Nets Are Scorching

With tomorrow expected to be Rod Thorn’s last day with the Nets organization before he either edges into retirement or finds another job in this league, I thought it would be appropriate to relive the highs and lows of his tenure with the organization. It was undoubtedly a roller coaster with Thorn, who was the NBA’s executive of the year in 2002 while the organization found itself in back-to-back Finals before vying for the worst record of all-time in the latter stages of his time here. For the sake of avoiding arguments, I’m not going to rank these highs and lows – but feel free to use the comments section to dispute or arrange what I’ve put down.

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Jordan Farmar on why he picked the Nets over the Lakers: “We talked about it, and it wasn’t really how I wanted to spend my whole career, being a backup in a triangle (offense),” the Nets’ new backup point guard explained yesterday.

Al Iannazzone continues to speculate the Nets options for PF. They include Andrei Kirilenko, Troy Murphy, Kenyon Martin, Brandon Bass and Paul Millsap.

Daily News has part two of their interview with Mikhail Prokhorov. There’s more amusing stuff in there, including this nugget:

Q: Can you play (PF)?

A: Power forward? I’m too old for this. And I don’t like the salary of the players. I can make more in business.

UPDATE: Al Iannazzone now reports that the Nets have hired Billy King to be their new General Manager, rather than hiring him as President. To quote Mikhail Prokhorov:

I am very pleased Billy King is coming on board as Nets general manager. He has all of the qualities we’ve been looking for in a candidate:  professionalism, good relations with the league, players and agents, and strong communications skills.  He will be an excellent fit with Head Coach Avery Johnson. Most importantly, Billy is ambitious.  He wants to win.  This is what I felt when I met with him and why he will be a strong addition to the Nets organization.

NBA.com states King’s experience in the original story as follows:

King’s tenure as the Sixers’ basketball boss was uneven. He was able to surround Allen Iverson with enough talent for the 76ers to make the Finals in 2001 and for Iverson to win league MVP honors that season. But Philly never reached those heights again, as King made a series of questionable financial decisions, including giving journeyman forward Kenny Thomas a $50 million contract and center Samuel Dalembert a $64 million deal. He gambled that Chris Webber and Iverson could coexist when he traded for Webber in 2005, and the team made the playoffs that season. But they didn’t get there in 2006, and by 2007, Webber’s knees had deteriorated to the point where he and the team agreed to a buyout.

After Brown’s departure for Detroit in 2003, King also went through several head coaches, including Randy Ayers, Jim O’Brien and Mo Cheeks.

But King drafted pretty well during his tenure as president, taking forward Andre Iguodala in the first round in 2004, guard Lou Williams in the second round in 2005, guard Thabo Sefolosha in the first round in 2006 and forward Thaddeus Young in the first in 2007.

Now that King has been confirmed as GM instead of President, I’m still not a big fan of this move. Even less so, actually. What do you guys think?

New Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov made some rounds yesterday, talking with his beat reporters and other Nets writers at the Four Seasons hotel and via e-mail. He answered some obvious questions about the team’s search for a new President (UPDATE: Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo is reporting Billy King is the front runner with Avery Johnson’s blessing). He’s also very bullish on the team’s “Plan B” roster, despite understanding why fans may be disappointed about striking out on the “big names.”

From the keyboard of the hardest working team blogger in the NBA, Ben Couch: “There is no contradiction between Plan A and Plan B,” said Prokhorov on Tuesday at the Four Seasons. “I think we have great trade opportunities. really good trading assets and a really deep bench. That’s why I’m satisfied. I understand that fans feel a little bit upset, a little angry maybe. But I think they will like this team very soon.”

In an e-mail exchange with NetsDaily, Prokhorov talked about the ideal candidate for team President: “For a championship team, we need a president with a combination of professional skills.  He should be respected in the League, very ambitious and able to work well with Avery Johnson.  We need not only teamwork among the players, but great teamwork on the management side.”

