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.

In hindsight, the Nets “tanked” their season on June 25 when they shipped Vince Carter to Orlando for Lee, Battie and Alston. While I’m not criticizing the trade after the fact, 37 games of 2009-10 Nets basketball has demonstrated that Carter was the glue that held this roster together last season. While Brook Lopez and Yi Jianlian have improved in VC’s absence, Devin Harris has regressed and players like Courtney Lee and CDR are looking more and more like complimentary “rotation” guys, rather than NBA starters.

So while it may seem desperate to now turn to the Quinn’s and the D-Leaguers of the world, I do think this is a sincere attempt by the brain trust to make the Nets into a better team for the last half of the season. Rumors that the front office could make a play for one of the big free agents to be in order to retain their Bird Rights this summer so they can be resigned at a premium are further proof that the organization hasn’t given up yet.

Will it work? Well I guess that depends on what your definition of improvement for a 3-34 team is. The Nets seem well positioned regardless of who’s filling their bench, to have the best shot an NBA team can have at the #1 pick in the draft this season. But it’s possible that injecting this roster with some young, hungry players, could help salvage this team from all-time 9-73 infamy.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Playing out of Position

In the early part of this season, we’ve seen Bobby Simmons at power forward and Terrence Williams at point guard and power forward, as two of the most obvious cases of player’s playing out of position. Simmons, who has played SF most of his life, seems a bit undersized to handle the four, and the PER differentials support that. While playing PF, Simmons has posted a PER of 0.7 while opposing PFs have a PER of 15.2, good for a differential of -14.5.

This is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it’s almost inconceivable for an NBA player to have a PER that low. A lot of that has to do with just how terribly Simmons has been shooting to start the season. He has en effectieve field goal percentage (which takes into account three-point goals) of 19 percent. That’s what a bunch of 0-7 and 1-8 nights will do for you while playing the four. He’s averaging 8.9 points per 48 minutes and 7.9 fouls.

On the positive side, opposing PFs have a PER of 15.2 when Simmons is at the position. That means he really hasn’t been torched by anyone. Opposing PFs have an eFG of 44 percent which is acceptable and are averaging 17.7 points per 48 minutes. They’re averaging only 3.9 fouls per 48 minutes, which is indicative of how far away from the basket Simmons plays for the position. Simmons is surprisingly outrebounding them 11.8 to 9.9 per 48 minutes, so I guess when Lawrence Frank says he likes Bobby’s rebounding at the spot, he’s not out of his mind. Still, a differential of -14.5 is tough to hide, especially when Simmons is playing 14 percent of the team’s total minutes at the position.

As for Terrence Williams, his versatility was a key in the Nets drafting him as high as they did, and he’s played some minutes at every position but center so far. However, his PER differentials show that TWill is most apt at the SF slot, and he’s a liability at the PG and PF positions.

TWill has played 4 percent of the team’s minutes at the PG so far this year and owns a 14.9 PER there, with 17.3 points, 14.4 rebounds,  5.8 assists and a 43 eFG%, per 48 minutes. For a rookie, this isn’t so bad, though he is also turning the ball over 5.8 times per 48 minutes. However, opposing PGs have a PER of 42.5 right now which is astounding. They’re averaging 31.7 points, 11.5 rebounds, 5.8 assists, zero turnovers and an eFG of 90 percent. Simply put, TWill is just not cutting it on the defensive end against opposing PGs if he’s allowing them to shoot 90 percent, score at will, while not being able to disrupt them with any steals or deflections that lead to TOs. At PF, where Williams has also played 4 percent of the team’s minutes, he has a PER of 2.1. He’s averaging 22.3 points and is shooting an eFG of 44 percent, which sound good, but he’s only rebounding 6.4 per 48 minutes and is averaging a ridiculous 15.9 fouls. On the flip side, oppoenents havea  PER of 33.3, averaging 25.5 points and shooting a perfect 100 eFG percentage. Similar to Simmons, TWill seems to be undersized for the position, and the high foul rate, and his inability to stop a single shot indicates that he really can’t handle opposing fours.

Backups Playing Like Starters

Long-term injuries to starters Devin Harris and Yi Jianlian have forced some role players into starters minutes. For example, Rafer Alston, who’s played 68 percent of the team’s total minutes so far. Granted, Alston, was actually a starter in Orlando last year, but his role coming into New Jersey this season was to back-up Devin Harris. Despite Rafer’s jump in minutes, the quality of his play reflects that of a second-stringer. Rafer is putting up a meager 9.2 PER running the point, averaging 15.2 points, 7.6 assists and an eFG of 47 percent, per 48 minutes. Opposing point guards have a PER of 23.9, averaging 27.8 points, 6 assists and an eFG of 61 percent. When you consider that Harris had one of the highest PERs for any PG last season, the current PG PER differential of -14.8 with Rafer on the floor 68 percent of the time really hurts the Nets.

