Nets Are Scorching

According to Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the candidate I’m leaning towards more and more to be the next coach for the Nets, Boston assistant and defensive guru Tom Thibodeau, is scheduled to interview with Rod Thorn on Thursday.

It sounds like the New Orleans Hornets are ready to offer Thibs a job, though the coaching candidate looks to be weighing his options. NOLA could turn to Portland assistant Monty Williams if Thibs stalls too much, according to Woj.

In an article on Slam Online, Kyle Stack talks to Robert Boland, a sports management professor at NYU, about Mikhail Prokhorov and the Barclays Arena under construction in arena. A lot of this article is the same old same old about Prokhorov, but Boland has an interesting take on the arena:

“They will have trouble selling out the arena the first couple of years,” Boland said. “The Knicks are having trouble selling out and they’re in Madison Square Garden with four million people walking under it every day.”

Even though the Nets’ Brooklyn arena would seemingly benefit from the 2.5 million people who live in the borough and the resulting enthusiasm of Brooklyn finally getting a pro sports team after what will have been a 54-year pro sports drought, there are plenty of questions yet to be answered. First on the list is whether fans are willing to pay for tickets to watch a team which has no assurance of being among the NBA’s elite during the next several years.

For starters, the arena is going to open a few years out, at which point the Nets will hopefully be in the Eastern Conference mix again. Second, I think there’s going to be a general curiosity the first few years of this thing, that will sell a bunch of tickets to casual fans. The Brooklyn market has gone untapped for decades, and as someone who lives in the borough, I don’t think you can just look to MSG and Manhattan to determine that Brooklyn will likely follow suit. They’re two completely different markets from my perspective. Also keep in mind that the Knicks have been miserable for nearly a decade. The Nets misery at this point has been short lived in comparison, and quite frankly, if the Knicks don’t land LeBron this summer, as they’ve been subtlety promising their fans they’re going to do for the past year, I think there’s a very good chance that a number of disenchanted Knicks fans will jump to the Nets camp.

Obviously, this is a New Jersey Nets blog, however, the NAS crew absolutely love the NBA in general. So, every week, Sebastian, Mark, Devin, and myself will answer questions regarding the L.

1) Who makes it to the NBA Finals? Who wins?

Sebastian:
I still think it is going to end up being the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers (after Ron Artest’s dagger last night). The Orlando Magic have too much to overcome to win four in a row, and I think they will have a stretch of bad three-point shooting that will cost them. I think the Lakers will win for the same reasons they have been winning these entire playoffs, Kobe is really good and they are bigger than everyone.

Mark:
Well, both the Phoenix Suns and the Magic are making their respective series interesting, but I can’t see Phoenix knocking off the Lakers and the Celtics, despite the fact that I thought they were an inherently flawed team entering the postseason; they can’t possibly lose four in a row to the Magic… can they? I mean, wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants for the city of Boston? With that said, I say the Lakers beat the Celtics 4-2 for the outgoing Phil Jackson, who will have vodka with Mikhail Prokhorov and tease New Jersey Nets fans for a few weeks before retiring.

Devin:
Are you kidding? First I pick Phoenix-Orlando, and the teams go down 0-2 and 0-3. Then I say Orlando has the best chance of coming back, and Phoenix pulls a high school zone out of nowhere and ties the series. Clearly I have no idea what’s going on, and anything I say gets completely flipped like we’re living in Bizarro World. Honestly though, put a gun to my head and I’d say it’s looking like another LA-Boston matchup (although it would be an awesome matchup if the two underdogs pulled it out – Orlando especially, for historical reasons). In a seven-game series between LA and Boston, I think it’d come down to HCA, and because of that I think the Lakers pull it out and Kobe fans get to wax more poetic about how amazing he is and how amazing LeBron isn’t. Sigh.

