Nets Are Scorching

There was something about the way Chris Dudley set up for a free throw that was just painful. His elbow under the ball would just jut out in a comic way. He would hold the ball, almost laboriously, contemplating his shot. His motion looked like it was powered by a couple of rusty, rickety gears, held together with scotch tape and rubber bands.

No wonder why “Ugly Dudley,” as my brother used to call him, was such a historically bad free throw shooter – still the not-so-proud owner of one of the worst nights at the charity stripe in NBA history, when, while playing for the Nets in a 1990 match-up against the Indiana Pacers, Dudley missed 13 consecutive freebies and finished 1-18 for the game. You would think that Nets coach Bill Fitch would have taken Dudley off the floor at some point, but he did provide some value:

“I stuck with Chris because he was the only guy playing defense,” Fitch said after the game.

And that’s why, despite the indignities and humiliations that his free throw shooting inspired, Dudley is a worthy member of the Nets family. He spent three-and-a-half seasons in New Jersey and played in part of 17 seasons in the NBA. Do you think if his only claim to fame was the fact that he couldn’t hit free throws he would have lasted that long?

Put it this way: Do you think Johan Petro is going to stick 17 years in the NBA? Remember how people said that Josh Boone would stick because he was a gamer who could rebound? Where is he now?

Dudley was the quintessential back-up big-man during a period in the NBA where wing scorers like Michael Jordan and Clyde Drexler dominated. He could spot-start, doing so in 331 of his 886 NBA games, because you didn’t have to worry about someone with such a limited offensive skillset matching up against a Shaquille O’Neal or Tim Duncan in his prime.

Yet he was better than people give him credit for. During his 1991-92 season with the Nets, a year that saw New Jersey make the playoffs as it was building around Derrick Coleman, Kenny Anderson and Drazen Petrovic, Dudley led the league in offensive rebounding percentage and snared about 22 percent of all available defensive rebounds when he was on the floor. And despite his tall, dorky white-guy appearance, Dudley was a heckuva shot blocker, swatting back more than 2.5 shots in a shade over 25 minutes per game during his first full season in NJ in 1990-91.

Additionally, as a fan, you had to respect Dudley because he was intelligent. He graduated from the esteemed Yale University, and when you heard him talk, you always got a sense that he would have something to fall back on if the NBA ever stopped working out for him. That kind of happened for him in 2010, when he narrowly lost a race to become Governor in Oregon. I wouldn’t be shocked to see his name on another ballot in the future.

Disclosure: There aren’t many pictures of Nate “Tiny” Archibald in a New York Nets uniform on the internet. So, you get the above slightly off-kilter picture of the NBA Hall of Famer, whose career is most noted for being played with the Boston Celtics and Kansas City-Omaha Kings where he led the league in scoring (34.0 PPG) and assists (11.4 APG) during the 1972-73 season. What did he do for the New York Nets? Excellent question!

Let’s be honest here, the Nets are not a shining example of an NBA franchise historically. Okay, fine, in other ways as well. But brighter days are surely ahead! The Nets don’t have the legacy the Boston Celtics or Los Angeles Lakers have. Heck, no other NBA franchises really do. The history of the Nets glory days are pretty much limited to a time when Julius ‘Dr. J” Erving donned the ABA version of a Nets uni and the Jason Kidd days that we are all longing for with Deron Williams playing the J-Kidd role (but with the NBA championship title enhancement). In other words, the Nets’ stature of success is small. “Tiny” if you will.

And that’s exactly what Mr. Archibald’s tenure with the Nets was – successful, but for only a short period of time.

Archibald took to the court for the Nets for one season (1976-77) before he moved on to the aforementioned Celtics for what was basically the rest of his career. In any case, during this lone Nets season, Tiny averaged 20.5 PPG on 44.6% shooting from the floor and 78.5 from the charity stripe. He added 7.5 APG, 2.4 RPG and 1.7 SPG. Impressive numbers from the 6’1″ guard, right? Of course, but in typical Nets fashion, he only did his thing for 34 games that season.

All of the above considered, it’s only fitting that I make this particular post short and immediately cut it off here…

It’s a hundred times easier with Lu. When everybody got hurt, our biggest loss was probably Lucious.

Byron Scott

The ultimate role player, Lucious’s penchant for floor spacing and consistent, smooth jumper made him an ideal fit next to Jason Kidd, and he played a key role both as a starter and reserve in the early 2000s. Lucious could never carry a team – he only averaged more than ten points per game once in his career, and wasn’t a particularly skilled player outside of his shooting in a way that would reflect statistically. But with the right pieces already in place, Lucious’s job was to make other people’s jobs easier. That’s exactly what he did.

