Can the Nets Tank Something That’s Already Been Tanked?
Jan 12, 2010 Bobby Simmons, Chris Quinn, Devin Harris, Eduardo Najera, Josh Boone, Kris Humphries, Rafer Alston, Roster
So the common theme surrounding the New Jersey Nets is that after shipping out Rafer Alston, Sean Williams and Eduardo Najera, they’re not even close to being done with their roster makeover. According to numerous league sources, Josh Boone, Tony Battie, Trenton Hassell and Bobby Simmons could all be shipped out at any time, provided the Nets get what they’re looking for in return (younger players who won’t put in a dent in the cap flexibility for the summer). Heck, ESPN’s Chad Ford suggested that even Devin Harris could be on the block if he nets the team a superstar.
But looking at more realistic roster scenarios, ESPN’s Marc Stein recently suggested the Nets are trying to dump their veterans and free up roster space for “fresh blood from the D-League.”
Whenever I see firesales of this magnitude it seems to indicate one thing – a team is tanking the season in an effort to secure a top flight pick in the draft. The fact that the Nets appear more interested in importing D-League players, who they can likely sign on super short-term 10-day contracts, in favor of winning a few more games with some of their veterans, is a clear indicator that they’ve officially given up on trying to salvage any respectability this season.
Or is it? There’s one huge whole in this logic that must be considered for fans and spectators who criticize the “tank” strategy. The Nets have been incredibly awful with their current mix of young up-and-coming players and veteran, playoff –tested guys. At 3-34, is there really any reason to believe the Nets are a better team with Rafer Alston and Eduardo Najera rather than Chris Quinn and Kris Humphries?
The Nets are in a unique situation that a “tanking” strategy could actually make them better. What’s better for a team that’s currently built around five 20-something guys in Devin Harris, Brook Lopez, Courtney Lee, Yi Jianlian and Chris Douglas-Roberts (provided they’re not on the block too)? Picking up players for their bench who have been overlooked for playing time in playoff towns like Miami and Dallas, and filling out the roster using D-League guys who are trying to prove that their NBA-caliber? Or having a veteran guy like Alston who only seemed to succeed in New Jersey at alienating the immature young-uns like Terrence Williams and CDR. Eduardo Najera was supposed to bring toughness and grit off the bench, but he couldn’t keep his body from breaking down long enough to be an example for anyone.
Nets on the Net: 1/12/10 Edition
Jan 12, 2010 Brooklyn, Develop Don't Destroy, Eduardo Najera, Kris Humphries, Nets on the Net, Shawne Williams, Vince Carter
Hey, I know that Sebastian Pruiti guy. Check out his breakdown of the critical possession of the Nets-Hornets game from Friday.
Rod Thorn on trades; more to come: “You’re probably going to see some major deals before it’s over with,” he said. “We’ll be talking to people on a daily basis to see if there’s other things we can do that we feel will help, whether it be short term or long term.”
Dave D’Alessandro profiles the two newest Nets, and wonders if their acquisitions makes the roster more “high-maintenance.”
Eduardo Najera is one happy dude now that he’s been traded; “Today is the first time I’ve been able to smile.”
In Orlando, our old friend Vince Carter may be headed to the bench in favor of JJ Redick. Orlando Pinestriped Post (formerly Third Quarter Collapse) has the analysis.
Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn is trying to connect the dots between Gilbert Arenas and Mikhail Prokhorov.
Speaking of DDDB and Daniel Goldstein, he’s “still not going anywhere.” Hat tip NetsDaily.
Nets Send Najera to Dallas for Humphries, to Cut Sean Williams
Jan 9, 2010 Eduardo Najera, Kris Humphries, Trades
Dave D’Alessandro wasn’t kidding when he said a deal between the Nets and the Dallas Mavericks was imminent. Overnight, the Nets and Mavs agreed to swap Eduardo Najera and PF Kris Humphries, according to Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski. The Nets also received Shawne Williams in the trade, who hasn’t played this season, and is expected to be bought out of his contract. To make room on the roster, the Nets will formally end the Sean Williams era, cutting the troubled F/C. Wojnarowski expects the deal to be formalized by the league on Monday morning.
