Nets Are Scorching

Billy King wanted to make a move, and a move did Billy King make. Trouble-attractor Terrence Williams is no longer a New Jersey Net, as multiple reports confirm that he is headed to the Houston Rockets for two-first round picks and Lakers forward Sasha Vujacic. Joe Smith is also headed to Los Angeles.

The Nets are clearly stockpiling assets trying to make a super-offer for Carmelo Anthony, but my first reaction is that I just can’t help but dislike this deal. Terrence Williams, despite his issues this season, has got to be worth more than a late first-rounder this year, a likely mid-first rounder next year, and the league leader in used hair gel bottles. (Er, I mean, welcome to the Nets, Sasha?)

But, to be fair, this is a first-reaction to a multiple-step plan – there’s a clear intention here that the Nets are trying to make the bigger deal. I just don’t feel good about it.

Thoughts?

The New Jersey Nets host their division rivals, the 76ers, in Newark tonight, at what could not really be a worse time. While New Jersey has lost its last seven games, Philadelphia has gone 5-2 over that same stretch, including wins over New Orleans, Portland, and, yes, the Nets. Here are some things to look out for:

• No. 2 vs. No. 3: Back in May and June, there was a question as to whether Evan Turner might end up on the Nets before he went second overall to the Sixers. Tonight, though, he will do battle with Derrick Favors, the third overall selection. Turner has been less than stellar this year, averaging just under 7 points on 42 percent shooting, while making only 2 of his 12 three-point attempts thus far. His move to the bench has done little to help his efficiency, as the coaching staff thought it would. Meanwhile, Favors has been on a bit of a slide, failing to convert on some easy looks that could have helped the Nets. Still, he’s rebounding as well as ever, and that’s important to the team right now.
• Minding Spencer Hawes: Brook Lopez is not the quickest guy in the league, and accordingly, he might have a little trouble staying with Hawes, who tends to float around the perimeter. If Lopez gets lazy, Hawes could end up with a few uncontested three-pointers, which could prove costly in the outcome of the game.
• Find the Touch: The Nets offense hasn’t been all that spectacular lately, and they aren’t going to get a break tonight against a surprisingly stingy 76ers defense. In the last seven games, they have allowed only 100 points once to Boston, and in five of the six other games, they’ve held their opponents to 91 points or fewer, including 70 from the Hornets and 79 from the Trail Blazers. The Nets will have their work cut out for them to put some points up on the board.

Did the Nets make the right call?

Now that the Nets are 24 games into the season, I think we’re at the point in which we can compare “what is” with “what could have been.” I’m talking, of course,  about the NBA Draft, and how differently it could have gone down for every team (except Washington) in the top five picks.

As far as anyone can tell, for the third pick the Nets had four players on their radar: Evan Turner, Wesley Johnson, DeMarcus Cousins, and current Net Derrick Favors. For their late-round selection, they traded Jordan Crawford and the 31st pick (which became the rights to Tibor Pleiss) for 24th pick Damion James. This leads to two questions:

1) What if Atlanta had decided against the Crawford/31 for James swap?

Jordan Crawford, who on draft night was the darling of many Nets fans, fell into Rod Thorn’s lap with the 27th pick. While Crawford is still best known for dunking on LeBron James, he also showed off deep range at Xavier, averaging 20 points per game on 46% shooting (39% from 3). Crawford also has pretty form and a scorer’s mentality. However, that mentality hasn’t really translated to NBA success yet. He hasn’t been effective when in the game, shooting only 38% from the field in just 101 minutes (9 games) of play. Crawford entered an Atlanta Hawks team that was already deep in the backcourt, and as a result he’s been somewhat buried in the bench. With the recent Joe Johnson injury, you’d expect his play time to increase, but he’s been a DNP-CD since November 28th – before the injury.

