Nets Are Scorching

Okay, guys. Here we are. One more game and the Nets will either end the season 24-58 or 25-57. Considering that they’re going against a team that has 61 wins going into tonight, there’s a good chance it’ll end as the former. So in celebration of tonight, I’ll be espousing my thoughts on the game in real time, on this blog, for all to see. Here’s the important part:

I want your input.

If you’ve lived through this season like I have, if you’ve been paying obsessive attention to a 24-win team that has no real place in the NBA narrative, if you love your team, I want to hear your thoughts. E-mail me throughout the game. If that doesn’t work, just copy&paste this: devin.kharpertian@netsarescorching.com. Throw your thoughts about the Nets at me, however short, long-winded, or tangential. If they’re not overly aggressive/culturally insensitive/otherwise illegal, I’ll make sure your thoughts are included.

I’ve thought for a while that to be a hardcore Nets fan, you have to have a particularly good sense of humor. At the very least, I’m hoping this will make the final game – a hopeless band of ragtag nobodies & Brook Lopez against the likely MVP & one of the best teams in the NBA (and my NBA Finals pick) – a lot more fun to watch.

Game starts at 8, I’ll set up to around 7:45. Feel free to e-mail me, tweet me, comment, or shoot me a message some other way beforehand, during, and a little after. Let’s make the end of this season the party it deserves to be.

For more news & analysis on the Chicago Bulls, check out Bulls By The Horns.

Brook Lopez may be the most underrated overrated player in the NBA.

Pundits, fans, pretty much everyone has been killing the guy all season, primarily because of his putrid rebounding rate and his puzzling insistence on taking jump shots despite being one of the better post players in the game right now (about 37 percent of Lopez’s field goal attempts were beyond 10-feet this year, up from 33 percent last season). He’s unlikely to make anybody’s All-NBA first, second or third teams despite averaging 20.4 points per game, and if many Nets fans (and perhaps Mikhail Prokhorov?) get their way, Brook will be the centerpiece in any deal that brings Dwight Howard to New Jersey/Brooklyn.

And let me tell you, I can’t blame anyone who has an issue with Lopez. After being declared an untouchable last summer, he’s been perhaps the team’s most frustrating player – a “franchise” center that disappears from the toughest competition (he only averaged 15.8 points on 42 percent shooting against Howard and the Magic this year) and who goes stretches of the season looking generally uninterested in playing basketball (i.e. his subpar February when he averaged 18.7 points on 44 percent shooting while the entire team around him was rumored to be traded to Denver for Carmelo Anthongy and the immediate stretch of games after Deron Williams was first shut down, including back-to-back clunkers against Orlando and Atlanta when he scored 16 points and grabbed two rebounds collectively).

But still, despite the relentless and warranted criticism, Lopez still managed to find himself in the most elite company this season. As NetsDaily aptly pointed out, Lopez is the 6^th seven-footer in NBA history to average more than 20 points per game under the age of 23. He’s joined by Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Hakeem Olajuwon, two Hall-of-Famers; Shaquille O’Neal and Dirk Nowitzki, two certain Hall-of-Famers; and Bill Cartwright, a multiple NBA champion (who benefitted from playing with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen).

If I’m Brett Yormark, I’m marketing the heck out of the fact that Lopez has been put in the same company as Shaq, the Dream and Kareem. For people who think the Nets lack a true “star” besides Deron Williams, you can’t argue with those results for Lopez, and if the Orlando Magic think they’d rather build a deal around Andrew Bynum in Los Angeles, maybe they should rethink their position and figure out if Lopez could become a more complete player (i.e. rebound) with some better coaching and tougher love from Stan Van Gundy.

Personally, I’ve waffled on Brook this year. A part of me understands that this is a star-driven league and that Dwight Howard is an absolute defensive juggernaut and MVP-candidate who through sheer athletic ability finds ways to score. He is clearly the superior center and the Nets could essentially put a group of stiffs and vet minimum contracts around Howard and DWill (or even just their current roster) and still be a top four team in the east.

But what if the Nets could build around Lopez and Williams? What if they bring in more versatile scorers on the wing and better defenders and rebounders to compliment Lopez in the frontcourt? What if the Nets evolve into a team like the current Chicago Bulls, a stud point guard surrounded by a very good frontcourt and solid role players?

Wouldn’t you all rather win with Lopez than without him? Wouldn’t you rather win with a guy who luck handed to this franchise on a silver platter after the Bobcats foolishly went with DJ Augustin a pick before in 2008 (Monday’s game winner notwithstanding)? Wouldn’t you rather win with a guy who, 20 years from now, when some other scoring-centric big man comes up through the ranks, will be statistically aligned with the likes of Hakeem Olajuwon and Dirk Nowitzki?

I have my inclinations. I’m all too used to seeing Nets lottery picks flame out. I would love to see one of them be a piece and stay a piece for years to come. Lopez has his flaws – tremendous flaws – but despite the drek of the past few weeks, there is also a lot to celebrate with this player.  So why not turn a blind eye, at least for the next few days, and say the New Jersey Nets have a player on the same level as Shaq?

