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.
Saturday’s game against the Knicks was, to put it lightly, a bit of a mess. The teams combined for 39 turnovers, 18 missed free throws, and 23% shooting from beyond the arc. It wasn’t pretty, but it was the first taste of basketball the Nets have had since last season. From the player’s perspective, I saw a refreshing aggressiveness from Brook Lopez and Anthony Morrow, but not much else. From a coaching perspective, there’s frankly not much to take away from that game, but one unsuccessful play early in the game caught my eye:
Note: apologies for the abruptness of the beginning and microphone quality. Had technical issues with all programs. Like with 18th century agrarian business, it’s all the same principles.
So let’s pick up the play from the start. We’ve got Deron Williams handling the ball at the top of the key, Shelden Williams in almost directly in front of him, Damion James in the left corner, Brook Lopez on the opposite block, and Deron Williams has the ball and receives a screen from Shelden Williams, which opens up the left side. With the screen, Deron’s normally got the option to attack the basket or pull up with a short jumper, but Amare Stoudemire hedged far left and cut off the lane. As Amare hedges and then recovers, Shelden cuts across up top to set a screen on Landry Fields.
As this happens, Damion James cuts across the lane from the left corner to set a cross-screen on Brook Lopez’s man, Tyson Chandler. Damion doesn’t look to score here, but if his defender helped out too far on Deron or overplayed him, the entire left side is open for him to get a quick cut to the basket.
Since that’s not there, Damion continues across the lane to set the cross-screen on Chandler. The intention of this play is to curl Brook Lopez to the ball-side block, where he can work his offensive magic, but this doesn’t work for two reasons. Firstly, Carmelo Anthony slides down to where Brook tries to curl and sticks his butt out, sending him off course. That little difference means that the arc of Brook’s curl comes out further than originally intended. Secondly, this is where Tyson Chandler’s defensive presence comes into play: Chandler fights through the screen with ease and blocks off Brook’s attempt to set up before he has a chance to get there. This means that Brook instead curls all the way out to the three-point line, where he merely exchanges handoffs with Deron.
At this point, the play becomes a standard pick-and-roll, but Deron instead swings out to Anthony Morrow. Morrow forces a contested off-balance jumper, which ends up well short.
This is one of those plays that, when well executed, could end with a number of scoring opportunities. However, since it came in the first 90 seconds of preseason, it’s no surprise that it didn’t work out.
There are two main issues here. Firstly, Shelden Williams (or whoever starts at power forward for the Nets come season time) needs to make himself available when he’s got a good look at the basket. When Deron came off the screen, Amare hedged hard on the left side, leaving Shelden essentially open. But Shelden’s already setting a cross-screen for Anthony Morrow and has his back to Deron, cutting himself off from the play. Shelden shot 45% from 16-23 feet last year according to HoopData, which is a pretty good percentage, so I hope in the future he reads the defense and adjusts to look for the open shot.
Secondly, Deron’s decision-making surprised me here. After receiving the screen, he passed the ball immediately to Anthony Morrow, who was 35 feet from the basket and in no position to score. Morrow doesn’t possess the skillset to beat his defender off the dribble, and with under ten seconds on the shot clock, the result is a poor shot. I’d normally expect Deron to either slash, drawing in the defense so that Morrow can spot up more effectively, or look to Brook Lopez rolling to the basket.
There are a few other things — Brook should’ve fought harder to get to the block, and Shelden could’ve set stronger screens, but those are mostly nitpicking. Players are still getting in the flow of the offense, figuring out what works and what doesn’t. That takes time. What’s key here is the strategy, giving Deron the left side to operate in, while curling Lopez and Morrow off cross-screens for smart looks.
I’m a lucky fella. Not only do I get to write for Nets Are Scorching, but I also contribute to The Basketball Jones. Last week I was reading and hearing a lot of hate about the New Jersey Nets’ trade proposal to the Orlando Magic for Dwight Howard; a proposal with Brook Lopez at the heart of what the Magic would get back. Soon after the news broke out, the Los Angeles Lakers stepped into the fray with Andrew Bynum being the main piece going back to the Magic… and like that, it became a battle between Brook and Bynum.