Before his foot injury, James had also struggled early in his NBA career. While he was a leader at Texas – improving steadily each year & averaging a double-double his senior year – he’s clearly still in the midst of an adjustment period. While he’s played more than double Crawford’s minutes, James is only shooting a paltry 35% from the floor – and despite shooting 38% from 3 his senior year at Texas, has only attempted two (and made none) from beyond the arc this season. He’s shown flashes of talent, dropping 30 points in a summer league game, and despite his struggles was able to steal the starting small forward spot from Travis Outlaw (who, to be fair, is struggling more than anyone these days).

Also, while there’s no telling who the Nets might have taken with the 31st pick, a quick look at players taken in that range reveals a verifiable list of no-shows and nobodies. Only Landry Fields has been a consistent rotation player, and the Knicks shocked everyone with that pick. The Nets wouldn’t have taken him.

The Final Verdict: While Crawford does have a nice shooting touch, James brings a more diverse skillset to the floor and fills a bigger need for this team. While the foot injury sucks, once he’s healed and ready to go I’m confident that he’ll produce.

2) How would the Nets look with any of the other four players they could have gotten in the top three?

Ha! You thought this was just going to be another Favors vs. Cousins debate, didn’t you? Truth be told, the Nets could have ended up with any one of the non-Wall top 5, even though the battle was clearly between DeMarcus Cousins & Derrick Favors. If the Sixers ended up taking Favors second, the Nets would have ended up with Evan Turner. If the Nets softened on Favors at the last second, both Johnson and Cousins fit what the Nets needed, and the Nets were rumored to be highly interested in both (although the interest in Johnson didn’t fool us at NAS – both Sebastian and I agreed that it was a bad idea & seemed more like a smokescreen than anything else).

However, a little over a quarter-way through the season, here’s how the big four stack up (leader in bold):

Per Game

Evan Turner – 6.9 PTS, 4.5 (0.3-4.2) REB, 2.0 AST, 0.2 BLK, 1.3 TOV, 0.421 FG%, 0.167 3P%, 0.739 FT%, 24.9 MIN

Derrick Favors – 6.5 PTS, 5.3 (2.0-3.3) REB, 0.1 AST, 0.6 BLK, 1.0 TOV, 0.543 FG%, 0.600 FT%, 18.7 MIN

Wesley Johnson: 9.1 PTS, 3.4 (1.0-2.4) REB, 2.0 AST, 0.7 BLK, 1.6 TOV, 0.433 FG%, 0.380 3P%, 0.636 FT%, 28.8 MIN

DeMarcus Cousins - 11.0 PTS, 6.8 (2.4-4.4) REB, 1.2 AST, 0.5 BLK, 2.2 TOV, 0.396 FG%, 0.143 3P%, 0.674 FT%, 24.0 MIN

All four are rotation players, but Johnson is the only one who’s officially staked a claim as a starter throughout the season, as he’s started in 20 of 24 games. Favors is the only one who has not started.

Looking at the raw per-game numbers, they look somewhat even – Cousins & Johnson appear to have the biggest edge. Let’s look deeper. Per 36 minutes, Cousins is averaging 15 shots, 7 free throw attempts, and 3 turnovers – an awful lot of usage for a rookie. Truthfully, he’s leading all true rookies in usage rate, which is how he’s able to put up higher scoring numbers despite shooting poorly from the field. Johnson is the opposite – his numbers look higher solely because of his increased playing time. He actually has one of the lowest usage rates among all qualified rookies – 22nd out of the 26. Evan Turner, on the other hand, has just been awful.

As a result, while the raw figures produced by Cousins & Johnson look more impressive, when digging a little deeper you see it’s just a façade. As mentioned before on this site (and many others), the best way to look at individual efficiency is to look at more advanced analytics, which is what I’ll use here. For any explanations, refer to the awesome glossary over at Basketball-Reference. Again, leaders in bold.