Eduardo Najera, who I actually believe has done a decent job considering the circumstances, is another one who’s being forced into more minutes. Though his spike in playing time has only been in the past week, his PER at the PF position is 14, which isn’t terrible. However, opposing PFs have a PER of 31.3, averaging 26.3 points, 7.8 rebounds, 1.7 blocks and an eFG of 73 percent per 48 minutes. Another area where the differential is stark regarding Najera’s play at the four is personal fouls. Najera is averaging 8.4 fouls per 48 minutes, indicating he is having a hard time on the defensive end without resorting to hacking guys. Opposing FGs are only fouling 1.7 times per 48 minutes. This is a little odd, since Najera has attempted 50 percent of his field goals from close or inside, but he’s clearly not being aggressive enough to draw contact, or he’s just getting a bunch of non-calls.

There are some instances where our fill-ins have done an admirable job. Josh Boone, who was used primarily as a backup center last year, has a PER of 16.7 while playing PF this season, including 16.6 points, 15.8 rebounds and an eFG of 56 percent per 48 minutes. Opposing fours have a PER of 19.4, which still creates a negative differential, but not such a dramatic one as we’re seeing with Alston, Najera, TWill and Simmons.

One bench player who actual has a positive differential from his opponent? Trenton Hassel, who rose from the inactive list, to the starting lineup the past few games. At the SF, Hassell has a PER of 13.5, while opposing SFs have a PER of 13.4. It’s only a differential of +.1, and Hassell is still exhibiting below average efficiency for the position, but progress is progress right?

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.

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.

In watching the first three games, I’ve seen a Nets team that can’t shoot with any consistency and one that exhibits poor fundamentals on the defensive end. On the offensive end, those open shots currently being missed by guys like Courtney Lee and Devin Harris (when he was healthy), are either going to the fall, or they won’t. There’s not much to coach there. But on the defensive end, I see a team that keeps making the same mistakes. Lawrence Frank called the performance “putrid” Saturday night – so what is he doing to fix it?

For example, the perimeter defense is still an atrocity. Why does this keep happening? Look at the 8:04 mark of the third quarter Saturday night. It’s an example of a defensive miscue that keeps happening night after night after night with this team going back to last season. The Wizards have the ball in the post, and the Nets just start collapsing, giving Brook, or whichever big man they have on the floor, one or two help defenders. Meanwhile, Gilbert Arenas, one of the league’s best shooters, is lurking in the corner behind the three-point line. By the time the ball is kicked out of the post to Arenas, Rafer Alston has sunk so far deep into the post on help, he can’t even get back to the corner fast enough to get a hand in Arenas’ face. These are defensive rotations that I hope the coaching staff is working on every single day in practice. And if they are, they need to spend even more time on them, because this group of players just isn’t getting it.

A lot was made about Andray Blatche’s 30 points on 15-18 shooting Saturday night. While he hit a ton of open jumpers, the guy also abused Yi in the post throughout the evening, getting Yi in the air on numerous occasions before setting for his shot. Now, I realize that teaching Yi footwork and one-on-one defense is headed in the direction of “lost cause,” but is Yi committing so early because he lacks heart or trust, or because he’s just a poor defender to begin with?

So, while it’s easy to start questioning the heart and toughness of the Nets, what I’ve witnessed is the obvious – this team just isn’t very good right now. They’re making the same mistakes on defense and they are not shooting well enough to make up for it. The root cause of that is the coaching and talent-level of your roster, not some imaginary intangible exhibited by guys like David Eckstein and Chris Andersen. If the Nets want to sit in the locker room after getting their rear ends handed to them and start questioning each other’s heart to motivate themselves, that’s fine, but I believe the frustration is being misdirected. They need to start concentrating on how to stop history from repeating itself, and if they’re physically unable to do that because of their lack of talent, they need to get used to getting blown out of the water by teams that hit their open shots with the frequency of the Wizards.

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.

We are going to switch it up and start with the bad this time.

Defending The Three Pt. 1  - Transition D

What makes the Orlando Magic so difficult to guard is that they are Dwight Howard and 4 shooters.  It isn’t like our “wildcat” either, they got bigs who can shoot.  Where this because the biggest problem is in transition.  This play starts off of a missed layup.