Beat writer Al Iannazzone, picking up on the report, makes the deal sound a little more tentative, but agrees that it should all come together on Monday. Iannazzone also thinks the Nets could send a trade exception over to Dallas.
Let’s take a tale of the tape here regarding the two main pieces in this deal, Humphries and Najera. Humphries is going to add anywhere between $200K and $700K to the salary cap next season and is 10 years younger than Najera.
Humphries doesn’t get a lot of minutes in Dallas, but he’s fairly efficient when he plays. He’s currently averaging 17.2 points and 10.6 rebounds per 40 minutes, good for a Player Efficiency Rating of 15.25, which is slightly above average. According to his 82games profile, he takes about 54 percent of his shots close to the rim or at the rim, good for a 54 percent effective field goal percentage. His eFG is about 37 percent on his jump shots.
Here’s ESPN’s John Hollinger scouting report on Humphries, before the season started:
Humphries has two major weaknesses. First, he’s a selfish offensive player who forces shots. Even though he can score, he too often flings quick jumpers and breaks plays, especially when he catches in the high post area. He shoots the ball like it’s contagious, flicking it from in front of his face within nanoseconds of picking up his dribble. The result is usually a low liner into the front rim. He can finish and draw fouls around the basket and is an impressive offensive rebounder, but he doesn’t earn brownie points with the coaches when he lets it rip off the dribble from 15. Also, he needs to improve his foul shooting (58.5 percent career).
The other weakness is his defense. Humphries has a strong build but is undersized for a 4 at 6-foot-8, and his effort is inconsistent. He keeps gambling by trying to steal post entry passes instead of playing solid D behind his man, and with his quickness he should be a better pick-and-roll defender.
As for Najera, the man was never healthy enough in his tenure with the Nets to make an impact, only playing in 27 games last year and 13 this year. Many thought the Nets were insane for giving him a four-year deal before last year, and those critics were proven correct. Najera was supposed to bring leadership and toughness on the defensive end to the Nets, but did neither. When the Nets were showcasing him Tuesday night against the Bucks, he looked slow and out of shape, so we’ll see if he even plays with Dallas.
Sean Williams was probably an even bigger enigma. Swat looked like he had potential his rookie year, starting 29 games and averaging 5.6 points and 1.5 blocks. But he continually did things on and off the court to play himself out of the rotation. Last season, the Nets sent him down the the D-League where he was ejected from a game, and he was also arrested in Denver for throwing a monitor at a store clerk. The guy probably needs help in a venue away from basketball, and from one human to another, I hope he finds it.
Could We Have Hump Day in Jersey?
Jan 8, 2010 Eduardo Najera, Terrence Williams, Trades
In his mailbag over at the Star-Ledger web site, Dave D’Alessandro speculates that talks between the Nets and the Dallas Mavs regarding a Eduardo Najera for Kris Humphries swap are heating up and a deal is “imminent.”
There was a little confusion about this when we posted about it earlier in the week so let me source Dave D. here. He believes adding Humphries for Najera would add about $700K to the payroll, not a significant amount.
Humphries, a PF, is averaging 5.2 points and 3.8 rebounds in about 13 minutes of play this season.
In another nugget from the mailbag, Terrence Williams’ playing time has been reduced recently because he slept through the team’s shootaround before the Bucks game on Tuesday. Maybe if more Nets players overslept, they wouldn’t look like they were sleepwalking out there, right?
Nets on the Net: 11/22/09 Edition
Nov 22, 2009 Brook Lopez, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Devin Harris, Eduardo Najera, Lawrence Frank, Nets on the Net
Devin Harris feels good after his first game back.
ESPN Insider ranks the top NBA sophomores. Brook Lopez comes in at #6 and CDR at #10.
