Nets Are Scorching

At 8:30 tonight, you can watch MarShon Brooks play in the Nike Pro-Am Tournament at Baruch College in Manhattan. Brooks is immediately the most impressive Nets player to ever enter the tournament, beating out Marcus Williams, Yi Jianlian, and Sundiata Gaines.

Brooks will suit up for Dyckman/NYAC in his first organized basketball since becoming a professional. Granted, the talent in that game isn’t near NBA level-intensity, but you’ll still see what type of game he has to offer. Plus, it’ll be nice to have some basketball during the lockout.

If you’re interested in attending, Baruch’s Athletic Recreation Complex is located at 55 Lexington Avenue (at 24th St.), and receives subway service from a number of train lines. Additionally, feel free to Tweet/Facebook/e-mail any thoughts or multimedia you capture at the event, and we’ll put them up here with your permission.

We all knew it already, but he erased any lingering doubt last night: Deron Williams has signed a deal with Istanbul-based club Beşiktaş, and barring an early end to the lockout will play basketball overseas in Turkey.

Deron made it official the way everybody makes things official these days, by tweeting Chris Broussard about it:

To reiterate, I’m not mad that Deron is going overseas. It makes sense. If my employer locked me out of my job, I’m damn sure going to look elsewhere. Don’t want me to play? Forget you, I’m taking my ball and going… well, anywhere but home. Istanbul is a nice city, right? He made the right decision for himself, and I respect that. But I am annoyed. It’s not how Deron intended it, and it’s unfair to put that pressure on him, but this is also a statement by the NBPA. Even Billy Hunter took Deron’s move as a sign of strength. Owners, we will not back down. We won’t just roll over and give you everything you want. We will make this difficult for you.

And that just means that the pissing contest known as “the NBA Lockout” will almost assuredly last through the season.

I’ve stayed out of lockout discussions for a variety of reasons. I’m not smart enough to comment on the economics the way Tim Donahue and Tom Liston have. I’m not savvy nor confident enough to believe I have the right answers for “saving the league” like Bill Simmons. I’m not a superandroid hell-bent on taking over the world one CBA-related question at a time like Larry Coon. I don’t pretend I have an effective method of splitting up billions between millionaires, billionaires, and soft drink vendors. I didn’t start writing about basketball so I’d know what to do when there wasn’t any around. I just love the sport.

This is the first lockout since the boom of online sports media, but it’s also my first real lockout experience as a fan/serious viewer/analyst/blogger. Yes, I was alive during the 1999 lockout, but I was also ten. My knowledge of the sport spread barely beyond documentaries I didn’t understand and basketball cards I over-appreciated. (Also, Space Jam.) I only knew that the league was going through some post-Jordan depression, and that I couldn’t watch my favorite sport until the grown-ups stopped arguing.

(I do distinctly remember the day the lockout ended: I screamed jubilantly like Pink Shirt Guy through a careening, off-balance victory lap around my elementary school gym that ended with me slipping on the floor and smashing the back of my head against the hardwood. My gym teacher used it as a learning experience for other kids. I was okay with that.)

I also know that the sheer amount of basketball coverage in this era compared to 1999 is unthinkable. I do count myself lucky that I’ll be able to watch Deron (and Bojan, and kind-of Sasha) play in Turkey until one of the eight-figure bank accounts blinks. It’s something, and I’ll enjoy it, but it’s not the same. It won’t replace the NBA. And while Deron Williams can take action by going overseas, there’s really nothing we can do but wait.

A release from Anadolu Efes Istanbul, a professional basketball club in Turkey, officially announced their signing of former Nets shooting guard Sasha Vujacic. This is the second time Vujacic will play international basketball – he played for Italian club Snaidero Udine as a teenager before coming to the states.

Unlike Deron Williams, who will play in Turkey during the lockout, Vujacic’s deal has one guaranteed year with an option for another. There’s no word or guarantee on his return to the NBA, and as Net Income of NetsDaily noted, the Nets technically would own his bird rights if that provision survives in the new CBA. Either way, I don’t think the Nets will look to retain him.

As a Nets fan, Sasha surprised me with his commitment, intensity, and team-oriented mentality. (Notice I didn’t say “basketball skills.”) I never expected to say this, but his energy will be missed.

Bruce Ratner is an infamous name around here. The precursor to Mikhail Prokhorov bought the team with the sole purpose of moving it to Brooklyn; Brooklyn came first, winning came second. However, now that the move to Brooklyn is right around the corner, the Wall Street Journal writes a fantastic recap of what it took to get to this junction. It is appropriately titled “The Great Basketball Swindle.”

Essentially, that’s what Ratner did; he swindled us. Years of mediocre basketball, sold draft picks, and hemorrhaging finances punctuated the Ratner era. While the move to Brooklyn is nice, acquiring good players to support the Big 3 would’ve been even nice, too. In short, Ratner was the worst owner in the NBA during his time with the Nets. Even Donald Sterling was better, in my opinion. Luckily, the Nets now have one of the best in the business.

Even Brook Lopez is confused.

A study from BizJournals reported that the Nets franchise ranks 21st in a Fan Difficulty index. The Sacramento Kings “win” the #1 spot as the hardest team in the NBA to root for, and the Los Angeles Lakers rank as the easiest. (Methodology here.)

The Nets ranking puts them just below the Cleveland Cavaliers, and just above – get this – the Chicago Bulls.

First of all, 9th? Really? I get that Deron Williams & Mickey P are here, and that Brooklyn is coming. But did these guys see the last 20 games of this past season? It was like watching a slow-motion exorcism. If the Nets even slightly resemble that team, they won’t rank top 10 in anything.