Advanced

Evan Turner – 0.478 TS%, 0.428 eFG%, 1.6 ORB%, 19.3 DRB%, 11.9 AST%, 0.7 BLK%, 15.4 TOV%, 93 ORtg, 15.7 USG%, 0.4 WS, 0.035 WS/48, 8.8 PER

Derrick Favors – 0.571 TS%, 0.543 eFG%, 12.3 ORB%, 21.4 DRB%, 1.2 AST%, 2.5 BLK%, 14.3 TOV%, 109 ORtg, 16.9% USG, 1.0 WS, 0.107 WS/48, 13.9 PER

Wesley Johnson – 0.525 TS%, 0.510 eFG%, 3.6 ORB%, 9.7 DRB%, 10.3 AST%, 1.8 BLK%, 15.4 TOV%, 103 ORtg, 14.9 USG%, 0.4 WS, 0.026 WS/48, 9.3 PER

DeMarcus Cousins – 0.457 TS%, 0.399 eFG%, 10.6 ORB%, 22.3 DRB%, 8.5 AST%, 1.6 BLK%, 15.4 TOV%, 92 ORtg, 26.1 USG%, 0.0 WS, 0.002 WS/48, 11.8 PER

TS% – True Shooting Percentage
eFG% – Effective FG%
ORB% – Offensive Rebound Rate
DRB% – Defensive Rebound Rate
AST% – Assist Rate
BLK% – Block Rate
TOV% – Turnover Rate
ORtg – Offensive Rating (Points produced per 100 possessions) (league average – 106.7)
USG% – Usage Rate (average NBA player – 20.0)
WS – Win Shares
WS/48 – Win Shares per 48 minutes (average NBA player = 0.100)
PER – John Hollinger’s Player Efficiency Rating (average NBA player – 15.0)

Amazing what a more thorough look can uncover, huh? Despite his lack of playing time, Favors statistically outranks every other player the Nets could have taken in the top 5, even though he’s by far the youngest of the four (Wesley Johnson is the old man at 23). He’s never been accused of being a great passer – and he’ll need to work on that – but he finishes strong at the hoop, is a tenacious rebounder, blocks a decent amount of shots for a rookie, and has overall had a much bigger impact in his limited minutes than the other rookies. Favors is also doing all of this while enduring bumps in the road; he’s the youngest player in the NBA and has had his name stirring the “Carmelo Anthony to the Nets” pot since draft night.

The Final Verdict: When David Thorpe did a re-draft earlier this week, he called Favors the no-doubt #2 selection in this draft, and after doing the research I 100% agree. Between Evan Turner’s shocking struggles (seriously, thank goodness the Sixers took him second), Wesley Johnson’s lack of upside, and DeMarcus Cousins’ inefficiency & need to dominate possessions (not to mention headbutting with management), I’m very happy with our selection. Favors has both skyscraping upside and has effectively executed his role in limited time. Kris Humphries has been better than advertised in his starting role, but as Favors continues to develop, I wouldn’t be shocked to see him starting very soon.

In an interview with beat reporters yesterday, Nets GM Billy King said regardless of where Carmelo Anthony is trying pressure Denver to trade him, with the Nets struggling as they are, he’s looking to make some deals to improve the team moving forward:

“We’ll probably do some deals before the deadline, I’m pretty sure,” King said. “When you have your record like we are, you’ve got to do some things to get better.”

Meanwhile, Anthony is denying a report that he only plans to sign an extension with the Knicks, keeping the circular nature of this story continuing:

“Yes,” Anthony said of there still being a possibility he could sign the extension with the Nuggets. “Yes, it is. My options are open. That doesn’t mean I’m not (going to sign it with Denver). That doesn’t mean I am. My options are open.”

There are other players in the NBA besides Carmelo Anthony, so I’m curious to see who Billy King thinks he can acquire and what the price would be. As for the ‘Melo silliness, it still seems like the Nets had the best package to offer Denver. The longer this goes, the less likely I think he comes here as there seems to be a number of factors going against the Nets that have nothing against the package of players they are offering Denver.

