Nets Are Scorching

Final Stats: 77 G, 1 GS, 11.6 MPG, 3.5 PPG,0 .6 APG, 2.7 RPG, 0.4 SPG, 0.4 BPG, 45% FG, 54% FT, 9.91 PER,  92 Ortg

When does a guy who only plays 11 minutes a game backing up a a player who has never missed a game in his NBA career become a lighting rod for fans? When your front office agrees to pay that guy more than $9 million over three years despite not demonstrating anything throughout his career that would indicate he could be an effective NBA player.

Yes, it’s only about $3 million a year and there’s only two-years left on his contract, which means Petro is at least not the immovable rock anchor tied around the organization’s ankle that Travis Outlaw is, but the Petro deal is still indicative of an organization that spent poorly last summer and now has to consider creative ways to shed that salary so they can build a legitimate contender around their star PG moving forward. Back in January, Petro was one of the key guys going to Detroit in the proposed three-team trade between the Nets, Pistons and Nuggets that would have brought to New Jersey an even bigger salary albatross in Richard Hamilton. And P.S., the Pistons still wanted a draft pick for the trouble of taking Petro, despite shedding Rip’s otherwise immovable deal.

What’s so bad about Petro? He’s got an athletic build and is 7-feet-tall, yet he doesn’t block shots and his rebounding rate of 14.0 is about league average for a Center (at least he’s a better rebounder than Brook Lopez). Additionally, he shows little to zero effort or instincts on offense, settling for jumpers 70 percent of the time, according to 82games. For a team that needs a little bit of muscle and toughness off the bench, or maybe some instant offense, Petro provides neither. He’s just there, putting together a season that Josh Boone could have given the organization if he wasn’t in China though I can’t recall Petro ever getting blocked by the rim like Boone, though he wasn’t able to properly cup the ball for a dunk on a fast break against the Knicks in April.

The Pink Shirt: What Petro lacks in basketball ability, he more than makes up for in humanity. In April, after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Petro got onto Twitter where he has more than 340,000 followers and helped raise money for “Save the Children.” In an otherwise dreary April for the organization, Petro’s charity efforts deserve to be commended.

The Paper Bag: It’s difficult to isolate one game for Petro, so let’s look at his February. With the entire team on the trading block and Derrick Favors’ being showcased to the league, Petro finds it getting harder and harder to log minutes, shooting only 37 percent and grabbing 2 rebounds in 10 minutes a game for the month. Meanwhile in an indictment of how poorly this team’s bench was constructed, Petro was actually forced into a start at PF against the 76ers in April before being replaced by the great Dan Gadzuric.

Final Verdict: When you look at some of the Centers with a lower PER this season than Petro, at least Kendrick Perkins was coming off an injury, Joel Anthony is an effective shot blocker and screen setter for the Miami Superfriends and Jason Collins has the defensive chops to aggravate Atlanta’s arch nemesis in Dwight Howard. But what did Petro bring to the Nets and what can honestly be expected the next two seasons? He’s well below replacement-level in production and he doesn’t specialize in any one particular thing except heaving 18-footers, the most inefficient FG attempt in basketball. In short, Petro is the model of basketball inefficiency, and that’s without even considering his contract, which needs to be moved and likely will be moved at the risk of sending a draft pick or taking back another untalented/injured player like the deal that sent Yi Jianlian to Washington last summer for Quinton Ross and cash.

For the contingent of the fan base that just wants other Nets fans to stop complaining about Petro and to swallow this bitter pill because the team’s owner is a billionaire and nobody was going to sign in NJ for any less last summer, THAT’S the problem we have with this guy. You can’t expect the front office to be perfect, and there’s something to be said about the stigma for playing in Jersey, but I’m still scratching my head trying to figure out what Rod Thorn/Avery Johnson ever saw in this guy.

Final Grade: D

Brook Lopez may be the most underrated overrated player in the NBA.

Pundits, fans, pretty much everyone has been killing the guy all season, primarily because of his putrid rebounding rate and his puzzling insistence on taking jump shots despite being one of the better post players in the game right now (about 37 percent of Lopez’s field goal attempts were beyond 10-feet this year, up from 33 percent last season). He’s unlikely to make anybody’s All-NBA first, second or third teams despite averaging 20.4 points per game, and if many Nets fans (and perhaps Mikhail Prokhorov?) get their way, Brook will be the centerpiece in any deal that brings Dwight Howard to New Jersey/Brooklyn.