Many, or rather most, took the side of Bynum and disregarded Bropez’s 20 point 2010-11 campaign. Some even put his durability to the side because Bynum’s upside was incredibly high! Oh. Kay. So, after a few more days and exponentially more Brook-bashing, I couldn’t take it anymore. I wrote up a Brook versus Bynum article to show a few things:
1) Brook isn’t as bad as people are saying
2) Bynum is kind of overrated, especially after being in the league for six seasons
3) In head-to-head play, Brook kills
Now, I could have published the article here, but I would simply be preaching to the choir. So, I published it on The Basketball Jones to show the general NBA-loving masses how good Brook is. Check it out, read it, comment, yadda, yadda, yadda. I’ll say this – once people make up their minds about a player, there’s no convincing a person to think differently.
The Nets have had a crazy off-season thus far. Despite being rumored in signing (or trading) for a number of players, it wasn’t until the Nets signed former Hawk, King, Timberwolf, Celtic, Nugget and Knick, Shelden Williams, that the Nets were officially “in the game”.
Although the signing of Williams isn’t the splashiest off-season move — and hopefully more are coming — with an already thin front-court, the Nets were in desperate need of an abled-bodied big, and Shelden is certainly that.
Without further ado, let’s take a closer a look at some of the things we could expect from Williams this season. Read more…
You ever seen a picture of a team’s draft room, in any sport? Generally, they share a few common characteristics: lots of older white men in suits, sitting in a circular fashion, fervently switching from on the phone to online, and eventually applauding awkwardly at whoever they choose.
Another thing they have in common is the “big board,” plastered along some wall of the “war room.” You’ve seen it: It’s normally a giant whiteboard, with hundreds of names plastered from top to bottom, littered with the names of every possible player they might pick up.
Well, on last night’s Nets are Scorching TV — which you should’ve watched anyway — Justin, Matt Moore, and I played a little version of our own “big board,” with an embarrassingly small board. We could barely fit five names on it, and so in our free agency discussions we culled our list down to the top five free agents we’d like to see the Nets sign, given both their talent level and expected cost.
Analysis of our “top 5″ from myself and Justin after the jump, with our miniature board pictured at the bottom. Read more…
As the NBA season draws nearer, the New Jersey Nets — they of the $18ish million in cap space — are linked to nearly a dozen different players at every position (except point guard, where they’re stacked with three players fresh off Euro trips). They likely won’t end up with more than two or three of the guys they’re linked with, if that.
The top guys on New Jersey’s radar — Nene and Tyson Chandler — are the two best players on the market (save maybe Marc Gasol, who the Nets aren’t getting). This seems odd organically, since Nene and Tyson Chandler are both centers, and the Nets a) already have Brook Lopez, and b) are beginning a quest into MeloSagaLand in the hopes of acquiring Dwight Howard. But the Nets nonetheless hope to pair one of these two with Brook, leading to the inevitable question about Brook’s ability to potentially play the 4.
It does seem odd that the question boils down to “can Brook Lopez play power forward?” in this era of positional revolution and game theory re-imagination. The question in this framework approaches the issue from an oddly individualized lens; it’s not whether Brook can play power forward or not, but whether Brook plus another big man can combine to form a reputable frontcourt in tandem.
While there are certain fundamental differences between what’s considered a “power forward” and a “center” — height, athletic ability, and the ability to space the floor tend to set the boundaries — it’s the ability to fill roles across the floor that maximize a team’s overall potential, rather than fill positions.
When you put together what’s normally considered “power forward” work on offense — operating out of the post, shooting with range up to 18-20 feet, running the pick-and-roll, making yourself available for dunks and alley-oops — those are all things Brook Lopez can do. In that sense, he can function as an “offensive power forward” or “offensive center,” if you’re into that sort of box. The only issue is that his skills on the offensive end don’t translate to the other side of the floor, as the players he’d normally have to face at that spot take advantage of his lack of quickness and tentative nature on defense.
