Nets Are Scorching

To say Deron Williams has struggled with his transition is an understatement. Only shooting 21% (8-38) over his first three overseas games, missing out on qualifying for Euroleague… He looked a far cry from the 20-10 guy he’d been in the NBA. Until today, that is.

Deron led Beşiktaş Milangaz to a 100-93 victory over Pinar Karşiyaka today, with a team-high 24 points and 10 assists. (Box score here.) D-Will added four rebounds and shot 9-14 from the floor, 4-7 from beyond the arc… all with old/future boss Billy King in attendance.

Beşiktaş plays next on Saturday the 29th against Turk Telekom, led by Mehmet Okur and former NBA player Darius Washington, Jr.

The NBA Lockout is getting ugly, and may last a long time.

The Barclays Center, from above.

Deron Williams posted his second blog entry yesterday, and he talks about his team’s improved play, his new role, his coach, the dynamic with his teammates, and how his wife sold him on Turkey rather than the other way around. Also: he needs a new backpack, and fast.

The Springfield Armor is still in the process of putting its roster together, but they’ll have at least three returnees, including the team’s all-time leader in points, assists and steals.

Jordan Farmar was relatively inconsequential in Maccabi Tel Aviv’s loss to Milan yesterday.

Carmelo Anthony sees the Izod Center as a potential barnstorming all-star game location. Considering that the Izod Center isn’t being used for much nowadays, and the NBA (read: Nets) left the Izod Center without fulfilling their contractual obligation, don’t be surprised if they welcome the players with open arms. That said, despite the previous article’s note to the contrary, the Prudential Center is open to the idea of a “Lockout League.”

So here we are, we’ve finally reached number one on our Top 44 Nets of All-Time project and the number one spot belongs to none other than Jason Kidd. The Captain. When trying to think about what it was that Kidd brought to the Nets, I kept coming back to one word: belief.

In the 2001 the Nets traded Stephon Marbury, Johnny Newman and Soumaila Samake to the Phoenix Suns for Kidd and Dudley, and on that day, the franchise was forever changed.

Kidd’s first act as a Net? Declare that he thought the Nets could win 40 games in his first season. (gasp!)

“Hopefully, I haven’t put too much pressure on Rod Thorn and Byron Scott,” Jason Kidd said.

Turns out Kidd set his sights too low.

After all, the Nets were a team that the season before won just 26 games and, as chronicled at length on this site before, besides short pockets of success were generally considered losers amongst NBA fans. So for Kidd to come in and think we could win at least 40 games, he must’ve known something that we didn’t and he believed. And, once he stepped on the court, he slowly convinced everyone else too.

Let’s look at what made Kidd so great.
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In our first live edition of Nets Are Scorching TV, Devin and I were joined by fellow NAS writers Mark Ginocchio (@markginocchio) and Sandy Dover (@San_Dova).

What followed was a discussion spanning our Top 44 Nets of All-Time project, Kidd vs. Erving and how Jayson Williams “murdered” the Slam era Nets.

We all speculate on how the Deron Williams era could end up and Devin depresses us all with lockout news.

Enjoy!

To say that Julius Erving was before my time is a pretty significant understatement. Julius was born in early 1950. He became a professional basketball player in 1971. I was born in late 1983. Julius retired in 1987. I didn’t even think of basketball until 1994. The closest I had gotten to Dr. J was almost buying his Converse All-Star Dr. J 2000 shoes in the late ‘90s.

To be perfectly honest, my mom was the first person to let me know who Dr. J was, before I even had basketball on my agenda. I had absolutely no idea. She described him as one would a pop icon. And then other family members, who grew up in the ‘70s, they told me about him. They spoke as if he were a great prophet or a disciple of Christ. I couldn’t really fathom it. “He was like Michael Jordan!”, they told me. That didn’t compute. You know why? Because I saw Michael Jordan… and NOBODY was better than him, I thought (and still think).

But I wasn’t there.

So…when given the honorable task to compose a piece on The Doctor, I sought out the four men I knew would have the vision that I lacked. I sought a teacher, an artist and colleague, I sought a coach, and I sought a basketball playing legend. The four men — Vince Carter, Michael Tillery, Jayson Gee, and Charles Oakley — had what I needed, so instead of me trying to do it all on my own, I let these guys talk to me and give me the knowledge I lacked.
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Still a gag order on specifics in the NBA Lockout negotiations, though mediator George Cohen says that the talks are “direct and constructive” as he continues to force the two sides to talk to one another. Ken Berger reports that there’s been mild progress on the BRI revenue split, which depending who you believe is either mildly important or the crux of the lockout. Meetings reconvene today.

