Nets Are Scorching

After meeting for three hours this morning, the NBA owners and Players Association could not come to terms on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. At the conclusion of the meeting, the owners announced that — consistent with most people’s expectations over the last several months — that the league will be officially locked out beginning at 12:01 AM eastern time tomorrow morning.

This might not be as disappointing as the thought of the Nets’ re-signing Stephen Graham, but …

When the Nets acquired Croatian baller Bojan Bogdanovic in the second round of the 2011 NBA Draft, the early reports from experts were – “first-round talent” or “a steal that late”.

After watching some video on BoBo, I began to see what those experts were saying. Bogdanovic possess a lot of the qualities you would expect to find in a prototypical NBA wingman (qualities we will get into in just a bit.)

But as I watched more video, I began to see some familiarities in his game to that of a player I have been watching excel in the league for years: Boston Celtics small forward Paul Pierce.

Let’s take a look.

Read more…

I’m sure fans of any NBA team can say without pause that a lockout never comes at an opportune time. If you’re a fan of professional basketball and have a love and adoration for a team like we have for the Nets here at NAS, you want to watch and see as much basketball as possible. Anything that can potentially disrupt the NBA season is a bad thing. And when that disruption is tied to a lockout – essentially an argument between millionaires and billionaires – then the lack of basketball being played is absolutely dispiriting.

Still, this is a Nets-centric site, so with my sympathies extended to all NBA fans as both sides sit and meet today to determine if a lockout can be avoided, I can’t help but bemoan how past labor issues have played a key role in derailing the Nets organization. And if any time in the 2011-12 season is lost to a lockout, these old ghosts from the past could come back and haunt us fans again.

Think about it. For a team that only won 24 games last season, there’s a lot to look forward to in 2011-12. For one, a healthy all-star PG in Deron Williams, who will be eligible to have his contract extended provided the right player pieces are placed around him. The team also has the cap space this summer to make a push for some free agent help and with Williams on the team for at least one more year, that should hopefully be easier to come by than it was a year ago. In terms of youth, the Nets just completed a solid 2011 Draft that has earned mostly praise and hardly, if any, criticism of their three picks. Trust me, if Billy King blatantly botched this, the NBA punditocracy would have no qualms saying so.

And here comes a lockout, potentially cutting short the only full-season we’ll get to watch Deron Williams. A lockout that means we Nets fans have to sit and squirm as no contract negotiations are allowed with free agents (or trade proposals for free-agents-to-be), meaning even if the season picks up a few months in, a Nets team that should hopefully feature at least two new starters at the SG and SF slots (and maybe a new PF depending on Kris Humphries) will have little-to-no-time to gel and play well together. And while our draft picks aren’t going anywhere, an abbreviated or fully locked-out season means less time developing for MarShon Brooks and Jordan Williams. In fact, the only positive I can conceive of coming from a lockout is it would move this organization that much closer to playing in Brooklyn.

Is this a worst-case scenario? Sure. But it wouldn’t be the first time a lockout has crashed and burned a Nets season before it started. In the spring of 1998, it was a good-time to be a Nets fan. Sure, the team had just been swept away in the first round by the NBA champion Chicago Bulls, but the organization had a nice core of young players in Kerry Kittles and Keith Van Horn. They had a guy in Jayson Williams who the fans loved. They had a born leader in Sam Cassell for PG. And they had a head coach on the rise in John Calipari. With Michael Jordan out of the league, the pieces were in place for a potential deep playoff run for the organization in 1999, but an early season injury to Cassell in February, after the season restarted, and an emotional meltdown that’s never really stopped for Calipari, stopped the progress deep in its tracks. The team got off to an awful start, putting them in a hole they could never dig out of. Then they got desperate and made a stupid trade, acquiring Stephon Marbury as a potential fix. Kerry Kittles had a bum knee, Jayson Williams broke his leg and then lost his mind in retirement, Starbury and Van Horn couldn’t get along despite having the potential to be a great 1-2 punch and the team never revived again until Rod Thorn took a chance on Jason Kidd in 2001.

While all of these events could have (and likely would have) occurred over the course of a full, non-interrupted season in 1998-99, the timing of an NBA lockout at a point in the organization’s timeline where things were on the rise for a change, still feels like a stomach punch more than 10 years later. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about the bitter disappointment of that season anytime I think about the potential for a lockout in 2011. The Nets may have a billionaire owner and a new arena on the rise in Brooklyn, but they’re still the same New Jersey Nets organization that has just seemed unable to shake an ungodly amount of bad luck since it came over from the ABA in the 1970s. So any talk of a new era has to be clouded by my connections to this organization’s negative past.

 

David West made one bold move this week.

Recently sidelined by a gut-wrenching knee injury toward the end of the NBA’s regular season, West missed all of the Hornets’ surprisingly promising first-round mini-run against the Lakers and figures not to be 100 percent recovered until some time in November. West has a one-year, $7.5 million player option remaining on his contract. Given his condition and that of the CBA negotiations, it would have seemed wise for him to exercise that option and take that money.

Nope. He’s opting out.

There’s no doubt that West has played at a level worth more than $7.5 million annually over the last several years, so he and his agent must be somewhat confident that they can finagle a more lucrative deal out of some team lacking production at the power-forward position. It appears the Nets are near (or at) the top of that duo’s list of targets.