When you defend in transition, you just pick up the guy closest to you and worry about match-ups later.  The Nets do a pretty good job of matching up and getting to all of the shooters at the three point line, but the Magic just spread the floor, leaving Brook with a tough decision.  Who to cover?  With Peitrus still out of the shot, Brook tries to run down to Dwight and execute a switch.

Jayson Williams and the Magic notice this, so they kick it to Peitrus who us wide open.  Brook, realizing he is in no man’s land tries to get back, but he sunk in too low.

He can’t get back in time and Peitrus gets the open three, he misses it though.  So what should have the Nets done differently?  The scary thing is not much.  They did a terrific job at matching up with all of the shooters, but Brook was caught in no-man’s land.  The only thing that could have been done differently was when it comes to Brook recognizing everyone is match-up.  He should have noticed that and stayed close to Pietrus who was trailing the play.

Defending The Three Pt. 2  - Poor Rotation

This set comes off of a made basket by the Nets.  The Magic jog it up and get into a side pick and roll.  Initially it is defended really well.  Lopez edges just enough to stop the penetration and make Williams pick up his dribble.  This gives Rafer Alston the time to get back on Williams

With Williams’ dribble picked up he looks stuck.  He has nowhere to go with the basketball really, and he ends up making the pass the Nets want him to make.  Throwing the ball into the corner.  The problem with that is Terrence Williams.  Look at him, he is flat footed, and as much as it hurts me to say this, he is where the defensive breakdown begins.

Instead of allowing the catch to the corner where Barnes isn’t really a threat.  Terrence Williams goes for the steal, misses it, and allows Barnes a lane to drive.

Again, for the most part, the help is good.  Brook provides good help as he stands tall and takes away the middle.  Courtney Lee does his job and helps on Gortat.  Again, all it takes is one mistake to break everything down.  Najera should know that with Brook standing tall there is no way Barnes will find Bass (Najera’s man).  Najera should also notice that Lee has Gortat covered, and that the bigger threat is J.J. Reddick.  That is where his rotation should be to.  He doesn’t go there, he goes in and doubles Gortat, who doesn’t even have the basketball.

The result is the Nets allow the best three point shooter in the history of the ACC to catch the ball with nobody withing 10 feet of him.  He ends up missing the shot, but he is wide open, and doesn’t miss many of those.  The Nets got lucky.

Transition Offense

A guy who has looked really uncomfortable has been CDR.  The first game is understandable he was in foul trouble the whole night, and couldn’t really get into a flow.  Last night though, it was just as if he wasn’t on the court.  I was shocked when I looked at the box score and saw he played 35 minutes.  Not scoring, he is starting to force things, and this transition play is an example.

The play starts when Josh Boone deflects the ball and it bounces right into CDR’s hands.  It happened off of a dribble drive, so there is only one person back (Jayson Williams) on defense.  CDR does the right thing and just dribbles it up the middle, allowing for his teammates to fill lanes.

Terrence Williams and Rafer Alston end up filling the same lane.  See that red blob, that is both of them.  While I think that CDR had no intention of passing it the whole time, it is possible that these two running the same lane could of confused CDR in that he didn’t know who to pass to.  Either Rafer or Terrence need to stop breaking and fill a different lane.

CDR does a good job of forcing the one man back to commit.  Jayson Williams chooses to defend CDR, and right now if he would just dump it off to either Rafer or Terrence, it is an easy basket.

Instead CDR forces up a layup while falling down, and he misses it.

—

It wasn’t all bad though (just mostly), and there was some good stuff I noticed.  The main thing being that Brook has really impressed me at the high post.  I touched on it briefly after the Minnesota game, but Brook is passing great the first couple of games.  Here is another example:

Brook At The High Post

Here, Brook makes the catch at the high post, and now that he has shown he can hit that shot, you as the defender can’t slouch off of him.  So Dwight stays up on him, leaving a whole lot of open space open at the basket.  CDR does a great job faking receiving the hand-off and cutting backdoor.  

Look at Brook thread the needle.  That is such a tiny window, that pass would be hard to make for a point guard.  I really like how the offense looks when Brook is at the high post.  The only problem is he is so good at the low post, that you don’t want to keep him off the block permanently.  In a game like last night though, Brook should have primarily stayed at the high post, setting picks and making passes like this, because he wasn’t getting anything done on the block against Howard.  After seeing this work early, I am surprised we didn’t see it more often when Brook was out there.

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.