Nets on the Net: 1/23/10 Edition
Jan 23, 2010 Brook Lopez, Kris Humphries, Nets on the Net, Sean Williams, Terrence Williams
Sebastian may think Terrence Williams could get a better basketball experience in the D-League (and I agree), but Rod Thorn disagrees: “The last two games, he’s played winning basketball,” Nets president Rod Thorn said. “He played in a way that, if he continues to progress, he’s going to get minutes – and he’s going to get important minutes. But we really needed to see that.”
JB McCandles over at Bleacher Report laments the descent of now former Net Sean Williams.
Kris Humphries is making a positive impression on his new team, and even beat writer Fred Kerber is impressed: The Nets have to be happy with Humphries, who has been the epitome of an opportunistic player so far. He basically gets points with hustle and will. Basically, he does exactly what the Nets thought he did – only better.
Brook Lopez is playing like an all-star recently, and a case could be made for him to get selected, but will he?: “It’s a goal of mine,” (Lopez) said. “I’m confident enough that if I keep playing the way that I know I can I’ll make it. It’s tough because that was a goal this year.”
With Lopez back on the west coast, the San Jose Mercury News profiles the Nets center, talking about how he’s the “center” of the Nets rebuilding efforts: “He’s proving obviously that he can score the basketball, we all know that,” Nets coach/general manager Kiki Vandeweghe said. “But his passing is improving, his rebounding, defense. He’s a guy that you can play through on a consistent basis.”
It Just Didn’t Work out for Sean Williams
Jan 10, 2010 Roster Moves, Sean Williams
When the Nets picked Sean Williams 17th in the 2007 Draft, there were red flags immediately. He was kicked off the Boston College basketball team for numerous infractions involving marijuana use. But the Nets were seduced by his athleticism. This was a guy who had 75 blocks in a college season where he only played 15 games.
But now that he’s on his way to being out of New Jersey, I think we can safely say that it never worked out for Sean Williams. And this shouldn’t surprise anyone. One of the lessons learned from the Sean Williams experience is that freakish athletic ability can’t be taught to players. But in the same vain, it’s incredibly difficult to try and redeem someone with so many character issues. Swat had draft lottery talent, but his penchant to make serious mistakes on and off the court will likely keep him from catching on with another team and finally realizing his talent.
Fred Kerber wrote a spot on sendoff of the Sean Williams era. Naturally, the article focuses on a lot of the bad – the D-League disaster, the arrest in Denver last season, and Swat’s knack to infuriate his superiors: “Watch Sean warm up,” Kerber quotes on Nets executive. “Have you ever seen him work on things he actually can use in a game?”
But Kerber also captures another wrinkle in the saga:
It is a shame because Williams has never seemed like a really bad guy. Immature, sure. Bad, no. There was a time last year when the Nets talked about their young players, Brook Lopez, Devin Harris, then-Net Ryan Anderson, when he said sadly, “I guess I’m not one of the young players they want to develop.”
When Sebastian and I attended our first practice before the season started in October, one of the things we were immediately taken by was Sean Williams, working on his post game with assistant coach Roy Rogers. Wasn’t this the guy who was supposedly a flake and a bad seed? What was he doing practicing while everyone else was either talking to reports, or launching half court shots? But like Kerber says here, I don’t think Williams was a “bad guy.” Just one who couldn’t get his act together.
Unfortunately, the Daily News gossip duo, Rush and Molloy, have a story today that most people will likely relate to when they talk about Sean Williams’ career a few years from now.
A battalion of security guards recently carried the 6-foot-10 power forward out of Chelsea’s M2 UltraLounge after he allegedly annoyed female patrons, hurled an ice bucket at a busboy and threw a punch at a bouncer, sources tell us.
Trying to be an optimist, my lasting image of Swat will be his post-game interview from November, after the Heat edged the Nets by a point off a Dwyane Wade three-pointer. Williams wasn’t getting much game action, but Lawrence Frank subbed him in against Miami, and Swat responded with 12 points and a huge block on a Michael Beasley three-point attempt. After the game, Williams looked inconsolable. He played his heart out and the team still lost. It was almost as if he knew another opportunity came and went, even if the team’s struggles weren’t his fault.