Steve Politi of the Star-Ledger thinks it’s only going to get worse for the Nets.
CDR is not dealing well with the losing, and it sounds like Lawrence Frank wants him to stop complaining about it.
Ken Berger of CBS Sports looks at the Nets and Knicks and speculates that this could be the end of the line for Frank.
By the way, officially add Eduardo Najera to the injured list, after he received two cortisone shots in his back.
Talking Health and PER
Nov 13, 2009 Analysis, Bobby Simmons, Eduardo Najera, Injuries, Josh Boone, Rafer Alston, Terrence Williams, Trenton Hassell
While the Nets 0-8 start to the season is a pretty definitive indicator as to how the rash of injuries is affecting the team’s performance, there are some advanced statistics out there that really hammer home what happens when a team is forced to either play guys out of position, or give starter’s minutes to players who are career back-ups or in some cases, career-12th-men.
One of the more interesting statistics available on the great statistical site 82games, is PER (Player Efficiency Rating) differential. 82games looks at a player’s PER while playing a specific position, and then also provides PER data for opposing player’s slotted at that same position. In other words, when Brook Lopez is playing center, he currently has a PER of 20.7, while opposing centers have a PER of 13.1 while Brook is on the floor, creating a PER differntial of + 7.6 (which is very good). I like looking at this metric because in addition to giving you an idea of how a guy stacks up at a certain position, it also provides some insight about his defensive abilities against other player’s at that position.
And for those of you who have not bought in to the advance statistics thing for the NBA yet, a quick refresher: PER is the overall rating of a player’s per-48 minute statistical production including scoring, shooting percentages, rebounding, assists, turnovers and other metrics. A PER of 15.0 is considered the mean, with anything above 15 being above average, and below 15 is obviously below average. You’ll find that Sebastian and I throw PER around a lot on this site, so if you never knew what we were talking about, there you go.
So in many cases in the early-part of this Nets season, the PER differential for some players is just alarmingly awful. After the jump, let’s break this down into two groups, players playing out of position and players getting big minutes who in a perfect world, would be riding the bench or inactive. Read the rest of this entry »
Examining The Nets Options At PF
Nov 6, 2009 Advanced Statistics, Analysis, Bobby Simmons, Eduardo Najera, Josh Boone, Opinion, Sean Williams, Yi
Going into this season, one of my biggest fears was Yi not working out. Then, I was worried because if he didn’t work out there wasn’t a whole lot of depth behind him. For that reason, I was pretty relieved when I saw Yi playing well; knocking his shots down, playing better defense, and being more aggressive. With the way the Nets season has been going so far, it only makes sense that he gets hurt. Lawrence Frank now has to piece together a PF rotation, and as you guys probably know, I don’t really like the look of that. The night of Yi’s injury, Bobby Simmons got most of the PF minutes (ew), but during the Nuggets game, Najera got most of the minutes and played pretty well. Here are all of the active options at PF the Nets have on the roster, and what we can expect from them:
Bobby Simmons -
The Skinny
It is safe to say that the Bobby Simmons experiment has been a complete failure, but for some reason Lawrence Frank insists on playing him. Bobby Simmons has logged a total PER of -2.85 (I don’t think this has ever happened before during the course of a season) through four games, and even he finally made a basket in the 5th game of the season. Simmons’ true shooting percentage is a whopping 15.1%. With all that being said, Simmons has been doing a solid jobs on the boards. His defensive rebounding rate (the percentage of defensive rebounds he grabs during his time on the court) is at 23.4 when the league average is at 14.2. This stat is probably the reason Lawrence Frank justifies playing him.
Bobby’s Style
As a 4, Bobby Simmons has relied completely on the outside game, which makes sense when you think about it because his true position is the 3. According to HoopData.com, Simmons has only attempted 2 shots at the rim (making one). The rest of them have been from 16 feet and out, going 1-10 on long twos and 0-7 on threes. So when Bobby is on the floor at the 4, the goal is to use him to stretch out defenses, but that won’t happen until he starts making shots.
