Nets Are Scorching

Yesterday, the Nets were involved in a four team deal that sent Courtney Lee to Houston, while receiving Troy Murphy.  The other two teams involved in the deal were the Pacers (who got Darren Collison and James Posey) and the New Orleans Hornets (who got Trevor Ariza).  I, like most Nets fans that I have heard from, really like the deal for a number of reasons.  So I just wanted to give my thoughts on the deal.

Financial

All salary numbers coming from the great ShamSports.com

To me, this is most important and my favorite aspect of the deal.  The Nets started yesterday with $14,547,681 in cap space (by my count) for the 2010-2011 season.  They used up $10,615,613 on it to get Murphy (Murphy’s contract minus Courtney Lee’s contract), only giving them right around $3 million to work with for this up coming season.  However, what makes this deal work is that Murphy is in the final year of his contract.  At the start of next season, the Nets are going to have both Murphy and Humphries coming off the books, plus they are saving what Courtney Lee would be making next year ($2,225,093).  This means that they are going to have somewhere in the area of $15 to $16 million worth of cap space to work with next year, when a certain indecisive forward in Denver becomes a free agent.  Even if the Nets don’t make a run at Carmelo, they have a lot of money to continue adding pieces to their roster.  In addition to the cap space next year, Murphy’s contract is going to be very attractive to teams at the trade deadline, and if Favors is playing well enough, I can see the Nets flipping Murphy for some young talent/trade exceptions/draft picks.

Roster

From a roster standpoint, the Nets now have a power forward who can come in right away and be “the guy” at the spot.  Murphy, the New Jersey native, is going to be the opening day starter, no question about it.  So what does that do to the rest of the front court?  It makes Derrick Favors the back-up, and this is probably the best scenario for him in terms of development.  He is still going to get minutes, but since he is coming off the bench he will be going up against team’s second unit.  Not a real big difference, but it makes that transition from college to the pros a little bit easier.  Plus, it shields him from the “he’s a bust” cries.  The expectations for Favors coming off the bench aren’t going to be as high as they would be if he was the starter from day one.  Murphy’s expiring deal comes into play in this aspect as well, since he will only be blocking Favors for a year, maybe even less.  Most other guys the Nets were looking for would probably have demanded a 2 to 3 year deal from the Nets.  If Favors develops in a year (which I think is probable) that would lead to a tough situation.  However, where things stands now, Murphy can hand the reigns over to Favors after a season.

Read more…

Update #2: Ben Couch reports it is official, and offers his analysis.

Update:  According To Marc J. Spears, it is a done deal:

Hou,NJ, NO, Indy trade done and trade call taking place now, source tells Y!. Hou gets C Lee, NO gets Ariza, Indy Collison-Posey, NJ Murphy

As soon as it seems the Nets are standing pat and going to let Derrick Favors be the starter to start the season, they go ahead and make a move…or least they are trying to.  Chad Ford of ESPN just tweeted:

Breaking: Hornets, Rockets, Pacers & Nets working on 4 team deal. Ariza to NO. C. Lee to HOU. Collison & Posey to IND. Murphy to NJ.

More if the deal goes through, but it seems like everyone was right in assuming that a wing was on the move.  I thought that it would take Terrence Williams to get a starting quality PF, but apparently, Courtney Lee is the guy on the way out.  I’ll take a real deep look at the deal if it ends up being official, but as it stands right now the Nets have $14 to $13 million in cap space (off the top of my head) and Courtney Lee’s deal was at $1.3.  Troy Murphy is in the final year of a $12 million dollar contract, so while the Nets eat up most of their cap space this year, they will have right around $15 million to spend next year (again these are not exact, off the top of my head calculations).  Also, looks like Sean May is out of a roster spot.

Last year, I broke down the Nets’ schedule game by game and tried to predict the amount of wins the Nets would have.  Let’s just say I finished way off.  It was fun though and sparked a lot of discussion, so this year we are going ahead and doing it again.  This time though, we are going to have all of the NetsAreScorching writers take 20 games, hopefully evening things out and making our prediction closer.  Here we go:

October 27 vs Detroit

The Nets have a chance at preventing a long losing streak to start the season before it even starts with their game against Detroit.  Also, with recent news, it is going to be T-Mac’s first game with the Pistons, but I am more interested in two other things.  The first, how the Prudential Center fills up.  Would loved to have seen a big team come in here for opening night, to ensure a sellout, but it is going to be interesting to see how many people come to see the Nets now that there is an area within reach.  Also, Greg Monroe vs. Brook Lopez/Derrick Favors.  Favors seems to be the starter, and he gets a early chance to prove that he was deserving of the #3 pick against a player that went a few picks after him.  Nets win.  1-0.

October 29 vs Sacramento

Right after the Favors/Monroe matchup, DeMarcus Cousins comes into town for what will be an even more hyped battle.  Even though these two are going to be who everyone talks about, they probably won’t be matched up against each other.  Brook and DeMarcus is going to be fun to watch, because both big men are guys who have a ton of potential and are true NBA centers.  With all that being said, Tyreke Evans is going to steal the show, especially going against Devin Harris, since Devin struggles with the bigger guards.  Kings take this one.  1-1.

October 31 vs Miami

And right after two pretty good rookie matchups, the Miami Heat come to town.  What’s interesting is that this is a Sunday game with a 1:00 start.  Meaning that fans are going to have to choose between going to whatever football game is in the Medowlands or watching LeBron, Bosh, and Wade.  As for the game itself, I mentioned yesterday that I think playing the Heat early is better for the Nets’ chances to keep it close, and that is what they will do here, keep it close.  However, the Heat’s talent gives them the win.  1-2.

