accomplishments. That includes positive accomplishments, such as field goals, free throws, 3-pointers, assists, rebounds, blocks and steals, and negative ones, such as missed shots, turnovers and personal fouls.

Two important things to remember about PER is that it’s per-minute and pace-adjusted.

It’s a per-minute measure because that allows us to compare, say, Jordan Farmar to Derek Fisher, even though there is a disparity in the minutes they played.

I also adjust each player’s rating for his team’s pace, so that players on a slow-paced team like Detroit aren’t penalized just because their team’s games have fewer possessions than those of a fast-paced team such as Golden State.

So what is PER used for?  Again, John Hollinger answers:

What PER can do, however, is summarize a player’s statistical accomplishments in a single number. That allows us to unify the disparate data on each player that we try to track in our heads (e.g., Corey Maggette: free-throw machine, good rebounder, decent shooter, poor passer, etc.) so that we can move on to evaluating what might be missing from the stats.

Just to give everyone an idea of what PER numbers are good and bad, Hollinger posted a list of the top and bottom 10 in the league last year.

Alright, so now you know what PER is, let’s quickly take a look at how Hollinger comes up with his projections:

It’s not, as some suspect, by pulling numbers out of the air. Nor was my secret yet pervasive bias against your favorite team a factor, much as commenters like to feel otherwise.

I base the projections on a tool called similarity scores.

For each player, I use as a comparison the players from the past 20 years who are the most similar, based on age, height and stats over the past three seasons. Some players will have more comparables than others, depending on how unusual they are — guys with freak heights (Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Nate Robinson), freak ages (Shaquille O’Neal) or freak stats (Andrei Kirilenko) will have relatively few, while a more generic player like Al Harrington or Devin Brown could have over a hundred.

OK, now that all this is settled, let’s look at his projections of the Nets.  It might not surprise you that Hollinger, who is down on the Nets this year (and it seems like he is always down on them), only has two players on the Nets projected to be a greater than average player (remember the PER of an average NBA is always set to 15.0).  I don’t really take offense to that, but I do take offense to some of his projections/explanations.

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As a lifelong New Yorker, for years I have dreamed about a train to the Meadowlands. Sure, there’s always been bus service there. When I was younger, the bus line straight out of Port Authority to the Meadowlands complex was an option for Nets games, albeit an inconvenient one. Buses in general out of New York City in rush hour are a bad idea. The most current mass transit option to the Izod Center is even more of an inconvenience – taking a NJ TRANSIT train to Secaucus and then a shuttle bus to the Izod Center. You’re relying on two separate modes of transportation. A train to a bus and back again isn’’t my idea of a worthwhile commute. Too many transfers, too many modes of transportation. Forget it.

Then, a funny thing happened a few months ago. NJ TRANSIT introduced a new train service direct to the Meadowlands. Yes, it required a transfer at Secaucus, but it was one mode all the way. I can’t even get to work downtown in the morning without a subway transfer, so this new Meadowlands service couldn’t be that bad. There was just one problem – there’s no indication that NJ TRANSIT is going to run the service for Nets games this season. I’m sure it has everything to do with supply and demand economics. Namely, there’s not enough demand for Nets games from New Yorkers like me to justify running a train service when bus shuttles are infinitely cheaper. But as long as there’s a train service that works, there’s a glimmer of hope for me that one day I’ll have a convenient mass transit option to the Izod Center on game days. Even if that glimmer of hope remains slim.

The question now is, does the service work? I got my chance to try it out on Friday night to attend one of the Bruce Springsteen shows at Giants Stadium. I had heard that the train service was a major disaster during the U2 Giants Stadium shows the week before, but for the Springsteen show, I thought the service was pretty effective. The switch was pretty seamless, and the station was well-marked so there was no confusion. There were more than enough trains, and really didn’t hit a single snag until later in the evening, when we had to wait about 20 minutes for a train back to Manhattan. And I more or less blame Bruce for that for playing a 3 hour plus show that ended close to midnight. I can’t envision such a scenario being a problem for Nets games unless the Nets play a quadruple overtime game one night.

I’ve already e-mailed the Izod Center staff to plead for the train service, but no one seems to be budging. It’s no secret that the Nets are having a hard time selling tickets in New Jersey – you would think making their current arena more accessible to the biggest market on the east coast could improve the bottom line. But this is just another example of the bizarre holding pattern this franchise seems to be in until there is more certainty about their geographic location down the road.

And before anyone says it – I am aware that NJ TRANSIT can provide me with a one seat ride from Penn Station to the Prudential Center in Newark.

For those with ESPN Insider access, Chris Sheridan alludes to a trade that was pitched, but didn’t gain traction this summer involving a swap of Devin Harris and Rajon Rondo of the Celtics.

Charley Rosen of Foxsports has his Atlantic Division preview up. He warns that the Nets need career seasons from several regulars to avoid being the worst team in the league.

In a postgame story after yesterday’s preseason loss to the Knicks, Dave D. mentions that Yi is definitely going to spend an undetermined number of days this month in China playing in their Chinese National Games. When something definitive is determined regarding Yi’s schedule, NAS will follow-up.

The Star-Ledger also looks at Brook Lopez’s dominating games against the Knicks.

Some funny stuff from CDR vis Twitter: Just left West Point. Good to mingle w/the soldiers in progress. I shot a M4 & a Grenade Launcher today. General Fresh. Yes yes. ;-)

The Atlantic Yards Report notes how Forest City Ratner was missing from this year’s Atlantic Attic, Brooklyn’s biggest annual street fair.

What’s going on guys, Mark and I are bringing the podcast back today and in this week’s edition we talk about the Prokhorov deal and some players that really impressed us during camp.  Also, the podcast has officially shifted to Mondays, so now you can listen to us on your way to work Monday mornings…that should make the dreaded Monday more enjoyable…we hope…

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