Nets Are Scorching

Nothing like Brook Lopez comparing serving pumpkin pie to surgery.

On Wednesday, the Springfield Armor announced its official 10-man roster for the 2011-2012 season.

Returnees:

Guards JamesOn Curry, Lance Hurdle, Jerry Smith, L.D. Williams, and forwards Eugene Spates and Jamar Brown.

Draft Picks:

Forwards Jonathon Thomas (17 overall, 2nd round) and Dennis Horner (47th overall, 3rd round).

Local Tryout Players:

Guard Travis Cohn and forward David Akinyooye.

The Armor are undersized on paper, with only one guy that stands above 6-foot-7 (Brown). But for the style of play head coach Bob MacKinnon wants to run, this roster should work.

MacKinnon wants to have play with a high-tempo, face-paced offense, getting out in transition and taking advantage of their quickness and speed.

One thing about the Armor that should be noticed is the experience in the backcourt. Curry, Hurdle, Smith and Williams all played with each other last season and together they should have one of the strongest backcourts in the D-League. Curry will run the point, as will Smith, who can also run off-guard. Smith is a three-point threat along with Hurdle. Williams, who plays the two and the three, is a solid player on both ends of the floor.

Springfield’s season begins November 25th at home against the Maine Red Claws.

The NBA lockout may have essentially taken professional basketball away from this continent, but it hasn’t stopped statistical madman John Hollinger from diving into his cauldron of basketball-related intelligence (or BRI for short) to provide player projections for this NBA year that’s never going to happen. Each day, Hollinger is releasing a new team’s worth of player reports, having tackled the Dallas Mavericks and Miami Heat thus far (Insider only).

In the Miami Heat profiles, Hollinger talks a bit in the LeBron section about “assist value,” which in loose terms refers to the worth of a player’s assist. Assist values vary depending on two factors: the shot’s distance from the basket (shots at the rim are worth more as they’re higher-percentage shots), and the point value of the shot (two-pointers versus three-pointers). The league average assist value for all players is 0.67 points per assist, i.e. the average assist by any player in the league was worth 0.67 points to that player’s team.

By this measure, Jordan Farmar ranks as one of the worst playmakers in the league, ranking fifth-lowest^[1] with an assist value of just 0.59. The only point guards lower than Farmar are Brandon Jennings and Darren Collison, two players with considerably more upside than Farmar.

According to HoopData, Farmar assisted on 120 shots at the rim, 63 three-pointers, and 185 other two-point field goals. That means slightly less than half of Farmar’s assists were on dunks, layups, and three-pointers, the most high-quality shots. Across the league, an average point guard^[2] assisted on 153 shots at the rim, 99 three-pointers, and 155 other two-pointers. That’s 62% of assists on “high-quality” shots.

I’ve maligned Farmar for this issue before, but it’s worth noting that some of the discrepancy in assist quality is undoubtedly contextual. When there aren’t a lot of players attacking the rim or spotting up from outside, it’s difficult to get assists in those areas. The only Nets to routinely attack the rim last season were Derrick Favors and Kris Humphries, while mainstays in the rotation Brook Lopez, Travis Outlaw, Johan Petro, Sasha Vujacic, and Stephen Graham primarily shot jumpers from inside the arc. Even three-point shooter extraordinaire Anthony Morrow still attempted 16′-23′ shots almost three times per game last season.

Across the board, the average team in the NBA last season took 52% of their shots at the rim or beyond the arc; the Nets only attempted 47%, fifth-worst in the league.^[3]

That’s not to say that Farmar’s 5th-worst ranking is due primarily to the team dynamic. Farmar has always been a shoot-first point guard, not consistently looking to create off the pick & roll or set up big men down low. In roughly the same amount of minutes in a Nets uniform, Devin Harris assisted on more shots at the rim and from beyond the arc than Farmar, with a higher percentage of high-quality assists (55%). It’s worth noting that Deron Williams’s small sample size looks about as rough as Farmar’s, with 48% of his assists coming on “good-quality” shots, but since those came in 12 weird games and are far from his career numbers, that’s more likely an aberration than the norm.

With Deron Williams hopefully manning the point at some point this (next?) season, it doesn’t make much economic sense for the Nets to invest $8 million in a backup who’d bring the offense to a screeching halt for 10 minutes per game. The fact that his assist value is this low by a weighted measure only adds fuel to that notion.

Hollinger will profile the few New Jersey Nets remaining under contract on December 16th.

Besiktas is now 8-1 in combined EuroChallenge and TBL play, thanks to Deron’s 50-point explosion in yesterday’s 105-94 victory over BC Goettingen, and they’re craving more talent. Signees Deron Williams & Semih Erden notwithstanding, the club has reportedly pursued Carlos Boozer, Kobe Bryant, Luol Deng, Kevin Durant, and Kevin Love — and those are just the ones we know about. (While none of these offers are currently active, with a longer lockout and the right insurance obstacles taken care of, this could change any day.)

Marc Stein now reports that the latest player to enter the fray for Besiktas is candy addict, Kardashian husband, and former Los Angeles Lakers forward Lamar Odom. Odom’s contract — 2 years at $17 million, with the second year a partial guarantee — is the “most manageable insurance-wise.”

Odom is coming off the best statistical season of his career; in 2010-11, Odom posted a career-high 19.4 PER for the Lakers, playing in all 82 games and averaging 14.4 points per game on 53% shooting. He posted additional career-bests in true shooting percentage, points produced per 100 possessions, win shares, three-point percentage, and turnover rate.

Stein also lists Marcin Gortat (3 years, $22 million) and Nene (a restricted free agent, in NBA terms) as top Besiktas targets, listing Gortat as the most likely candidate.