DV:
Before the postseason, I was saying it would be a repeat of last year’s NBA Finals and I still believe that.  Thanks to some instant goat-to-hero antics by Ron Artest, the Lakers find themselves up 3-2 in their series with the Suns and I believe they close them out in Game Six, riding the momentum.  I believe the Magic will also ride the momentum and make some history, coming back from 0-3 and take their series with the Celtics.  In the finals, it’s Kobe time once again as the Lakers repeat and the Artest detractors keep quiet. Read more…

Dave D. is the latest pundit/blogger/writer/fan/etc. to dissect the Favors/Cousins debate for the Nets. According to D’Alessandro’s report the Nets are a bit dismayed by the fact that they don’t have a slam dunk with the third pick, especially if John Wall and Evan Turner are off the board at that point:

The Nets are leaning toward Derrick Favors, but from what we can tell, they are also convinced that there is no way the Georgia Tech kid is ready to start – not this year, perhaps not until the middle of his second year.

Which means they’re still going to have to sign a veteran four to ride shotgun with Brook Lopez while we wait for one of these guys to develop. Or they could take Wesley Johnson, who’s the inferior player in their eyes but could probably step into the rotation more quickly, Dave D. implies.

From my perspective, you take the best player for the long-term when you have the third pick. And while Derrick Favors may take a few years to grow into his role, so be it. I know the advocates for DeMarcus Cousins are especially vociferous it seems, but come on… intangibles do matter. I’m not saying he’s guaranteed to be the next Derrick Coleman, but why take that risk when you know it’s out there?

Regarding this year’s NBA Draft, conventional thinking has John Wall going first to the Washington Wizards and the Philadelphia 76ers, in all likelihood, selecting Evan Turner, the second best prospect by most standards.  So, how about the Nets with the third pick?

What I gather most from what I’ve read of New Jersey Nets owner, Mikhail Prokhorov, is he likes to take calculated and minimized risks in business. Sure, a certain amount of luck is needed to succeed, but for the most part, he seems like he makes moves with a purpose (his recent media circus around the tume of the NBA Draft Lottery and his ownership becoming official being an obvious example). So, just knowing that, I don’t think he would chance having a potential seemingly issue-laden player on his team, drafted third overall in Prokhorov’s first NBA Draft, despite this player’s talent. It’s a new beginning for the Nets and DeMarcus Cousins shouldn’t be a part of it.
Read more…

Though many Nets fans are probably disappointed that the team didn’t draw the first or second pick in this summer’s draft – thereby hypothetically losing out on the John Wall/Evan Turner sweepstakes – nabbing the third pick is still an organizational rarity in that the team has only selected in the top three on three different occasions since the Draft Lottery system began in 1985.

With that said, as is the case with most NBA teams, the Nets have had a mixed bag of results with their draft lottery picks. To demonstrate just how random the lottery can be, and how scouting reports can differ drastically from actual results, I thought I would review how the Nets have done at each respective spot in the lottery rounds. So rather than obsessing about mid-round busts like Antoine Wright or Rex Walters,  I thought it would be better to rehash how the Nets have fared with picks that should be hypothetically be producing the best players. Here’s part I, and next week I’ll look at the remaining lottery picks.

Read more…

According to Al Iannazzone, Avery Johnson is the first man up to be interviewed for the Nets head coaching vacancy. Rod Thorn is likely going to interview “four to six” candidates. Another names being thrown around in the report include Boston assistant Tom Thibodeau, Jeff Van Gundy and Portland assistant Monty Williams. Mark Jackson and Mike Brown are also on the radar.

I have a feeling that either Avery or Thibs will ultimately get the job, so I would watch these reports very carefully. There seems to be a growing chorus for Mike Brown, but the idea of bringing in a guy who seemed to lose control of his team at the worst possible time just sounds like a recipe for disaster.

In New Jersey next year? Not in this mock, and probably not come draft night. …Probably.

So after my illustrious first mock went up last week, I made the solemn promise that I would be bringing you updated mocks every week until the remainder of the draft. As you will learn quickly, I’m a man of my word, and thus the second Wednesday brings the second mock draft.

In the world of the draft, one week can make all the difference. However, since the full combine measurements haven’t come out yet, there hasn’t been too much of a buzz surrounding the NBA Draft. The first measurements are in, and while there are a couple of interesting notes (DeMarcus Cousins’s body fat, Cole Aldrich’s 2-inch shoes), not too much was shaken up.

There are a couple of changes, though, and this will be the last week that we’ll have only the top 14. Next Wednesday, expect a mock that’s expanded to the top 20.

Without further ado, version 2.0:

Read more…