A reminder: our first live episode of Nets are Scorching TV (#NASTV) is tonight at 7:30 PM. We’ll be talking about the top 44 Nets of All-Time list we’ve been compiling. Stop by, ask questions, and be merry.

Larry Coon, using NBARank as a guidenline, ranks Brook Lopez as one of the ten most underpaid players in the NBA, but that doesn’t stop the Nets from ranking as the worst team in average NBARank among the top 12, 4th-worst among their top 5, and the worst “bang for their buck” in the NBA.

SLAM has ranked Deron Williams #10 in their Top 50 NBA Players list. Brook Lopez is ranked 40th. Ahead of D-Will (in some order): LeBron, Wade, Howard, CP3, Derrick Rose, Carmelo, Kobe, Durant, and Dirk. It appears to me, having seen a few of these rankings, that there are distinct tiers in the NBA: The “top 3″ of LeBron, Howard, and Wade (usually in that order); the “next 5″ of Dirk, Durant, Kobe, Rose, and CP3 (usually not in that order);
and then the “secondary stars tier” with Deron Williams, Melo, Gasol, Amare, et al. D-Will’s usually near the top of that third tier, though it’s there where these rankings tend to diverge from one another.

Jameer Nelson is not worried about Dwight Howard’s recent comments.

In this article about contracts, a little tidbit near the end cites people in the Utah organization that felt Deron was ready to bolt to a bigger market had they not traded him.

Totally unrelated note: did you know that Brooklyn, if it were its own city, would be the third-largest city in the country?

Firstly: after sixteen hours of NBA Lockout mediation yesterday ended after 2 A.M., the sides split with a universal no-comment and a promise of meeting again this morning. After taking days off between 4-7 hour meetings, that’s only a good sign. Long live George Cohen forcing these guys to get things done!

Deron Williams made his “official” Turkish debut a few days ago, scoring 11 points and dishing out 5 assists in a 23-minute stint as Besiktas blew out Bandirma, 107-69. Lot of empty seats in that picture.

Trouble in paradise:Kris Humphries and Kim Kardashian are close to a split.

NBARank has come to a close, and ESPN put together an interesting “fact sheet” about each team. As it turns out, the Nets have the lowest average player ranking among their top 10 of any NBA team (229.6, 11 spots behind 29th-ranked Charlotte), even with Deron at 9.

A nice profile of Jordan Farmar over in Israel.

Discussed the benefits of Andrew Bynum vs. Brook Lopez on Twitter today with some folks. I think Bynum is, if healthy, a top-2 center in the NBA and legitimately could be a top-10 player. But his health is an enormous “if.” Playoffs included, he’s played in 260 of a possible 406 games these past four seasons; Brook’s started his career with 246 consecutive games (239 consecutive starts). I just can’t think of many 7-footers that had surgery on both knees before 25 that went on to have long and productive careers. The only guy off the top of my head is Amare Stoudemire, and Bynum puts at least 45 more pounds of pressure on his knees than Amare.

Shaq is re-visiting his dream of owning an NBA franchise in Newark. Given how Newark performed this past year with only one other franchise in the market, it doesn’t seem likely.

Speaking of ownership, if Shaq comes through on that dream he’ll only be the third-best rapper among ownership ranks, behind Jay-Z (#1, of course) and new Philadelphia 76ers part owner, Will Smith. Additionally, E-Online is trying to stoke the flames of rivalry between the teams, specifically Will and Jigga. Maybe some fun will happen on the court, but on the mic it’s no competition.

I’ve written so much about Drazen Petrovic in my two-plus years with Nets Are Scorching, that now that I’m tasked with justifying his inclusion as one of the Top 44 Nets of all-time, I’m suddenly at a loss. I’m clearly biased. Petro was undisputedly the player who made me a Nets fan and by proxy, an NBA fan. Watching him launch three-pointers with pinpoint precision, while seemingly never backing down against some of the league’s best SGs of all time was a joyful experience for me. News of his death the summer of 1993 devastated me in a way that no other sports moment has since. But do all of these reasons add legitimate justification as to why Petro was one of the “best” to wear a Nets uniform?
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