For the second and final time this preseason, the New Jersey Nets will face off against the New York Knicks in a battle of which team is slightly more relevant at this mostly irrelevant stage.
The Nets started Deron Williams, Anthony Morrow, Damion James, Shelden Williams, and Brook Lopez in their first preseason matchup, and I wouldn’t be surprised if history repeated itself. Kris Humphries will not start, and Avery Johnson has yet to confirm what his playing time will look like tonight.
Avery also wants D-Will to drop 50 points tonight, though Deron’s just happy with at least 26 minutes. According to Colin Stephenson, Avery noted that he’ll “definitely going to have to take more shots.”
Today myself, Devin and Danny Savitzky were joined by Mike Mazzeo of ESPN New York and Zach Harper of Daily Dime Live fame as we all weighed in on five different questions heading into the Nets season as a part of ESPN.com’s 5-on-5 series.
We all collectively did our best to not mention Dwight Howard’s name once. We all failed.
As reported, the Nets officially announced the re-signing of free agent forward Kris Humphries today. The team, per policy, did not disclose the terms of the contract, but Humphries alluded to the fact that it was a one-year deal. The deal is reportedly in the $7-8 million range.
Humphries said he’s “glad to be back” playing basketball against legitimate competition. He’d been working out in Minneapolis for the past few weeks with his trainer, and there’s “only so many wind sprints you can do” without getting back on the court again.
No decision has been made on Humphries’s playing time yet, since Avery has yet to see him play. Avery noted it’d be a “coach’s decision.” Still, Humphries is a legitimate starter, and if he doesn’t play tonight, he should be ready to go for Monday’s opener.
Avery said Humphries has to “get back to being Hump” and improve on his double-double season last year; given Humphries’s style of defend/rebound/dunk, there’s a “next level” Humphries can get to on the floor. No real indication on what that next level means.
Avery promised that Kris would steal fewer boards from Lopez than last season, and that Lopez has a “mandate” to get better on the boards. Again, no extrapolation on said mandate.
After yesterday’s open practice that some of you could attend but I unfortunately could not, I encouraged you guys to e-mail us your thoughts. Below are those thoughts.
1) Stephen Graham and Johan Petro have been upgraded- Shelden Williams and Ime Udoka may not have been the sexiest free agent signings, but both showed that they could make a valuable contribution to the Nets this season. Udoka, who played on the “blue team” (which were the starters as well as Udoka and Sundiata Gaines), shut down Stephen Graham, not that stopping Graham is such a difficult task. Udoka also has a nice jumper. Unlike Graham, Udoka is actually a good defender, and showed in warmups and the game that he can nail a corner three when needed.
Shelden Williams was unsurprisingly on the starter’s team. Williams played okay, hustling on defense and grabbing some rebounds. However, playing “okay” as a backup bigman would be a significant improvement upon last year’s performance by Johan Petro. Williams and Udoka could be valuable role players on a Nets team that was in dire need of a bench spark last season.
2) Damion James is going to be very useful this season- James only played 25 games last year, but showed in a small sample size that he can defend well and rebound at a good rate for a small forward. If healthy, James proved tonight that he could get major minutes at both forward spots, as he once again played excellent defense. Like Udoka, he was guarding the likes of Dennis Horner and Stephen Graham for most of the game, so just about any NBA forward would have had a decent defensive game, but it was still clear how good of a defender he was.
3) Marshon Brooks could be a star- Brooks wowed the crowd in warmups by doing a few great dunks (including a ridiculous one-handed 360), and his play in scrimmage was equally great. In one instance, Brooks followed in Iman Shumpert’s footsteps, cleanly stripping Deron Williams off a dribble and leading the attack the other way. Although they didn’t announce the stats, Brooks surely led the “white team” (bench players) in points, showing off his offensive arsenal with a flurry of dunks, shots, and even a poorly thrown alley-oop that he turned into two points. The two sides were clearly not going all-out defensively (the starters won at the buzzer), but Brooks played better than expected on defense and was clearly the MVP of this game.
– Cory Bernstein
Marshon Brooks is an athletic specimen. His arms are… beyond long[1]. And his high-flying dunking ability was impressive.
Jordan Farmar displayed some impressive shooting, launching 3s over D-Will all night.
Jerry Smith (just waived) impressed me, way more than Sundiata Gaines, in fact. Gaines was constantly fumbling the ball; didn’t see a glaring mistake from Smith all night.
Damion James is huge… and his offensive skills looked better than ever. I hope they can find him some time in the rotation even after the addition of AK.
Jordan Williams did not play in the scrimmage, but looked awful in the shoot-around. It seemed like he couldn’t hit anything.
Whatever’s going on with Johan Perto’s hair…
– Logan Stevenson
Thanks to Cory and Logan for your thoughts.
Footnotes (↵ returns to text)
ed. note: Brooks’s wingspan measured at the combine at 7’1″, longer than any player his height or shorter in the history of the combine. -D.K.↵
Kris Humphries and the New Jersey Nets are finalizing a one-year contract that will pay him between $7 million-$8 million, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.
Humphries is expected to sign the contract Tuesday and be in uniform for Wednesday’s preseason game against the New York Knicks, sources said. He took his physical in New Jersey Tuesday.
A one-year deal for Humphries in the $7-8 million range is nearly ideal for the Nets, as it maintains cap flexibility and forces him to prove that last season wasn’t a fluke. With a dearth of talent at the power forward position, Humphries fills that need immediately, if only temporarily.
This deal also officially puts the Nets above the 80% salary floor.
If true, Kirilenko fills a big hole for the Nets at the forward position and would be a definite upgrade over Damion James (though James doesn’t think so). That said, “multi-year deal” is a pretty broad description, and knowing Billy King’s offers for Caron Butler (4 years, $30 million) and Nene (4 years, ~$64 million), an offer to Kirilenko could mean anything.
The Dwight Howard trade drama may be heating up once again. ESPN 710 host John Ireland is saying that a reliable source has told him that D12 will be going to the New Jersey Nets by Tuesday. Reports originally had Dwight pegged for LA, but that was a mixup.
Ireland’s source was also correct on LeBron James and Chris Bosh going to the Miami Heat, so this source does have a reputation.
Rumor has it Dwight Howard also took a bathroom break sometime in the past 24 hours, and potentially will do so again in the next week. Also, he’s rumored to like sandwiches, though some rumors indicate he prefers char-broiled steak.
Dwight also hopes his next team’s starting five includes Jrumor Holiday, RuMar RuRozan, Rumor Fernandez, and Rumor Boumtje-Boumtje, and that he can coax former coach Rumor Tomjanonymoussourcesvich out of retirement.
Just kidding, of course. Relax! Take a listen to Dwight’s favorite song.
I was planning on attending the Nets’ open practice at Ramapo College tonight at 6, but due to some personal circumstances I can’t make it. (Nothing wrong, don’t worry.)
However, if you get the chance to check it out and have any impressions you’d like to share, feel free to leave them in a comment here or e-mail them to me (devin.kharpertian@netsarescorching.com), and you may see it on the site tomorrow.