Avery, I feel your pain. Starting today we at NAS will be giving you a weekly recap in the form of our Monday Musings, a look back at the week that was. As all Nets fans know the team is in the midst of a major slump. They’ve lost seven in a row and are now just 6-18 on the season. The team continues to keep games close but they can’t seem to get the W’s. And of course it doesn’t help that the crosstown rival Knicks don’t lose and are the talk of the NBA. 

I know I should only be concerned about the Nets and their play, but it’s just impossible not to notice what the Knicks have been doing. Not only are they winning, not only is Amare dropping 70 in every game, but there is now a renewed sense of excitement surrounding them, and frankly it makes me sick to my stomach. Coming into this season I felt the Nets had more talent on their roster than the Knicks, and I had hoped that New Jersey would be the team that would be a few games over .500 a quarter of the way through the season. But despite the fact that the Nets have been much more competitive, at the end of the day W’s are all that count.

This past week the Nets clearly played three of the better teams in the NBA, and when you talk about the Mavs and Lakers, two of the best teams in the entire league. And aside from yesterday when they had a real chance down the stretch, each game followed the same script. Keep the game somewhat close, look like they may have a chance to make a late run, and then end up losing by double digits. I can’t even count how many times this has happened this season and it’s getting infuriating. Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that this team competes, and there is no doubt that Avery Johnson has their ear in the locker room, but can they start WINNING SOME GAMES?!?!? There has been definite progress over last season when they weren’t even showing up to games, but this whole keep-the-game-kind-of-close-and-then-fade-in-the-fourth-quarter routine is getting old.

So yesterday at the Rock the Nets actually had a chance to snap their losing streak and beat the defending NBA Champions. And unlike their usual routine, this game was tied with 2 minutes to go. But yesterday highlights an issue that I thought may be problematic before this season started. Let me pose a question to you all: Do the Nets have a go-to-guy in crunch time? Sure, Devin Harris has made a few big shots in his career but I remember writing before the season started about the need for a guy like Travis Outlaw to step up and maybe be the guy that takes the important shots down the stretch. In many of the team’s close games this season, they have had major trouble executing in the final minutes and yesterday was no different. After D. Harris hit one runner to tie it up, the Nets then couldn’t score and before you knew it the Lake Show was up by 5. Maybe the solution is to go to Brook Lopez more in the final minutes? He was having a good bit of success against Gasol yesterday.

The last issue I’ll touch upon is the crowd yesterday in Newark. I was honestly surprised to see the stands full (attendance was 16,561)…but then I remembered the Nets were playing the Lakers. It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that a third (perhaps more) of those fans were rooting for LA, which is quite embarrassing if you ask me. I wrote a lengthy piece about the Nets fans and The Rock before the season started and scenes like yesterday were not exactly what I had in mind. Look, there’s always going to be fans of the Lakers, Celtics, Heat (all the big teams in the League) at Nets games, but to hear such pronounced cheering for an opposing team is not a good sign.

As we close the book on last week and move forward the Nets have four very winnable games this week (though let’s start with ONE WIN). Three home games, with the only road game being at Toronto should give them the opportunity to end this losing streak. But let’s put it this way, if I’m writing this next Monday after another winless week, it’s going to get ugly around here.

The Nets found themselves in a similiar position to one they’ve been in a lot this season: down a few points and needing a score late in the game. In this particular possession the Nets used a bit of knowledge from previous possessions to create a great opportunity. Let’s take a closer look.

With the Nets down five points, Avery Johnson called timeout. For the ensuing possession, the Nets were going to get Devin Harris and Brook Lopez involved in a pick and roll. First let’s take a look at how the Lakers guarded that exact play, one possession prior.

Here you can see Lopez’s man, Pau Gasol, hedging out hard on Devin Harris, forcing him away from the hoop and allowing time for Gasol to recover back to Lopez. Ultimately the Nets missed a shot on this possession.