And let me tell you, I can’t blame anyone who has an issue with Lopez. After being declared an untouchable last summer, he’s been perhaps the team’s most frustrating player – a “franchise” center that disappears from the toughest competition (he only averaged 15.8 points on 42 percent shooting against Howard and the Magic this year) and who goes stretches of the season looking generally uninterested in playing basketball (i.e. his subpar February when he averaged 18.7 points on 44 percent shooting while the entire team around him was rumored to be traded to Denver for Carmelo Anthongy and the immediate stretch of games after Deron Williams was first shut down, including back-to-back clunkers against Orlando and Atlanta when he scored 16 points and grabbed two rebounds collectively).

But still, despite the relentless and warranted criticism, Lopez still managed to find himself in the most elite company this season. As NetsDaily aptly pointed out, Lopez is the 6^th seven-footer in NBA history to average more than 20 points per game under the age of 23. He’s joined by Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Hakeem Olajuwon, two Hall-of-Famers; Shaquille O’Neal and Dirk Nowitzki, two certain Hall-of-Famers; and Bill Cartwright, a multiple NBA champion (who benefitted from playing with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen).

If I’m Brett Yormark, I’m marketing the heck out of the fact that Lopez has been put in the same company as Shaq, the Dream and Kareem. For people who think the Nets lack a true “star” besides Deron Williams, you can’t argue with those results for Lopez, and if the Orlando Magic think they’d rather build a deal around Andrew Bynum in Los Angeles, maybe they should rethink their position and figure out if Lopez could become a more complete player (i.e. rebound) with some better coaching and tougher love from Stan Van Gundy.

Personally, I’ve waffled on Brook this year. A part of me understands that this is a star-driven league and that Dwight Howard is an absolute defensive juggernaut and MVP-candidate who through sheer athletic ability finds ways to score. He is clearly the superior center and the Nets could essentially put a group of stiffs and vet minimum contracts around Howard and DWill (or even just their current roster) and still be a top four team in the east.

But what if the Nets could build around Lopez and Williams? What if they bring in more versatile scorers on the wing and better defenders and rebounders to compliment Lopez in the frontcourt? What if the Nets evolve into a team like the current Chicago Bulls, a stud point guard surrounded by a very good frontcourt and solid role players?

Wouldn’t you all rather win with Lopez than without him? Wouldn’t you rather win with a guy who luck handed to this franchise on a silver platter after the Bobcats foolishly went with DJ Augustin a pick before in 2008 (Monday’s game winner notwithstanding)? Wouldn’t you rather win with a guy who, 20 years from now, when some other scoring-centric big man comes up through the ranks, will be statistically aligned with the likes of Hakeem Olajuwon and Dirk Nowitzki?

I have my inclinations. I’m all too used to seeing Nets lottery picks flame out. I would love to see one of them be a piece and stay a piece for years to come. Lopez has his flaws – tremendous flaws – but despite the drek of the past few weeks, there is also a lot to celebrate with this player.  So why not turn a blind eye, at least for the next few days, and say the New Jersey Nets have a player on the same level as Shaq?

I’m all for positivity about the Nets, and let me be clear that I believe Anthony Morrow was one of the better free agent bargains in all of basketball this past summer (no, I’m not about to now go into why I think Morrow is expendable). With that said, I might have spit out a little of my Buzz Cola on the computer screen when I saw this recent post from HoopsWorld’s Alex Raskin about Morrow’s improving defense – especially when he’s playing SF.

In the article, Raskin cites Morrow’s opponent Player Efficiency Rating of 13.4 (about 1.6 points below average) whenever he’s matched up at the SF slot in the Nets’ rotation this past season. Combine that with Morrow’s own PER of 23.6 at SF and I bet many of you are wondering why in the world Avery Johnson just doesn’t play Morrow at SF more.

What Raskin fails to mention is that Morrow has only played 3 percent of the team’s total minutes this season at SF – way to small of a sample size to determine any improvement. Unfortunately, to be totally fair-minded, one just needs to look back to previous seasons to see how Morrow fared at SF. In 2009-10, in a larger sample 32 percent of his team’s total minutes, opposing SFs had a PER of 15.4 when Morrow lined up there, which is better than the 17.8 PER opposing SGs had against Morrow, but still above NBA average. Meanwhile, jumping back to this season, the one rotation that has logged significant minutes with Morrow playing the three (a whole 38.3 minutes), the team’s defensive efficiency has been about 1.15 points per possession, which would be worst in the league if those numbers held over an entire season.