Nene and Brook are similar (albeit unequal) players. Both have range — Brook shot 39% from 16-23 feet last season on 3.6 attempts per game, while Nene shot 47% on 1.3 attempts per game. Both operate well out of the pick-and-roll and in post-up situations, Nene ranking in the top 25 in both sets[1]. Both finish well at the rim. Brook is a more natural high-volume scorer, while Nene tends to function as an ancillary of the offense. Their positive similarities on offense aren’t an issue, since they’re both able to operate inside and outside, and they’d likely pose matchup nightmares for opposing defenses every night.
Unfortunately, their weaknesses also mirror one another. Neither is a particularly adept rebounder; their combined rebound rate last season (24.4%) isn’t much better than Kris Humphries’s rebound rate alone (22.2%). Their abilities on the defensive side of the ball leave much to be desired; Lopez’s slow-footedness often results in passivity in the pick-and-roll and a tendency to leave spot-up shooters open, and while Nene is an upgrade over Lopez, he’s still often a split-second slow on spot-ups and over-commits to players in the paint. Using these two as your defensive anchors is a recipe for disaster, even though they’d likely score a combined 40 efficient points per game.
That’s why I’m of the opinion that Tyson Chandler is a better fit next to Brook than Nene.[2] Chandler’s defensive presence is a game-changer that Nene (nor Brook) can offer. Taking their collective abilities, a Chandler-Lopez frontcourt would be both potent offensively — with Brook taking most of the intentional touches in the post and Chandler getting the garbage points, and defensively — with Chandler guarding the superior offensive player, allowing Brook to roam more freely.
The offensive difference between a Brook/Chandler frontcourt and a Brook/Nene frontcourt is impossible to forecast with 100% accuracy, but it’s safe to say that in either instance Brook would carry a major portion of the offensive load, minimizing the offensive impact of the other player. It’s on defense where Brook’s counterpart really has to shine, and between Nene/Brook and Chandler/Brook, there’s a significant enough difference to swing my preference.
With all that said, it’s more important than anything else that the Nets do not overspend on either player, either with their money or their time. With the long-term future of the franchise at bay (as it seems to be nearly every offseason), the Nets can’t feel the pressure of “needing to make a splash.” Nene and Chandler are both 29 years old, and a max contract either in length (five years) or cash (starting at $16.3 million this season) for either of these guys is ludicrous. If that’s the price other teams are offering, let them burn their franchises.
After reading ESPN’s John Hollinger’s individual profiles on the Nets (Insider), Hollinger makes one thing glaringly clear — the Nets, as individual defenders, leave a lot to be desired.
I decided to go to Synergy and take a look at video to see if Hollinger perhaps missed the boat and had been mistaken and the Nets were actually a stellar defensive unit.
SPOILER ALERT!! He was right. But, I still would like you to see for yourself, so to quote Warner Wolf, “Let’s go to the videotape!”
Deron Williams
Hollinger:
“Has ability to defend well, but plus-minus numbers are consistently terrible…” “…he hasn’t been terribly engaged on that end (defensive) the past two years and the numbers back it up.”
My Take: After Hollinger suggested Williams isn’t engaged on the defensive end, I decided to look for video evidence. Most of the issues I see involve Deron guarding pick and rolls. Now this changes depending on the Nets strategy for defending such plays, but Deron has a habit of either running directly into the screen or simply going under. We can’t say for certain if this is because of strategy or Williams’s lack of urgency to fight over the top of the screen, but as you’ll see in the video, there are times it seems D-Will isn’t exerting maximum effort to contain the dribbler.
Going under screens is usually in an effort to keep the ballhandler from driving, but in some cases Deron opts to go under and still gives up the drive. Now obviously Williams is our main offensive contributor and a lot of his energy is expended on that end, but we should watch him a little closer this year defensively.
One of the most important provisions included in this new CBA is the amnesty clause, a one-time mulligan that teams can use at any point in the CBA to remove one contract (signed under the old CBA) for cap and luxury tax purposes. For the Nets, this came as welcome news — with an egregious $35 million mistake on their roster, the provision allows them to remove Travis Outlaw from their cap, never to be seen again. They’d still have to pay his salary, but it’d come off the books when it came to roster spots.
However, even though it seemingly makes sense for the Nets to get the albatross (or alba-Travis! WHAT WHAT!) off their books, it may actually make sense to wait on exercising the clause, keeping Outlaw around for one more year.