Nets on the Net: 11/24/09 Edition
Nov 24, 2009 Brook Lopez, Brooklyn, Lawrence Frank, Losing Streak, Nets on the Net, Rafer Alston, Sean Williams
The Star-Ledger looks at the week ahead and determines the Nets could very easily be 0-17 by the end of it.
As the Nets head into Denver, Nuggets coach George Karl, who’s coaches some bad teams in his career, sympathizes with the Nets.
With arena bonds expected to be authorized today, and possibly a ruling in the eminent domain case, this should be an interesting Tuesday on the Brooklyn front.
NAS looked at Sean Williams yesterday. Now read the always awesome Ben Couch’s take on the many they call Swat.
In the latest Nets pile-on, Charley Rosen of FoxSports calls out Brook Lopez’s bad hands and slow feet, and thinks Rafer Alston looks dispirited.
Gregory Hrinya over at Nets Examiner, offers his opinion on Lawrence Frank, and concludes that he shouldn’t be blamed for the Nets awful start.
The Statistical Case for Sean Williams
Nov 23, 2009 Analysis, Sean Williams
When a team is struggling, it’s very easy for fans to clamor for that one guy off the bench who’s not getting a lot of playing time. In the case of Sean Williams and the Nets, Williams absolutely needs to be playing more, because there are a number of statistical indicators that show the Nets are a better team this season when SWat is on the court.
For the first few weeks of the season (let’s say, until about the 0-8 mark for the Nets), Williams spent a majority of the team’s games racking up “DNP – Coach’s Decision.” While the Nets were suiting up eight healthy bodies for many of those games, it was somewhat understandable why coach Lawrence Frank hesitated to Call Williams’ number. There’s no doubt that Williams has a number of athletic gifts, but in his first two seasons, he’s really never been able to put things together on the court. After an okayish rookie season, where he put up a PER (Player Efficiency Rating) of 13.84, a shade below league average, Williams had a disaster of a sophomore campaign, shooting 42 percent from the field, scoring 8.7 points per 40 minutes, turning the ball over on 16.2 percent of his possessions, fouling once every five minutes, and sporting a PER of 8.84. Williams second-season also featured such behavioral issues as getting thrown out of a D-League game and getting arrested in March after allegedly throwing a computer monitor at a store clerk in Denver.
But if there was ever a case of “that was then, this is now,” the early stages of Sean Williams’ 2009-10 campaign is it. While he’s only played in about 18 percent of his team’s total minutes, he’s leading the Nets in simple rating, a metric used on 82games that takes into account a player’s +/- along with a team’s production when a certain player is on the court versus when that player is off the court.
With Williams, the Nets are +6.2 when he’s on the court and -14.0 when he’s off the court, good for a net gain of +20.1. There are currently two five-man floor units that are sporting a positive +/- according to 82games, and both of them feature Sean Williams. Most notably, a rotation of Chris Douglas-Roberts-Terrence Williams-Trenton Hassell- Bobby Simmons and Sean Williams is sporting a +15 in the 17.2 minutes they’ve played together this season. The group has an offensive efficiency of 110, a defensive efficiency of 60 and a win percentage of 100. A second rotation of Rafer Alston- CDR- Hassell- Sean Williams and Brook Lopez has a +1 in 18.6 minutes, with an offensive efficiency of 117, a defensive efficiency of 119 and a win percentage of 100.
Some Stuff From Practice Today
Nov 16, 2009 Brook Lopez, Courtney Lee, Devin Harris, Josh Boone, Lawrence Frank, Practice Reports, Sean Williams, Trenton Hassell
I had the pleasure of going to Nets practice today, and I came away with some real good stuff. First and foremost the thing that I noticed was that this team is still playing hard, the media only gets to sit in on the final few moments of the actual practice, but they were still going hard, and just by the look on all of the guys faces, you can tell they were really going at it the whole practice. Courtney Lee was working too, but I couldn’t tell if he went the whole practice or if he was just participating in the drills at the end. Either way it looks like he is still struggling with the injury a bit (at least to me), so I wouldn’t expect to see him playing either of the next two games. Anyway, here is some stuff I took away from Nets’ practice today.