That’s not to say Morrow isn’t improving, but I guess I can’t take something that seriously where based on those 3 percent of minutes, Raskin writes this:

Morrow is only 6-5 and doesn’t have the best foot speed, but he does have long limbs, which help him close out quickly on the perimeter. And now that he’s defending taller players, he’s starting to resemble another lanky 6-5 swingman—former Lakers star Michael Cooper.

Cooper is a former Defensive Player of the Year, a five-time NBA All-Defensive First Teamer and a guy Larry Bird dubbed “the best defender I ever faced.” I mean, again, Nets positivity in the media for any player =’s great, but to mention a player like Morrow in the same breath as Michael Cooper is a little silly.

Truth told, I would be absolutely thrilled if the Anthony Morrow becomes the Nets version of Steve Kerr over the length of his contract. Get a guy in here next season who’s a more versatile defender and athlete to play the SG and watch how much we’re all going to sing Morrow’s praises when he comes off the bench for 15-20 minutes a game just to shoot threes at a near 50 percent clip. It’s going to be magical. Meanwhile, if Avery Johnson wants to experiment with some small-ball rotations for the last few weeks of the season just so he could better evaluate his player, I’m all for it, but we shouldn’t be pretending that real progress is being made for players with well-documented weaknesses based on these tiny small samples. If we jumped to do that, Terrence Williams would be making his first all-star team next season.

Our old friend Sebastian Pruiti has provided some of his expert play breakdowns over at his NBA Playbook site. This morning, he looks at the game clinching three from Kyle Korver that was caused in large part by a blown defensive assignment from Deron Williams.

We’ve seen it all and more from Kris Humphries at this point. Big slam dunks. Huge chasedown blocks. The hustle that Humphries brings to this team is underappreciated nightly by most folks who doesn’t respect that New Jersey uniform. When asked about him, the most common response is “oh, he’s that guy that dates Kim, right?”

He is. But he’s been so much more. After last Friday night’s career game – 19 points, no missed shots, and a career-high 20 rebounds – it marked the second time that the Hump had outplayed his Clippers counterpart, superstar and known car-jumper Blake Griffin. Back in November, the Hump held Griffin to just 11 points and just and three rebounds (none on the defensive end) in 30 foul-plagued minutes. It was, according to Basketball-Reference, Blake’s lowest “game score” of the season.

Until that Clippers game, my general view of Humphries was that he wasn’t a particularly good defender – he doesn’t rotate well and isn’t quick enough to defend most power forwards. However, after seeing him play yet another great game against a guy that most players seem to be deathly afraid of, I decided to look a little deeper into the numbers, because, after all, I’m an idiot.

Sure enough, I found that the Hump is actually a much better defender than I’d expected.

Other than just the wildly powerful blocks – and there have been dozens of those, with victims ranging from LaMarcus Aldridge to Eric Maynor to Lou Amundson to Robin Lopez – I wanted to know how he actually performed against other power forwards. Sure enough, a look at 82games.com bore out the idea that Humphries is actually a very solid defender. Hump’s PER at the power forward position is a very good 18.6, averaging 16.7 points and 17.7 rebounds per 48 minutes on 52% shooting. Opponents at the 4 average more points per 48 (19.1), but on worse shooting (48.2%) and don’t rebound the ball nearly as much (10.7). This adds up to a player efficiency rating of a below average 14.6 for his opponents. That’s a four-point PER advantage for Humphries.

The other metrics seem to bear this out. Humphries has seen the majority of his defense in the post, and while he’s not a top-tier defender, he’s certainly been impressive. According to Synergy Sports Technology, in 113 post defense possessions Humphries has allowed just 0.81 points per possession, holding opponents to just 42% shooting and forcing 11 turnovers. Over the course of the season, Humphries has shown that he’s capable of using his wide upper body to defend backdowns, as well as his surprisingly agile feet to cut off quick moves. He’s not great by any measure, but he’s pretty good – definitely better than I’d expected.

But the numbers that really surprised me were the ones in isolation.

Humphries has utterly shut down opponents in isolation sets this season. He’s shut down players in isolation at every position – literally, he’s been switched onto little guys like Steve Nash & Jose Calderon, to wings like Carmelo Anthony and Tayshaun Prince, to bigs like Carlos Boozer, Dirk Nowitzki, & David West, and he’s stopped all of them.