Throughout these interviews, Prokhorov also flashed his personality and sense of humor. When asked about where he was when LeBron James made his announcement to join the Miami Heat: “Prokhorov said that he was asleep in Moscow. “Maybe it will surprise you, but I still keep some assets to work on,” he said.”

When asked about his “Blueprint for Greatness” mural in New York City: “I think Jay and I look really great. I’m looking into the possibility of buying the building and having it shipped back to Moscow,” he said.

About what happens if he fails to get the Nets a championship in five years: “I’m going to get married,” Prokhorov joked, playing to his playboy reputation. “It’s the worst punishment.”

As for his overall message to Nets fans: “Be patient. Support our team. We will win for sure. And, trust me, the next season will be completely different — aggressive, young,” Prokhorov said. “Now we have a really good ambition: to beat Miami Heat.”

The Summer League stats for the Nets are now up on our Statistics page, and over the five games a some interesting indicators came up in the numbers. Because of that, I’m going to do a quick statistical breakdown of the Nets players and how they fared last week.

First, the Big 3:

Terrence Williams (18.8 PPG, 3 RPG, 5 APG, 4.2 TPG, 44.3% FG%) was the star of Summer League. While he was off at times – in game 3 he struggled from the floor, shooting 8-26 – he was the most consistent producer for the Nets throughout. Attacking the rim regularly, T-Will took almost 16 attempts from the floor per game and a little over 6 attempts from the free throw line.

One important note is that in the 5th game, he only played for the first five minutes, so only looking at his stats from the first four games produces a line of 23-6.3-3.8-5.3-44.7%, which other than the huge turnover number is very impressive. As I mentioned in the game 3 recap, it did seem that T-Will was experimenting a lot with his game, so the turnover number doesn’t bother me too much. If he tightens his play up for the regular season, he will have a very good year.

Damion James (18.8 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 1 APG, 46.4 FG%) showed a lot of signs that he’s going to be an impact player at the next level. Although he was forced to sit out the final game due to injury, James was aggressive at all times on both sides of the floor and really showed off his impressive stroke. He hit many mid-range jumpers and shot 4-10 from the field over the five-day period, two of those in his 30-point breakout on Wednesday. His only serious issue is free-throw shooting – he shot 19-34 (a paltry 56%) from the charity stripe, which is worse than his college average this past season (67.4%) but not by much. His weaknesses pale in comparison to everything he brought to the team last week, and he’ll have a definite impact on the Nets next year.

Derrick Favors (10.6 PPG, 6.8 RPG, 1.2 APG, 4.8 FPG, 46.7 FG%) Had an up-and-down Summer League performance, but really started to put it together by the end of the week.  While struggling with foul trouble, turnover issues, and an occasional lack of aggressiveness early in the week, Favors dominated in the final game of Summer League, breaking out for 23 points, 11 rebounds, and a variety of post moves and high-flying jams. After watching in-depth for a week, the talent is clearly there – he just needs to work on his aggressiveness in the lane and work on the flaws in his mid-range jumpshot. He’s got all the unteachables – an NBA body, ridiculously smooth athletic ability, and a knack for finishing around the rim – all he needs now is a coach who will get in his head that he actually can score on anyone. Luckily, the Nets have the perfect man for the job in Avery Johnson.

The rest:

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Say what you will about the Nets and their off-season pick-ups thus far (I certainly said a lot last Friday), but one thing is certain – they are assembling a roster that, statistically speaking, is a definitive improvement over last year’s 12-win debacle. With the acquisitions of Travis Outlaw, Jordan Farmar, Anthony Morrow (who was officially acquired in a sign and trade yesterday) and Johan Petro, the Nets are adding to their already young and developing core, and doing this with players who offer an improved skillet over organizational predecessors like Jarvis Hayes, Bobby Simmons, Keyon Dooling and Josh Boone. Meanwhile, for the first time since the dismantling of the “Big Three” era, the Nets appear to be following an actual team-building philosophy – acquiring athletic, multi-purpose players who can run the floor, play defense, and shoot the three. When your team’s primary weapons are an athletic, speedy point guard in Devin Harris and a low post powerhouse in Brook Lopez, the athletic and three-point aspects become especially important.