Read more…

I’m not about to do a FireJoeMorgan (RIP) style post here, but I do want to point out some misinformation, bordering on idiocy coming from an off-season review penned by SI’s Chris Mannix. In the article, Mannix grades the Nets with a C- for their off-season moves, something I don’t necessarily agree with, but I can’t really argue with since the team did strike out on the big free agents and was unlucky enough to not get the #1 pick in the lottery. So fair game there. But here’s one of Mannix’s justifications for the grade (emphasis mine):

Like their cross-river counterparts, the Nets were eyeing the big prizes in free agency. When they missed out, they committed a combined $57 million to Travis Outlaw, Jordan Farmar and Johan Petro. For a team going nowhere this season, preserving that cap space might have been a better bet.

Say what you will about some of the contracts doled out by the Nets – they may have overpaid for Outlaw and Petro, though I think they got great value on Farmar and Morrow – but this idea of having to preserve cap space … teams are mandated by the league to spend a certain amount of money of their players and the Nets are barely spending enough this off-season. They are actually preserving as much cap space as they can get away with. So short of signing a bunch of players to one-year deals, or trading their core for a bunch of expiring contracts, which are both ill advised and unfeasible, I don’t get why Mannix is calling the Nets out for not doing exactly what they actually did.

This is one of the big reason national writers drive me nuts. Outside of the obvious destinations (Miami, Boston, LA), they don’t follow the league as a whole and probably most of these guys have to google search to get facts on lower rung teams like the Nets and the Timberwolves. Now, I don’t profess to be a league-wide expert myself, but that’s why I do most of my analysis for a Nets-blog because I do follow the Nets like they’re a drug. I just wished some of these national columnist would back away from this league-wide stories because it exposes them as misinformed.

We will be breaking down the schedule, just like we did last year, starting tomorrow but here is a link to the Nets’ 2010-2011 Schedule.  Some quick points:

• For the second year in a row, no nationally televised games.  Wasn’t really expecting any, and to me it isn’t a problem, because the Nets have some of the best announce crews around.
• First game is against Detroit, so hey, maybe we won’t lose 18 in a row this year.
• We get our first look at Miami early, October 31st (3rd game of the season).  Not say the Nets will win, but I’d rather play them early before they get a real good feel for each other.
• We are playing two games in London.  No real opinion on those really…sure the Nets lose out on a home game, but is it going to really matter in the grand scheme of things?

We’ve already all heard the Nets organization declare “It’s All New” this year, and so far, despite striking out on the “big” free agents, that slogan has been true to form: a new owner, head coach, GM, arena (albeit temporary), and new scouts and assistant coaches. But what may be the most exciting “new” thing about this upcoming season – especially for those who thrive for communication in 140 characters or less – is the beefed up Twitter presence the Nets will bring to the social networking stratosphere.

With the additions of Travis Outlaw, Anthony Morrow, Johan Petro and Sean May (if his non guaranteed contract makes the cut), the Nets have more than doubled their presence on Twitter in the off-season. While this isn’t going to result in more wins or losses in the standings, this added presence does give fans more access to players, as well as more insights into their personalities – so at the bare minimum it should hopefully make this season a little more fun than last year.

While NJNETS.com superstar Ben Couch was fantastic working the Twitter account for the organization last year, the amount of social networking taken on by the players was about as disappointing as the team’s play on the court. In Devin Harris and later Kris Humphries, the Nets had two guys, who like Oprah Winfrey, seem to have a Twitter account in name only, infrequently updating and providing very little entertainment or flair when they occasionally did take to their accounts. The other two Nets on Twitter brought controversy on themselves at different points in the season with their tweets: Terrence Williams when he famously “wondered” how life would be if he was drafted by another team, and Chris Douglas-Roberts, whose tweets often focused on haters, women who stalked him, and the number of people who bought his jersey that day. This season, TWill is back and seemingly more mature with his tweets now, while the last tweet I (thankfully) read from CDR dealt with fearing the deer and how happy he was to be out of New Jersey. Good luck in Milwaukee Chris, yes yes.

I still think Brook Lopez and his quirky personality and pop culture sensibilities would be a perfect match for Twitter, but alas, Brook still seems to be focused more on other activities. Could you imagine Brook sitting at home with mono updating his Twitter page 30 times a day? It’s one of the bigger disappointments I have in my sports fandom life (outside of the Mets, every single year), but with this new cast of characters, maybe Petro or Morrow will just sign Brook up one of these days and get him online. Meanwhile, let’s take a closer look at the tweeting habits of the team’s newcomers:

Read more…

Sebastian Pruiti did some good work over at his other site, NBA Playbook. He recently used some video to analyze whether or not Devin Harris can have a bounce back season this year.

I feel like the things that caused Devin Harris to have such a poor season are correctable (save the injuries), and he is shaping up to have a bounce back year because the Nets will be running more, and he is now surrounded by some pretty good shooters.

I think Devin’s performance is really key for the Nets this year (duh). It’s not coincidental that the team only collected 12 wins while he spent most of last year either injured or underperforming.

This was probably the best question from the mailbag, and the one that got me thinking the most.  Would you rather see the Nets make the playoffs as the 8th seed (promptly getting swept by the Heat after) or would you rather them have another off year and enter the lottery.  Vote here, and explain your vote in the comments.  As you may remember, my opinion is that I would love to see the Nets play in the playoffs in an arena they can actually fill up.

This isn’t to predict whether or not they will make the playoffs, just if you want them to or not.