As the Nets get set to end another losing season tonight, the always excellent Al Iannazzone notices some major differences between how last year’s 12-win campaign ended and this year’s 24-win season:

First of all, the team didn’t have a clean-up day last year. The players left Miami after the finale and went their separate ways after one of the most dysfunctional and frustrating seasons in NBA history. Many of them didn’t fly back to New Jersey. They couldn’t wait to get rid of last season.

This season, everyone is flying back from Chicago, doing their exit interviews Thursday with general manager Billy King and coach Avery Johnson, and then heading out.

It’s been a frustrating year, but it hasn’t been dysfunctional, and these things are certain: the Nets have direction, unlike last year, and many of their players want to stick around.

I think even the most optimistic Nets fans might have lost sight of these facts due to the level of basketball being played the past few weeks, but I’m happy Al, a beat writer who along with Fred Kerber probably knows this team better than anyone, wrote this column. He’s right. Things are different. Though I also think the Nets front office should be very discerning about who they bring back this summer. It’s one thing to want to play for the Nets. It’s another to actually be a key part of a winning team. I’m not so sure guys like Stephen Graham, Sasha Vujacic, Dan Gadzuric and Brandan Wright (among the Nets’ expirings) are those players to build around.

AP Photo/Julio Cortez

Well, this pretty much says it all about the significance of the tail end of the Nets season. A game that came down to the wire (one that demanded a #LeaguePassAlert from John Schuhmann, even though he had to preface it with “quick,” because not even he was expecting it) was so pointless, that the game-winning shot with a second left to play couldn’t muster anything better than No. 10 on SportsCenter’s Top 10 for the night. Usually the top spot is reserved for late-game heroics, but there was the spectacular yet underwhelming finish of Nets-Bobcats, barely clinging to the list — and I’m not even sure it belonged there.

This is my last game recap of the Nets season, and I’m pretty happy about it. They’re just so sluggish at this point in the year that no matter the thrill of their accomplishments, it’s like pulling teeth to watch the games. In fact, the Bobcats should feel bad for almost losing to this farce. I’m sure they were as shocked as I was that their opponent allowed Dante Cunningham to shoot 10-of-16 from the field. Or Boris Diaw’s 8-of-11. Or Kwame Brown’s 4-of-8. Or Dominic McGuire and Garrett Temple’s 3-of-4s. Or D.J. White’s 3-of-5, for that matter.

THE BOBCATS SHOT 57 PERCENT. IN THE HISTORY OF UNHOLY THINGS, TELL ME: IS THIS THE UNHOLIEST?

Now that I got that out of my system …

If not for Brook Lopez, the Bobcats security probably would have kicked the Nets players out of the arena for impersonating an NBA team. The scoring, not-rebounding big man was stellar once again, posting 31 points on 12-23 shooting, clinching a 20-point-per-game average on the season, regardless what happens in Wednesday’s finale.

But the greatest indicator that the Nets were impostors was the shooting of the former Lakers, Jordan Farmar and Sasha Vujacic, who scorched the nets (Ha. Get it?) for a combined 39 points on 15-of-25 shooting. In fact, Vujacic tied the game late by putting on his invisibility cloak and running to the corner for a wide-open three (before Augustin’s dagger). It’s too bad no one will remember this past lunchtime.

Stephen Graham and Travis Outlaw were themselves, in case anyone was wondering. But no one was wondering.

Brandan Wright actually got some playing time, and, golly, he kind of played well. He had 10 points and didn’t miss a shot. Maybe he should have been playing. But call me crazy for thinking a young player should get a chance to develop in a no-risk scenario.

It’s clear that Avery Johnson and the Nets are trying to make the end of this season as nondescript as possible, maybe to torture the few remaining viewers, maybe to make their reappearing act in free agency or next season all the more shocking. But it’s just so bad right now.

NetsDaily made an interesting point on Twitter today. In the event of a full-season lockout in 2011-2012, Monday’s loss will be the last game that the Nets play in the state of New Jersey. It’s deep stuff, but, hey, I don’t really care. What I want is for Wednesday to come, and for it to come quickly, so I can stop watching these terrible games and reenergize for next season, whenever that comes.

Sasha Vujacic may have played his last game in Newark as a member of the Nets. Since being acquired from the Lakers, Sasha has been solid, averaging 11.2 points in 54 games, primarily as a sparkplug off the bench. Colin Stephenson talks about his future:

“I really don’t know,’’ Vujacic said when asked if he wants to return to the Nets. “I’ll talk with you about that after the last game. But definitely, from Day One, everybody accepted me, from the organization, to coaches to teammates. So I feel great and I felt welcomed. So I like it here. I like it a lot. The ownership, Mikhail Prokhorov, and (GM) Billy King, coach (Avery Johnson), everybody has that global vision of the team going somewhere and winning the championship and all I want to do is to win championships.’’

As I just said, Sasha has been solid and it’s nice to see that the Nets got at least some NBA talent in return for Terrence Williams. But The Machine still suffers from the issues that plagued him in Los Angeles. Most notably shot selection, as in, he shoots too much. It was a fun little run, but this is not the kind of player I would invest in next season. Take the cap room and move on.