The Cavaliers are an exception to that – no one wishes ill on the small-market kid who gets beat up and has his lunch money stolen, especially if the lunch money is $50 million in economic collapse. But Chicago? Are the Nets really easier to root for than Chicago? The Bulls scored the top seed in the Eastern Conference, have the most exciting point guard in the world coming off his first MVP, and just made it to the Eastern Conference Finals. I’m not buying that the Nets rank as an “easier” team to follow night in and night out.

To put it in perspective: The Bulls won 71 games in 2011 – 62 in the regular season, and nine in the playoffs. The Nets have won 70 games in the past three years combined.

If there was ever a Jekyll and Hyde season for the New Jersey Nets, the 2004-05 campaign was it. In all of my years of fandom, I’ve never seen a team go from horrendously awful to fiercely competitive over the span of a few months, but that’s what happens when perhaps the best player in franchise history starts the season injured and another superstar player isn’t acquired until the end of December.

Nets fans, who started following the organization in the past decade, will celebrate the 04-05 season as the arrival of Vince Carter, and perhaps one of the NBA’s earliest instances of a “Big Three” (though classifying Richard Jefferson, always a personal favorite, as a superstar is highly questionable). However, how a team that ushered out an opening day lineup of Jefferson, Ron Mercer, Eric Williams, Jason Collins and Jacques Vaughn, didn’t end up challenging the 1999 Clippers or the 88-89 Heat for worst start to a season boggles my mind. I guess it gives credence to the idea that when the Nets eventually did eclipse the 0-17 mark in 09-10, coach Lawrence Frank was probably not the problem, as to how he got his 04-05 bunch as far as 5-13 before Kidd rejoined the team in December is close to a miracle.

In addition to wins and losses, the season was a roller-coaster for the fan base as well. With owner Bruce Ratner in the early stages of his drive to get the team into a new arena in Brooklyn, fan favorites Kenyon Martin and Kerry Kittles were dumped in the summer of 2004. The front office seemed to be signaling to its players and fanbase that the success of the past few seasons was not as important as building a financially viable team for the future. And given the injury-riddled careers of Martin and Kittles, the front office wasn’t necessarily wrong in their assessment of those players. But the apparent cost-cutting was enough to rankle veterans like Alonzo Mourning (more on him) and more importantly, Kidd.  So it was a bit of a shock when on December 17, I read that the Nets had sent Mourning, Aaron Williams, Eric Williams and draft picks in the Raptors for Carter – who would later admit he “quit” on Toronto to force a trade. Suddenly, the Nets looked like they could make some noise again, if the team could only get over its 9-16 start.

Not helping matters was the fact that the team’s “Big Three” plan disintegrated before it could even get off the ground. During the players’ very first game together on December 27 against the Pistons, Chauncy Billups committed a flagrant foul on Jefferson, undercutting him at the rim. Jefferson tore ligaments in his wrist and after trying to play through the pain, eventually opted for surgery, missing the rest of the season.

Though in retrospect, despite the obvious upgrade Jefferson was over Rodney Buford, I wonder if Carter would have turned it on the way he did in the second half of the season with Jefferson still getting minutes and needing shots. Carter averaged 28.8 points after the all-star break, including an incredible 32.3 points over the final month of the season, when the Nets needed him most. Caught in a footrace with the Cleveland Cavaliers for the final playoff spot in the East, the Nets went on a 15-4 run to end the season, and locked things up on the final day, much to the chagrin of David Stern and the NBA, who were likely rooting for LeBron James and the Cavs to put it together in the future King’s rookie season.

But the fun came to an abrupt end come playoff time. Matched up against the Miami Heat, the Nets were swept away. They made things interesting in game three, forcing double overtime, including a buzzer-beating shot from Carter at the end of the first OT to tie the game at 99. Despite the ultimate sweep, Jefferson was back from his wrist injury, and a rookie center from Europe, Nenad Krstic was evolving into an interesting offensive option. So despite an opening day line-up that looked like a collection of D-League rejects, the Nets ended the season with an interesting bounty of players.

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Deron Williams, Bojan Bogdanovic, and Sasha Vujacic are three Nets players set to play overseas, and it looks like one more might join them.

According to Colin Stephenson of the Star-Ledger, Jordan Farmar is seriously considering playing overseas, perhaps to Israel. He adds that there is nothing concrete in his decision to go or stay, but that there is obvious appeal that lies in Israel due to his stepfather’s roots there.

Originally, I was neutral about moves like this. Playing overseas gives these guys a chance to fight off rust and stay in shape during an otherwise idle offseason. However, after hearing about the rowdiness of fans in Turkey, and after reading Ric Bucher detail the dangers of overseas play, I’m not so sure anymore.

Professional sports are no stranger to shadiness. Plaxico Burress, Pacman Jones, the Metta World Peace formerly known as Ron Artest, and more are known to get into some sticky situations, compromising the interests of player and team. However, the Nets are working towards helping players understand risks and assist in avoiding shoot-yourself-in-the-foot situations.

The Nets have hired a chef to make sure that players eat healthy, a psychologist who will talk to players with struggling confidence (Outlaw), hectic personal lives (Humphries), etc., and a service that will prevent players from going astray by warning them of bad influences. This service, called Players Protect (creative, I know), does investigations on potential nightclubs that players plan on partying at, and provides safe drivers & undercover bodyguards.

Such are the benefits of having the most opulent owner in the league.