Nets on the Net: 11/16/09 Edition
Nov 16, 2009 Brett Yormark, Mikhail Prokhorov, Nets on the Net, Sean Williams
Despite strong performances Friday and Saturday, Lawrence Frank is still not ready to commit to Sean Williams.
Julian Garcia talks more Sean Williams, and also makes note of the Nets ticket promotion Tuesday night – “10 is enough,” where certain tickets will be $10 as Bret Yormark looks to celebrate the team’s worst losing streak to start a season. Awesome.
Meanwhile, Brett Yormark is begging for fan loyalty.
Net Income at the Nets Daily blog looks at members from Mikhail Prokhorov’s old CSKA Moscow teams to see which ones could interest the Nets.
Atlantic Yards Report examines why Prokhorov may want to buy the Nets regardless of where they play their games.
Nets on the Net: 11/15/09
Nov 15, 2009 Lawrence Frank, Nets on the Net, Rafer Alston, Sean Williams, Terrence Williams
Rafer Alston tries to see the bright side of things and compares the current Nets team to the Miami team he played for 2003-04 that started out 0-8 but still ended up making the playoffs.
Sean Williams is not deterred by his early-season lack of playing time and is ready when his number is called.
Lawrence Frank wants Terrence Williams to work more on his driving and ball movement.
Speaking of TWill, ESPN Insider’s John Hollinger lists him as a disappointment in the early going due to his poor shooting and turnover rates.
With the firing of Byron Scott in New Orleans, Celtics Blog looks at other coaches potentially in danger of losing their jobs and mentions Lawrence Frank.
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.
Nets on the Net: 10/30/09 Edition
Oct 30, 2009 Brook Lopez, Courtney Lee, Develop Don't Destroy, Devin Harris, Jarvis Hayes, Mikhail Prokhorov, Nets on the Net, Rafer Alston, Sean Williams, Tony Battie, Vince Carter, Yi
In Al Iannazzone’s report, Jarvis Hayes is expected to miss the next 2-3 weeks with a hamstring injury. Meanwhile, as expected, the Nets picked up the options for Brook Lopez, Courtney Lee and Yi Jianlian while declining on Sean Williams.
Courtney Lee talks with the Orlando Sentinel about his time with his former team, and why he still has love for Orlando.
But Lee tells Ben Couch that he’s going to approach them like any other team.
Some bullet-points on Lee, Tony Battie and Rafer Alston’s time in Orlando.
Devin Harris jokes about getting a chance to foul Vince Carter “one good time” tonight.
Blogger previews from Howard the Dunk.
Over at NetsDaily, Net Income talks about a cryptic e-mail discussing new potential names for the Nets after they (presumably) move to Brooklyn. These include “New York Nets” or maybe something without “Nets” altogether.
CCTV focuses on Yi’s performance in the season opener Wednesday night.
Atlantic Yards Report talks about the lowball offer Daniel Goldstein (of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn) received for his Prospect Heights condo from the Empire State Development Corporation.
An opinion piece in the Star-Ledger talks about how the Nets in Newark could help “pay the rent” at the Prudential Center.
My High Hopes For The Year
Oct 28, 2009 2009-2010 Season Preview, Brook Lopez, Sean Williams, Terrence Williams
Yesterday we scared you guys. Mark and I each gave you a few concerns we had going into the season, but as Mark told you earlier, today is different. Today is opening day, the day when everyone is still in playoff contention (In fact we already have a better record than 4 teams – progress!). Here are a few things I am looking forward to seeing happen (and I expect most of these will) this year:
Terrence Williams Will Be A Top Rookie
You guys probably guessed that I would be talking about T-Will here. Terrence Williams had his struggles this preseason, but in that last game you saw what he can do when he put everything together. I mean look at his line – 23 points, 5 rebounds, 8 assists, and 4 steals. That’s fantastic.
We went into the preseason knowing that he could effect the game without scoring, but people were worried about his shooting. He put those doubts to rest though (in my mind at least). Terrence shot 42% from 3 (8-19) and and 39% overall (27-68). Terrence Williams has also started to attack the basket more often, going to the line 22 times total in his last 3 preseason games. Now I know that this is all in the preseason, but many people were expecting nightmarish shooting numbers from Terrence, and he showed us the opposite.
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