But let’s go back to where the Nets have statistically improved. Here are some of the key numbers (using advanced metrics) for some of our new acquisitions compared to how some of the Nets playing in similar role/positions last year performed. I’m even going to use Outlaw’s 2009-10 numbers, which were affected by a lingering foot injury all season.

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On a day where the Nets are expected to announce their free agency pick-ups, the beat writers are taking stock in the team’s off-season. Al Iannazzone says the team hopes they can sneak into the playoffs next year if everything breaks right – though so far, in the team’s coaching search, draft lottery pick, GM position and free agency pursuit, nothing has broken right. Meanwhile, Daniel Marks, an admitted Nets fan writing for Dime, believes the Nets didn’t have such a terrible summer.

Dave D’Alessandro believes the vacant GM position is between team VP Bobby Marks and former Sixers President Billy King.

For the vacant PF position, Fred Kerber believes with Udonis Haslem off the board, the team will go the trade route or look to sign Phoenix Suns “energizer” Louis Amundson.

So the Farmar deal has been confirmed by just about everybody, so I will talk about it a little more in depth than I did last night.  At just 23, Jordan Farmar already has four years of NBA experience, and that experience has been with a championship team in the Lakers.  In LA, Farmar was more of a shoot first style point guard, but I am interested/excited in seeing him running a team outside the triangle offense.

As I said yesterday, this is just another move in a series of move in where the Nets are adding capable athletes who can impact the game on the defensive end just as much as the offensive end (Morrow is the exception…he’s a shooter and that is all he can do right now).  Farmar isn’t a lock down defender by any means, but he is quick and athletic, and with Avery Johnson coaching, that should be enough to make him a good defender.

So with the Farmar signing at $12 million for three years, the Nets have around $15.5 million in cap space:

(It should be noted that NetsDaily has them at 14.5 million left.  The actual number is probably somewhere in between)

So after the Farmar signing the Nets have right around $15.5 million left in cap space.  The Nets have now done a pretty good job of filling all of their holes except for the one that was the most glaring, a starting-caliber power forward.  With Dallas offering Haslam a ton of money (more than the Nets probably were looking to offer), the only option that seems to be left is trying to pry away Luis Scola from the Houston Rockets.  However the fact that it might take the rest of their cap space to actually get it done, means that it probably won’t happen (remember, the Nets are hoping to keep around $5 to $10 million for in season/next summer acquisitions).  So what does that leave us?  The option of the trade.

Now there are two directions the Nets might be going in based on their roster moves.  The first would involve trading Devin and maybe some picks to a team needing a point guard for a power forward.  I personally think this is the least likely of the two options, but Jordan Farmar’s reason for leaving the Lakers is because he wants to be the starter somewhere.  Obviously he isn’t going to beat out Devin, but if Devin is traded, Farmar is the starter and the Nets can use Terrence Williams to back him up.  It’s plausible.

The second direction can go in (and the one that I think will end up happening…just a gut feeling) is that the Nets will trade a combination of one or two of their wings, some picks, and maybe even some cash for a starting Power Forward.  The Nets have six wings on their rosters, and out of all of them, only two of them are eligible to be traded (you must wait a certain amount of time before trading recent signings and players who came over in trades) and those two are Terrence Williams and Courtney Lee.  Williams is probably the one that is more likely to be traded, just because he has more value and can be traded just on his own (with some picks) for a power forward.  Courtney Lee has lost his value and the Nets would probably have to include some things to get a power forward with him in the deal.

So moving forward the Nets will probably be exploring the trade market rather than the free agent market when looking for their power forward.  It’s going to be interesting to see what happens.