Josh Boone -
The Skinny
Josh Boone has played center most of his career in New Jersey, but now Boone is finally getting a chance to play at the PF spot. It seems like it could work, Boone will probably be bigger than most of the 4s he goes up against, so when Boone and Lopez share the court, this could lead to some mismatches. There is one problem though, the Nets need one of these guys to back-up Brook.
Josh’s Style
Boone’s style is the complete opposite of what Bobby Simmons’ style is supposed to be. Boone is a inside presence, who has attempted 17 of his 20 shots inside of 10 feet. He has shown a nice tough from the outside too this year (although it really isn’t showing in his foul shots), going 2-3 on shots from 10-23 feet. As for his foul shots, he looks more comfortable at the line, and though it doesn’t show with the stats, he seems to improving at the line, which could go a long way in making him a productive player.
Sean Williams -
The Skinny
In the 3 games that Williams has played in this year, he has averaged 8.7 minutes, and he has put up solid numbers in those minutes. He is tied for the team lead (with Brook) in True Shooting % with 61.0%. He is still loose with the basketball, logging a Turnover Rate (percentage of possessions that end up with a turnover) of 32.79%, almost three times the league average. He still crashes the boards hard (which is something that he has always done when on the court), coming up with a total rebounding rate of 14.9, 5 points higher than the NBA average.
Sean’s Style
Sean Williams’ style is straight out of the Chris Anderson mold. He really gets the crowd going with his big blocks and big dunks. He has shown to be a spark plug when he got on the court this year, which is different from past years. He will probably be going in when the Nets’ offense starts to stall.
Eduardo Najera -
The Skinny
Najera has played in three games this year, and besides the Washington game where he was just overmatched by a more athletic Blatche, he has played the best out of all of the PF options the Nets have. The biggest reason Najera has played so well is because he has kept his turnovers down. Najera’s Turnover Rate was 4.23, which is about 1/3 of league average. Add that to the fact that he always crashes the boards hard, and that he has a nice little touch, you shouldn’t be surprised that he has played pretty well.
Eduardo’s Style
Eduardo is a bulldog who can compliment that style with a nice outside touch if he is on. Najera has taken 9 shots inside 10 feet and 7 outside of 16. This balance gives defenses multiple looks, that forces defenses to have to guess what Najera is going to do. That indecision can lead to some baskets for him.
So What’s Going To Happen
This is just an opinion, but I think Lawrence Frank is going to ride Najera’s good play until Yi gets back. The rest of the rotation gets tricky. While CDR is out with the flu, that means Bobby Simmons will get more minutes at the 3, and that means (thankfully) less minutes for him at the 4. And while I like the idea of Boone and Lopez on the court at the same time, Lopez is going to need to rest at some point, and Boone is the only back-up option there. So what does that mean? At least tonight, the rotation at the 4 should be Najera starting with Sean Williams backing him up. Boone will get minutes at the 4 too, but his main job will be backing up Brook. Simmons main responsibility tonight will be backing up Terrence Williams who will probably be starting at the 3. Taking all the situations into consideration, that is the best we can hope for, because I don’t know about you guys, but if I see Bobby Simmons at the 4 anymore, I am going to poke my eyes out.
Do the Nets Need a Heart Transplant?
Nov 2, 2009 Brook Lopez, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Courtney Lee, Eduardo Najera, Lawrence Frank, Yi
It’s only been three games – including one game where the team blew a 16-point lead in the fourth quarter, and another game where they game up 123-points to a team that was missing two of their top scorers – but there’s already some buzz in the Nets locker room about “trust,” “toughness,” and “heart.”
The catalyst for all this were comments by Chris Douglas-Roberts Saturday night, who believed the team didn’t retaliate properly after he was slammed to the floor in the second quarter on a dunk attempt. “You have to protect each other,” CDR said. “It’s an unwritten rule. You protect each other. Later that night on Twitter, he wrote similar comments about the team needing to commit hard fouls.