He didn’t hog the spotlight, didn’t assume it was his team over anyone else, and didn’t try to take over games. He knew he wasn’t there to run the ship. Instead, with the right mentality, he rode the Jason Kidd ride to Reinvigorated Careerland, and had two of his finest seasons as a benefactor of Kidd’s abilities.

In some sense, Lucious played a survivor’s role – he lived through the awful teams of the late 90s, and during the Finals runs acted as a mentor to young players like Richard Jefferson. His easygoing nature made him a natural fit as a team leader, someone who could keep the clubhouse loose and still earn the respect of star players.

That’s not to say he didn’t perform. Two of his finest games came in the 2002 playoffs: Game 2 in the second round against Charlotte, in which he shot 10-11 for 24 points, adding seven rebounds as the Nets routed the Hornets; and Game 4 in the Finals against the Lakers, scoring 22 on 9-13 shooting as the Nets nearly pulled out one victory against the unstoppaShaqs.

In total, Lucious spent seven years in a New Jersey uniform. Strike his one-year stint in 2004-05 with Cleveland from his record, and he would’ve fulfilled his wish of finishing his career in a Nets uniform. He may not have been a superstar, but just as importantly, he knew he wasn’t a superstar.

One of Lucious Harris’s defining plays is, naturally, someone else’s highlight: Jason Kidd’s “bowling ball pass” against the Knicks. Kidd stripped Howard Eisley as Eisley attempted a pass, pulled up, and literally rolled the ball downcourt, like a bowler would roll a bowling ball. The pass is phenomenal — only a few guards in NBA history have the perfect touch to lay down a pass like that, and Kidd’s one of them. But Kidd never could have made that pass had Harris not been sprinting to the basket once Kidd broke the play. Even with his limited skillset and athleticism, it’s those kind of heady plays that made Harris so valuable on a team that mattered.

Of all the words of mice and men...

Pearl Washington was before my time. Up until recently, I knew him in name only, and even had little confidence in that. I knew he was from New York City, and that he was a really good point guard. One of the best of the bunch ever seen, so I’ve heard. That’s it. Prior to figuring how exactly how he did what he did with the roundball, I didn’t know how long he’d played and how unnervingly short his professional career had been — just three seasons and under 200 games. I didn’t know he was out of the league at age 25. I certainly didn’t know that he was a New Jersey Net.

With little known and less to go on, I reached out to Michael Tillery, a modern-day renaissance man from Philadelphia known for his revolutionary writing style and social commentary. In addition to that, Michael is an NBA, NFL, and MLB historian and a credentialed member of the press. Also, a friend.

Here are some quotes from our conversation (in italics) concerning what Michael had to say about the Brownsville native:

He used to lay it up from the foul line… Pearl perfected it.

Allegedly, Mark Jackson tried to copy Pearl’s patented move, and it soon became a staple of all the NYC point guards during the early to mid 1980s.

He was all New York, he was nothing but New York. (He was) kinda like how God Shammgod was… like Michael Vick in diapers.

Pearl built his success on his improvisational skills. He wasn’t blessed with otherworldly athleticism, but created a career out of his ballhandling skills and court sense. Much of the time, defenders had no idea what Pearl was going to do because Pearl himself didn’t know what he was going to do. Every play could end with a different result, as he had a profound ability at penetrating and scoring at the hoop.

He wasn’t a dunker, he was just an old-school New York player.

And would embarrass you with said foul-line lay-up for good measure.

He was an amazing player. He had an unmatched talent.

Michael added that Pearl’s “I do what I wanna do” M.O. was a predecessor to Allen Iverson, whose more successful career (to put it lightly) allowed him a bit more freedom with his ways.

Pearl’s NBA career ran its course in 1989, after just three disappointing seasons with the Nets and Miami Heat. After a dazzling college career at Syracuse landed him as the 13th overall pick in 1986, Washington’s lack of NBA athleticism & initiative left him as just another legend that failed to expound on the starlit skies of his youth. As for post-NBA life, Washington’s exploits landed him in the CBA for some time, and coached a New York City girls’ basketball team up until a few years ago, when he departed to explore other ventures and ambiguous opportunities elsewhere. God only knows if those opportunities showed themselves to be true.