The Nets, looking to improve in any conceivable way, could definitely benefit from West’s contributions. He’s a solid scorer (devastating in the pick-and-pop, at least with Chris Paul running that show) and defender, two qualities the Nets are lacking in. All signs indicate he’s a good locker-room guy, so there wouldn’t be any prudent character issues to worry about. Feasibly, he could give the Nets another handful of wins on his own. And having another quality player like West in the rotation could sweeten the deal for the Nets’ home-run target, Dwight Howard.

Still, as Devin pointed out earlier today, he’s not a great rebounder, so pairing him with another not-great rebounder in Brook Lopez could have disastrous implications. But that’s not really the main concern. More relevant: it just doesn’t seem like a great investment to put a lot of money into a player who will turn 31 before next season is supposed to begin and is recovering from reconstructive knee surgery.

He might be able to keep up production for the length of his contract (after all, as John Hollinger professes, the two best indicators of career length are size and shooting ability: two areas in which West is gifted); he might start feeling the toll of the surgery next year. That uncertainty seems like a reason to stay away, especially since West won’t make the Nets a serious championship contender on his own.

There might be significant movement in the next CBA that would allow the Nets to offer a contract that isn’t as potentially as damaging as one in the current deal. If that’s the case, I could get behind inking West. But if he’s going to get a guaranteed five- or six-year deal in the $10 to $15 million range as would likely be the case if the contract were negotiated today, that’s a fiscal misstep by the team. And the LAST thing anyone concerned about the NBA needs is for a potential bust contract to be one of the first major deals negotiated under the new CBA, creating precedent for the same money issues the league and union are slogging through now.

Really, the situation with West is very similar to that with Kris Humphries. West is a better player, but he’s four-and-a-half years older and a much more real injury risk; he’d also likely demand more money. Both of these players are worth signing for the right price. But calculated restraint is really necessary in these negotiations. Breaking the bank for a 10- to 15-win boon without the possibility of a title isn’t what the Nets should be looking for under their five-year championship plan.

David West has walked away from the final year and $7.5 million of his contract, despite having reconstructive surgery in April on his ACL. It seems that everyone believes West will either be a Net or Pacer this year… Which means, BRING IT, Eight Points, Nine Seconds.

While I’m a fan of bringing in anyone who’s very good at basketball – and David West is – I have one major concern. The Nets already have one big who’s a talented scorer and sub-par rebounder in the starting lineup. Can they really get away with two?

Granted, West is a better defender than Lopez (and Humphries, for that matter), though they can’t really choose which offensive player sets a screen in a pick & roll. It’s also possible that Okafor was stealing boards from West the way Humphries may have been from Lopez. But don’t you want the guys who aggressively pursue rebounds over guys that let their teammates do it?

The two best rebounders on a team can’t combine to average 13.7 rebounds a game when there are guys in the NBA who average more than that by themselves. That’s a recipe for disaster.

The Nets have enough money to sign West, so that’s not really a factor here. The real factor is winning. A lineup of Williams/Morrow/Outlaw/West/Lopez could probably win 45-50 games in the “new” East, though I still think they’re a legit wing scorer away. (Hello, Marshon Brooks.) Despite his rebounding issues, I think he’s the best realistic target the Nets could go after at PF, unless Josh Smith suddenly becomes far more available than we thought.

(Also, West could be used in a deal for Smith, should the opportunity arise. Just noting.)

Let the madness begin…

J.M. Poulard is a writer for WarriorsWorld.net, the Golden State Warriors affiliate to the TrueHoop Network. Today, J.M. takes a look back at one of the biggest stars in Nets history: The Doc.

When attending Nets games (wherever they might be these days), one might notice that there are a multitude of banners hanging in the rafters. They serve as reminders of the team’s accomplishments in its rich 44-year history. Consequently, if one takes the time to glance at them, they will probably spot these almost immediately:

• Atlantic Division Champions 2001-2002
• Eastern Conference Champions 2001-2002
• Atlantic Division Champions 2002-2003
• Eastern Conference Champions 2002-2003
• Atlantic Division Champions 2003-2004
• Atlantic Division Champions 2005-2006

Although we should not minimize what those seasons meant to the franchise, they aren’t the most important banners. Instead, we should turn our attention to the banners that no longer seem to have any sort of relevance to today’s Nets franchise:

• ABA Champions
  Nets
  1973-1974
• ABA Champions
  Nets
  1975-76
• NETS
  32
  ERVING

Things have changed tremendously since the New York Nets played their last game in the American Basketball Association in 1976; yet, the three banners previously mentioned are arguably the most important in franchise history.
Read more…

It’s been talked about for a while, but Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov is now officially part of Russian politics, having been elected as President of the pro-capitalism Right Cause Party.

Will this become a diversion for the Nets? I’m not too sure. I doubt that Prokhorov is heavily involved in the everyday activities of the team, so I don’t foresee any issues as long as he doesn’t become extremely immersed in his political activities. However, Prokhorov has spoken about becoming Prime Minister; if he eventually launches a campaign, I’m not too sure about his ownership prospects. Such a campaign would only happen later on in Prokhorov’s political career, but it is something to keep in mind.