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Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images

There are a handful of games each season that, as a Nets fan, you just really aren’t expecting to win. For me, every square-off against the Los Angeles Lakers falls under that category. Even though the Nets did, in fact, come up short against the reigning champions Sunday afternoon, there was a lot to be happy about in this contest.

The Nets came out strong, opening the game with a 7-0 run. For the rest of the first half, their play was largely regrettable. The Lakers offense was running on all cylinders per usual, and they closed out the first half with a 10-point lead.

The one saving grace for the Nets was that they kept both Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol from going off in the first half, forcing role players like Lamar Odom and Shannon Brown to make their shots.

Unfortunately for the Nets, today they did.

During the intermission, the game figured to be decided in the first several minutes of the third quarter, as the Nets tend to play their worst basketball coming out of the break. With a double-digit deficit in tow, there wasn’t any reason to expect they’d break that trend.

Alas, today they did.

The Nets came out hungry on both ends, seemingly eager to get back in striking distance of the Lakers. I mentioned in the pregame thread the importance of Devin Harris to exploit Derek Fisher’s poor defense. In the first half of the game, he seemed absolutely reluctant to drive anywhere near the basket, presumably for fear of drawing contact on his injured left shoulder. In the third quarter, though, his whole mindset changed. He began initiating drives to the basket, connecting on layups, pull-up jumpers, and hitting his free throws. For this reason, a large portion of his 16 points came in the second half. He shot 0-of-4 from three-point range, so unless he was driving, he was useless.

Also in the third period, the Nets allowed only 17 points on seven field goals, four of which came outside the paint. This allowed them to cut the lead to 2 going into the final frame.

What I liked most about this game was that Avery Johnson finally chose to go to Brook Lopez in the post on a regular basis down the stretch. Usually he’s an afterthought in the fourth quarter, only getting points on putbacks and free throws. Tonight, the Nets, again and again, fed him the ball on the low block, where he made Pau Gasol look softer than cotton.

Speaking of Gasol: While Lopez’s defense on him was solid for most of the game, the main reason he shot 6-of-19 on the night was that he was missing open shots that are usually automatic for him. Several elbow jumpers and eight-foot jump hooks bricked off the rim, and on any other day he would have knocked those down.

In the final minutes, the Nets hung tough, but they couldn’t find the antivenom in time to stop the Black Mamba’s bite. (I’m allowed to make one stupid joke, right?) In his usual fashion, Kobe hit big shots, converted his free throws, and found the open men for easy baskets to put the game out of reach.

As my colleague Devin has been ranting about, when Bryant was at the stripe near the end of the game, there was an audible chant of “MVP!” dominating the Prudential Center. Devin seemed disgusted that this occurred, and while I’m not so thrilled about it, either, let me try and rationalize it a little bit:

(1) There are a lot of people around the U.S. who are from Los Angeles. It’s possible that there was just an unusually strong contingent of Lakers fans there cheering him on.

(2) Any “Nets fan” who would cheer for Kobe is not really a Nets fan. He or she is just a front runner who doesn’t know enough about basketball. Kobe’s not going to win the MVP award this season anyway.

(3) Many Chinese basketball fans stream from nearby New York City to see Nets games. Chinese basketball fans are notoriously fond of Kobe Bryant, who has an immense international presence, so I’m sure many of them jumped in on the cheering.

Yes, it stinks to have the opposing team’s supporters screaming louder than yours during your home game, but it’s really not the end of the world. If the Nets were a playoff team, then it would be a different story.

A few more notes after the jump:

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This season is turning from bad to worse for the Nets as it has been revealed that Damion James has a broken foot and is likely to miss at least a month of basketball, just days after cracking the starting lineup.

“Bad news for the kid and bad news for us,” (Avery)  Johnson said.

Quinton Ross got the start for James yesterday against the Lakers, though Johnson said “everyone was an option” including Terrence Williams. My guess is Travis Outlaw may get his spot in the starting lineup back. I can’t imagine Avery going with Ross long-term, unless this really is going to be a replay of last season, with Ross assuming the role of Trenton Hassell.