(Yes, Blake Griffin too.)

Perhaps opponents think they can score on him in isolation, but he’s got quicker hands and feet than nearly everyone expects, and most guys just end up throwing up bad shots when they’re unable to create good looks.

The numbers don’t lie: in iso, Humphries is allowing just 19-71 shooting (26.8%) and has forced eight turnovers. That adds up to just 0.6 points per possession. That’s, obviously, one of the best marks in the NBA.

It’s certainly strange that a guy who’s so well known for dating a superstar outside of basketball can play like the polar opposite – the dude just busts his butt constantly on both sides of the floor. While that adds up to an efficient – albeit low-usage – player on the offensive side, it’s weirdly the defense that he’s shown that he can stick with some of the best players in the NBA. I still have questions about his rotations – the Nets aren’t a great defensive team, and he’s got a lion’s share of that responsibility – but there’s no question that the guy has ramped it up on the defensive side of the floor.

In what can easily be called the Nets best win this season and it came during the best stretch of basketball the Nets have enjoyed in two years, but it wasn’t easy. Late in the Nets’ 88-79 victory over the Eastern Conference leading Boston Celtics, the Nets were clinging to a two-point lead, but used some excellent execution to get some breathing room.

Let’s take a closer look.

Probably one of the most skilled pick and roll players in the game today, the Nets wisely opt to put star point guard Deron Williams in another such situation. It wasn’t just your classic 1-5 or 1-4 high ball screen, instead, the Nets used lots of motion and had plenty of options out of this set.

As you see here, the play is beginning with Deron Williams setting a cross screen for Brook Lopez. After screening, Deron Williams cuts to the top of the key and runs of a Kris Humphries screen. As you can see Humphries waiting to screen at the top of the key.

This screening the screener action is used quite regularly in set basketball plays.

After Williams comes off the Humphries screen and receives the ball, Hump immediately turns around and sets a ball screen for Williams. As you can see at the bottom of the screen, Brook Lopez’s defender, Glen Davis, has his head turned and loses sights of Brook. Lopez takes advantage of this, and cuts behind him, beating him to a spot directly under the rim.

Brook does a great job sealing off Davis in the paint. There is a great window for Williams to pass into, and Williams, the master creator does so, executing a picture perfect one-handed bounce pass. His pass was perfectly timed, and perfectly placed, leading Brook right into his jump hook shot.

A thing of beauty and an encouraging sign of chemistry between two of our cornerstones.

Watch it all unfold live:

It’s been more than two weeks since the Nets organization’s world was turned upside-down (in a good way) and Deron Williams was acquired for Devin Harris and Derrick Favors (and picks). I recently answered some questions about Harris and Favors for Kevin Malphurs, a blogger for the True Hoop Network’s Jazz blog, Salt City Hoops. He’s nicely returned the favor, giving us some perspective on Deron going forward:

After the Nets-Jazz trade, a lot of the media reports indicated that the Jazz front office had grown tired with Deron Williams. How do fans view Williams? Is he considered the “bad guy” for the resignation of Jerry Sloan? Is the fanbase happy to be rid of him?

Deron Williams was always supposed to be the next great point guard of the Utah Jazz. I remember seeing Williams at Illinois during the 2005 NCAA tournament and thinking he would be a perfect fit for Utah. The Jazz at the time were a bad team that was going to have a top lottery pick. When they traded up and drafted Williams, it seemed like the fates aligned to provide a team that needed a point guard with a young, talented one. Jazz fans thought his size, shooting ability and most importantly passing ability would translate well in the Jazz system.

He went through some growing pains in his rookie year, but by his 2nd year it was clear he was going to be a special player. The Jazz were an up and coming team with Boozer, Okur, Kirilenko, Brewer and Millsap. At that point Jazz fans had nothing but great things to say about Williams. We (myself included) would defend Williams against any accusations that the Jazz should have drafted Chris Paul. The thought being was that while Paul might put up better numbers, Williams was still the better pick for Utah.

However, things started going sour last year.  Over the course of three years, the Jazz went from reaching the conference finals, to conference semi-finals, to losing in the 1st round. They were a team going downwards and when things started going poorly, Williams didn’t act like the leader he was when things were going well. He started expressing his dissatisfaction, and in retrospect, he planted the seeds for the eventual trade. For the longest time Jazz fans made excuses for his negative behavior.