The Nets (24-56) have their home finale of the season against the Charlotte Bobcats (32-48). Here are some of the keys for this landmark occasion.

How many players will dress? I’ve made a number of jokes lately about the Nets not fielding an NBA team (sadly I’m not the only one). But seriously this is getting ridiculous. Mario West and Ben Uzoh were apparently banged up during the game last night. So by my count the Nets have Sasha Vujacic, Jordan Farmar, Brandan Wright, Dan Gadzuric, Brook Lopez, Johan Petro, Travis Outlaw and Stephen Graham. That’s the bare minimum to dress. And good Lord that’s awful.

Get Away from the Trey: This one goes out to Jordan Farmar and Sasha Vujacic. I know they like to shoot long-balls, but both have been remarkably cold the past three games (Farmar 4-17, Sasha, 3-14). I know the Nets are extremely limited in what they can do but when Brook Lopez is scoring 25+ points in his sleep, maybe they should just keep working on getting him the ball.

Why is Brandan Wright So Low on the Depth Chart? Only in the land of Little General-ia can a former lottery pick who’s still quite young have to still “earn” his minutes when the team is ravaged by injuries. In his paltry 15 minutes on Sunday, Wright netted a +11 while Gadzuric and Petro continue to put up negative numbers from the PF spot. I understand that Wright is not the answer, but is there honestly anything left to lose by playing him 30+ minutes tonight? I mean, this is a legitimate question because it really doesn’t get much worse and I don’t want to hear from the defend-Avery crowd that Wright just “doesn’t get it” or he’s trying to save him as a sparkplug off the bench. Just silliness.

For some Charlotte insights that are likely to be more riveting than these next two games, check out Queen City Hoops.

AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Frank Gunn

I’m going to keep this short, not only because it’s late but also because the current Nets team doesn’t deserve anything more than what I’m going to provide. Quite frankly, losing to the Raptors without Andrea Bargnani or Jose Calderon in a contest that isn’t as close as the score indicates tells you all you need to know about the state of the team.

The Nets’ locker room is now more infirmary than anything else, as the injuries continue to mount: Deron Williams, Kris Humphries, Damion James, Anthony Morrow, Quinton Ross, Ben Uzoh, Mario West, Sundiata Gaines … the list goes on and on. Have no fear, though, for Travis Outlaw has suited up for every single game this season. Every single one.

There’s neither desire nor talent to play defense, and Brook Lopez is the only thing resembling an offensive player left on the team at this point. I don’t blame players like Dan Gadzuric and Stephen Graham who are seizing an opportunity they don’t merit, but they simply don’t have the skills to do what’s asked of them. The Nets had only two scorers in double figures: Lopez, who was great (35 points, 12-of-21 shooting, 11 rebounds) and Sasha Vujacic, who limped to 19 points by shooting 5-of-14 from the field. The other Nets? They shot 32 percent from the field, highlighted by Outlaw’s 0-for-6 night.

Meanwhile, the Raptors shot 51 percent from the field without arguably their two best players. DeMar DeRozan couldn’t be stopped in the first half, and Jerryd Bayless couldn’t be stopped in the second half. Needless to say, Reggie Evans owned the boards without opposition, really. In total, the Raptors outrebounded the Nets 45-31.

But it wasn’t enough for the Nets to bow out peacefully, and they just had to make a run in the fourth quarter. Behind incredible offensive play from Lopez (Wow. Getting the ball to your best player actually works? What a concept!!!), the Nets crept back into it, at one point reducing the deficit to four points with a few minutes left to play. Farmar busted that up. After denying Lopez a suitable entry pass in favor of the search for an opportunity in isolation, he later went back to try Lopez again, only to throw the ball out of reach of the big man and straight out of bounds. If only to make things worse, there was a tipped ball when the game was out of reach. The officials decided to review it, in what was possibly the review with the lowest time-taken-to-significance ratio in history.

It’s heartbreaking to say this, but watching this zombified version of the Nets is worse than watching last year’s 12-70 team beyond articulable comparison. I can’t wait for this season to end, for the NBA deities to put the Nets out of their misery, and for Mikhail Prokhorov & Co. to hopefully work some magic in the offseason to sway Williams to re-sign here. It’s almost better that he’s not with the team right now, as he really wouldn’t like what he saw. Let’s hope the anesthesia for today’s surgery makes him forget to watch the replays.

Deron Williams, Kris Humphries, Damion James, & Sundiata Gaines weren’t enough, apparently. Due to his lingering knee pain, the Nets have decided to shut down shooting guard Anthony Morrow for the rest of the season. That’s four of the team’s five starters, with only Brook Lopez still playing – and Brook is looking at post-season surgery for his calcium deposits. “Snake-bitten” doesn’t do it justice.

These last few games have been nearly unwatchable, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better from here. Luckily, there are only two games left in the season, but even Ben Uzoh & Mario West left the floor with injuries against Toronto. At this rate, there just might not be enough players available to suit up these last two games.