In a report by Al Iannazzone in the Bergen Record this morning, more Nets echo these sentiments. Here are some of their quotes:
“I think people are afraid,” center Brook Lopez said of the defense. “It’s a team effort. [But] some guys are afraid that the help won’t be there.”
And here’s some more from Courtney Lee:
“That definitely has to do with trust,” defensive-minded guard Courtney Lee said. “You have to have trust in your teammates that they’ll have your back. If you’re out there pressuring the ball and the pick-and-roll comes and you’re a little late, you have to have trust that the help man is going to get the roll man so the big man can stay out a little longer.
When I first read the CDR quotes Saturday night, I was a bit annoyed and was ready to dedicate a post about him calling out his teammates, but I thought better of it. While there isn’t a lot to praise about the Nets defensive performance Saturday night, I do feel they made some attempts to get the Wizards back for the CDR foul. Specifically at the 5:01 mark in the third quarter, Gilbert Arenas had a free path to the rim, and Eduardo Najera came up on from behind and grabbed him by the shoulders to prevent the layup. Arenas didn’t crash to the floor in a heap, but the message was sent, so much so that Brendan Haywood starred to jaw with Najera after the play, who just smiled back and shook his head.
With that said, based on Iannazzone’s report, it’s certainly alarming that the team is already at the point of publicly questioning each other, specifically on the defensive end. Maybe they’re going to use theses words as a rallying cry headed into tonight’s matchup against the Charlotte Bobcats. But I’m not as sure about that.
Video Breakdown: Game 2 vs. Orlando
Oct 31, 2009 2009-2010 Regular Season, Brook Lopez, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Courtney Lee, Eduardo Najera, Terrence Williams, Video Breakdown, Xs and Os
A 10 point loss, not too bad when you look at it. It could have been much worse though. Jameer Nelson missed most of the first half in foul trouble, Vince Carter only played 1+ quarter, Orlando missed a bunch of open threes, and Rashard Lewis wasn’t playing. Sorry to be negative (it usually isn’t my style), but rewatching the game, we just didn’t look good all night. Especially when defending the three. The Nets got lucky, the Magic were only 6-21 from 3, missing a good amount of open ones, that usually doesn’t happen.
It wasn’t pretty on offense either. Courtney and Devin showed flashes of good shooting, but it wasn’t sustained. Yi looked pretty good, but he wasn’t getting the ball enough. Then there was Brook. Brook struggled with foul trouble, and when he was in there, he just looked out of rhythm and he couldn’t get the inside position that he wanted. Dwight Howard kept him away from the block, and Brook was forced to make his post-up moves 5-10 feet away from the basket, and that made him look uncomfortable. On to the video breakdown after the jump.
Nets on the Net: 10/20/09 Edition
Oct 20, 2009 Brook Lopez, Devin Harris, Eduardo Najera, Mikhail Prokhorov, Nets on the Net, Prudential Center, Tony Battie
Devin Harris: Still injured.
Jon Barry asks, “Is this an NBA roster?” Marc Stein says, If they can get Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov approved as their new owner, you have to believe that pretty much nothing else matters this season.” Yes, ESPN has a rather dark and stormy outlook for this years Nets.
New York Magazine’s “Sports Section” is rooting for Mikhail Prokhorov to become owner of the Nets so badly, they are dedicated a new weekly column to him: Mikhail Prokhorov Theater.
Yes, the crowd last week at the Prudential Center was sure nice, but it looks like a large chunk of those tickets were freebies.
Can Yi be the third option for the Vince Carter-less Nets?
On a team full of youth and potential, Eduardo Najera and Tony Battie are the crusty old vets. What role will they play on the team this year?
An SI analyst sees a possible “20 and 10″ year for Brook Lopez this season.
Video of Newark Mayor Cory Booker before last week’s game in Newark.