It’s a shame that a guy nicknamed “Pearl” failed to stay so precious on the hardwood. In what’s become a running theme for Nets prospects, his career’s got a case of the “shouldas”: it should’ve been longer. It should’ve been more electrifying. It should’ve made more of a dent in the NBA’s history. Instead, Pearl goes down as just another prospect from the infamous 1986 draft, unable to turn his college exploits into a meaningful NBA career.

According to Al Iannazzone of the Bergen Record, former head coach P.J. Carlesimo will join the Nets as an assistant coach, replacing the vacancy left by John Loyer’s departure. The agreement comes with the now-standard four-word clause, “once the lockout ends.” Avery Johnson glowingly described P.J., calling him “very knowledgeable” and having “a pretty solid track record in this part of the world.” No idea what other part of the world Avery might be referring to.

Carlesimo worked as an assistant coach last year with the Toronto Raptors, and in 2002-07 with the San Antonio Spurs, winning three titles with the Spurs.

Net Income over at NetsDaily uncovered a video (uploaded on YouTube by user “nbainfos”), packed with 19 minutes of Deron Williams in his first game with Besiktas, against Montepaschi Sienna. In what comes as a surprise to exactly no one, Deron Williams was the best player on the floor.

Watch, enjoy, and pray for an early end to the lockout.

 
I didn’t go to St. Anthony’s. I didn’t go to Lincoln, or Mater Dei, or even Oak Hill Academy.  I went to River Dell Regional High School, and our list of notable athletic alumni is sparse, to say the least — particularly when compared to schools like the aforementioned. Most RD alums proudly identify Bill Parcells as one of their own, but that’s about all they usually know.

The Whopper, in all his ABA-era Nets glory.

However, up on the RDHS Wall of Fame, immortalized as his 18-year-old self, is another Golden Hawk who made his presence felt in the professional sports world.  After only playing basketball in his senior year of high school, Billy “The Whopper” Paultz went off to junior college in Oklahoma, then returned east to star at St. John’s before being selected in both the 1970 NBA and ABA drafts.

The Whopper was never a superstar, but he was strong rebounder with a deft offensive touch.  Traded to the Nets following the draft, he made an immediate impact. Paultz averaged a double-double (14.7/11.3) in the 1970-71 regular season, ramping up his averages to a 20-15 in the Nets’ first-round playoff loss.

Paultz continued to find success as a Net, averaging over 15 points and 11 rebounds per game in his five years with the team, making two all-star appearances. He was also a key part of the 1974 Nets championship run, leading the team in blocks during the playoffs, while finishing third in scoring and rebounding.

Sadly, the Nets traded the Whopper and his services to San Antonio after the 1975 season, and he remained in the ABA/NBA until 1986, appearing in the 1981 NBA Finals with the Rockets.

He may not have been the best athlete — far from it — but Billy Paultz utilized his brains and brawn to become an effective NBA and ABA center. As a Net, he was a fan favorite, an All-Star, and a champion.

Also, 70s hair icon.

From only one year of high school basketball spawned a professional basketball career that lasted 15 years.

Billy “The Whopper” Paultz: River Dell Golden Hawk, ABA Champion, Nets great.

Eddie Jordan: a Nets great both on the floor and the sidelines.

As a player, Jordan was by all measures a steady and consistent guard for the Nets. He played two full seasons with the team and part of two others. In his two full seasons, Jordan played all 82 games both times and posted modest averages of 12.4ppg (in 78-79) and 13.3ppg (79-80).

Jordan was quiet, modest, consistent and humble. Those traits also defined him as a coach.

During the most successful run in franchise history — 2001-2003 — Eddie Jordan worked directly under Byron Scott as the Nets lead assistant coach. Scott certainly had a lot of strengths as a head coach, but being a master tactician with the X’s and O’s he was not. Those were the gaps that Eddie Jordan filled for the Nets in those seasons.

Generally known as an “offensive” coach, Jordan heavily utilizes the Princeton offense. As the lead assistant for the Nets, the influences of his offensive philosophy were readily apparent.

The Nets of early 2000’s integrated elements of the Princeton offense into their scheme and what you saw was a beautiful style of ball movement, cutting, passing and spacing.

In the years Eddie Jordan served as an assistant coach, the Nets won the Atlantic Division and the Eastern Conference in consecutive years. Coach Jordan was able to parlay his success with New Jersey into a head coaching position with the Washington Wizards. In just two seasons, Jordan led the Wizards to their first playoff berth in almost 10 years.

Below is a video of Eddie Jordan coaching Eric Snow, Ernie Johnson and two other guys on the finer points of the offense he used for his coaching career, the Princeton offense.