However, the Jerry Sloan thing was the final straw. Coach Sloan is a legend in Jazz fans eyes and the fact that he decided to quit due in part because of his relationship with Williams was a huge negative. Once that happened, I think Jazz fans started noticing the negatives. His attitude was terrible, and the way he interacted with new players (namely Gordon Hayward) left a lot to be desired. His Jordan-like competitiveness once was considered a positive, but now he was being viewed as stubborn and the wrong leader at this time. The Jazz needed a Steve Nash-like leader, who would help nurture the young talent and not someone like Kobe Bryant constantly asking for more help.  

When Williams was traded I was at first shocked, but then after that the fan base was for the most part happy with the trade. The Jerry Sloan thing helped remove the rose-colored glasses Jazz fans viewed Deron Williams through. He was no longer the perfect point guard.

Since coming over, Williams has been dealing with a tendon issue in his left wrist. How serious was this injury earlier this season and did you notice a drop in his performance from previous years because of any injury issues this year?

I didn’t notice much of a decline in play because of the wrist injury. It seemed like he was still shooting the ball well and wasn’t adjusting his style of play, like for example the way Chris Paul has adjusted this year. The only thing I could notice while watching the game was that he would grab his wrist after certain shots. It seemed like he was having difficulty with it, but the results of his play didn’t seem noticeably different. I checked some of the stats on shooting and it looks like my opinion is backed up there.

A criticism of Deron’s since coming over was he felt the Jazz playbook was “antiquated.” Any insights on to that?

Deron Williams played well in a fast-paced game. The Jazz drafted him thinking that with his size he would be perfect for a half court game, but in reality his size made him better suited for transitions. In some way he was like LeBron James when out in transition. His size would allow him to absorb the contact and still make shots. With his speed and size it was hard to stop him on a fast break. With that I think his criticisms of the Jazz regimented play calling were valid. The Jazz should have sped things up a little bit and worked on improving that aspect of their offense.

Do you think the Jazz front office could have done more to surround Williams more talent? Did he ever voice his displeasure about the personnel surrounding him?

Yes, the Jazz should have done more to surround Williams with more talent. Also, yes, he did voice his displeasure for the talent level surrounding him. He was angry when the Jazz traded away Ronnie Brewer last year and I can’t really blame him for that. The Jazz have made some questionable moves that have left them with below-average wing players. It seems like every move they made (signing Okur to an extension, trading for Jefferson, resigning Millsap) was made to improve their frontcourt, but not their backcourt. Every move they have made for their backcourt (drafting Hayward, signing Bell, not signing Korver or Brewer) has been a failure. Williams was the only reliable backcourt option on the Jazz team.

It got so bad that one of the Salt City Hoops writers suggested moving Williams to shooting guard to try and help out there. It is as if the Jazz needed him to play both point guard and shooting guard to field a decent team. Maybe Williams could have gone about voicing his displeasure another way, but make no mistake about it – the Jazz have some of the worst wing players in the NBA.

While the Nets don’t have any wins to show for it, with 47 assists over the span of three games, Deron Williams has been as advertised from a ball distribution standpoint. Here’s a quick look at who has benefitted the most from DWill’s passing:

Most Assisted To:

• Brook Lopez – 14
• Kris Humphries – 12
• Anthony Morrow – 6
• Sasha Vujacic and Damion James – Tied with 4

Assist to Field Goal Percentage:

• Humphries – 63 percent (12 assists on 19 field goals)
• Lopez – 56 precent (14 assists on 25 field goals)
• Sasha – 50 percent (4 assists on 8 field goals)
• D. James – 40 percent (4 assists on 10 field goals)

Some observations – Hump’s assisted to percentage doesn’t shock me. He and DWill have clearly developed some early chemistry in the pick-and-pop game. However, it’s good to see Lopez is right behind Hump in terms of efficiency and I’m sure his assisted to numbers from DWill are going to jump even mores as time goes on.

Second, Avery Johnson needs to work with Williams and Morrow stat. Morrow has only been the recipient of 6 assists on 17 field goals made the past three games. With Morrow’s ability to spot-up shoot from the perimeter, DWill should be racking up assists by the gross with Morrow on his team. When Williams makes his move to the basket, Morrow has to be positioned better to get a kick-out pass. And Morrow shouldn’t be creating his own shot anyway.