Update: All 50 points, and his one assist, in video form (thanks to valdu08 on Twitter):

via Jonathon Givony on Twitter:

Deron Williams scored 50 points tonight in Besiktas’ 105-94 EuroChallenge win over Gottingen. Was 17/23 from field w/7 made 3s. Just 2 TOs.

November 22, 2011 2:50 pm via UberSocial for BlackBerryReplyRetweetFavorite

@DraftExpress

Jonathan Givony

According to the official play-by-play, Deron scored 12 in the first quarter, 14 in the second, 7 in the third, and 17 in the fourth quarter, carrying Besiktas past a fourth-quarter run by BG Gottingen. D-Will also recorded one assist, but when you score 50 points on 17-23 shooting, I don’t think you’ll hear too many complaints.

As a Nets fan, as someone who’s followed this team for a long time, as someone who’s excited at the possibility of the best point guard the Nets have seen since Jason Kidd, and secretly deathly afraid of the chance he’ll leave after only 12 games: Please end this ridiculous posture-filled charade known as the NBA Lockout.

LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Carmelo Anthony, and Chris Paul are kicking off a four-city barnstorming tour in December, hitting Akron on December 1st, New Orleans on December 4th, Chicago on December 7th, and culminating in… East Rutherford’s IZOD Center on December 10th!

According to the report, Chris Bosh will play in all four cities, and each player will recruit for their specific regions: LeBron for Akron, CP3 New Orleans, Wade Chicago, and Melo in Not-New-York. This historic event marks the first time Carmelo Anthony has ever recruited players, including himself, to play in New Jersey.

The irony of this is just beautiful. Carmelo Anthony, who spent the better part of six months forcing Billy King into wrecking his franchise and held about a dozen futures hostage, all to make sure he didn’t have to play in Newark, is now going to be calling superstars to join him in East Rutherford, AKA The Meadowlands, AKA The Swamp.

Tickets go on sale Wednesday.

Kevin Love will not join Deron Williams in Turkey, which is all right, really, because a team with Kevin Love and Deron Williams would both a) be incredibly unfair at the TBL level, and b) make Deron highly depressed when he comes back and Brook Lopez only grabs four boards a night. Luol Deng is still a possibility for Besiktas, as is Marcin Gortat and former D-Will teammate Carlos Boozer.

Speaking of Besiktas, its 11-game winning streak was finally snapped this weekend, as they lost a close match to Erdimir, 88-84. Deron scored 16 points on 6-16 shooting and dished out eight assists in the loss. Bojan Bogdanovic also scored 16 points this weekend with roughly the same efficiency (5-14, 4-5 from the line) in a 79-77 victory over Karsiyaka.

Jordan Williams is the latest Net to flee the NBA’s collective bargaining destruction, signing a contract (with an out) in Poland.

The first college game (and, depending how this lockout shakes out, maybe the first basketball game at any level) in Barclays Center history will be… Kentucky-Maryland! No surprise, given John Calipari’s connection to the Nets franchise, and the fact that Kentucky may have more NBA players on its roster than the Nets do.

Create-a-caption: Avery Johnson style.

Julius Erving’s memorabilia auction, AKA the “holy crap it’s depressing that Dr. J has to auction off his memorabilia” auction, raked in a total of $3.5 million. His highest-priced piece? His 1974 ABA Nets championship ring, which sold for a little under $500,000.

Emile Avanassian looks back at some great Nets moments. Check it out, if only for what may be the cleanest alley-oop ever.

An approximation of a wild Prokhordove.

Deron Williams, Chris Paul and Dwight Howard have early-termination options as of July 1, 2012. Nothing changes about that if there’s no 2011-12 season. So my apologies to Mikhail Prokhorov for believing a source who told me he was one of the hard-line owners of this fiasco. Prokhorov, having traded Derrick Favors, Devin Harris and two first-round picks for Williams, who may only play 12 games in a Nets uniform, would have to be the dove of all doves. A season-long lockout would cripple his franchise if Williams exercised his opt-out and left.

It’s such a grim and unthinkable prospect that Prokhorov should not only be throwing his weight around among the other owners, he should be listed among the plaintiffs in the antitrust lawsuit the players filed Tuesday in California.

via Ken Berger — No matter the ‘winner,’ NBA legal fight could be disaster for everybody

I’ve heard this position a few times, from a few smart folks: Mikhail Prokhorov is praying for a season, because without one, he’ll lose Deron Williams. But that’s not necessarily true.

Firstly, it would cripple the franchise if Williams exercised his opt-out and left no matter what happens with this season. Barring something completely unexpected — good or bad — Deron’s decision isn’t impacted by this season’s results. It’s impacted both by what the Nets can build for 2012 on and what kind of money he stands to make in the new CBA — which assuredly would favor him staying put.

It doesn’t matter if Prokhorov has Deron for 12 games, or 12-plus-whatever-number-comes-from-a-shortened-season games. The only thing that matters is signing him long-term. Playing 25 home games (at best) in front of 10-12,000 fans mildly interested (again, at best) in Newark isn’t going to change that.

I truthfully don’t know if Prokhorov is a hawk or dove — my guess is that he’s a hawk, since getting out of New Jersey and into the next (profitable) stage of Nets history is a priority, and the Nets stand to lose more money by playing a season than sitting one out. But the idea that Prokhorov’s doveishness or hawkishness is predicated on the idea that Deron Williams is getting the hell out without a season seems fishy, since this season isn’t a major factor in his decision.

If the Nets can put together a competitive team for 2012 in Brooklyn, Deron will re-sign. If not, he’s gone. The meaning of the word “competitive” is complex (though not so much if the Nets get… well, you know), but the terms are simple. In the end, that’s what it comes down to.

For comparison, the Prokhorhawk.