So here we are, we’ve finally reached number one on our Top 44 Nets of All-Time project and the number one spot belongs to none other than Jason Kidd. The Captain. When trying to think about what it was that Kidd brought to the Nets, I kept coming back to one word: belief.
In the 2001 the Nets traded Stephon Marbury, Johnny Newman and Soumaila Samake to the Phoenix Suns for Kidd and Dudley, and on that day, the franchise was forever changed.
Kidd’s first act as a Net? Declare that he thought the Nets could win 40 games in his first season. (gasp!)
“Hopefully, I haven’t put too much pressure on Rod Thorn and Byron Scott,” Jason Kidd said.
Turns out Kidd set his sights too low.
After all, the Nets were a team that the season before won just 26 games and, as chronicled at length on this site before, besides short pockets of success were generally considered losers amongst NBA fans. So for Kidd to come in and think we could win at least 40 games, he must’ve known something that we didn’t and he believed. And, once he stepped on the court, he slowly convinced everyone else too.
Let’s look at what made Kidd so great.
Read more…
To say that Julius Erving was before my time is a pretty significant understatement. Julius was born in early 1950. He became a professional basketball player in 1971. I was born in late 1983. Julius retired in 1987. I didn’t even think of basketball until 1994. The closest I had gotten to Dr. J was almost buying his Converse All-Star Dr. J 2000 shoes in the late ‘90s.
To be perfectly honest, my mom was the first person to let me know who Dr. J was, before I even had basketball on my agenda. I had absolutely no idea. She described him as one would a pop icon. And then other family members, who grew up in the ‘70s, they told me about him. They spoke as if he were a great prophet or a disciple of Christ. I couldn’t really fathom it. “He was like Michael Jordan!”, they told me. That didn’t compute. You know why? Because I saw Michael Jordan… and NOBODY was better than him, I thought (and still think).
But I wasn’t there.
So…when given the honorable task to compose a piece on The Doctor, I sought out the four men I knew would have the vision that I lacked. I sought a teacher, an artist and colleague, I sought a coach, and I sought a basketball playing legend. The four men — Vince Carter, Michael Tillery, Jayson Gee, and Charles Oakley — had what I needed, so instead of me trying to do it all on my own, I let these guys talk to me and give me the knowledge I lacked.
Read more…
I’ve written so much about Drazen Petrovic in my two-plus years with Nets Are Scorching, that now that I’m tasked with justifying his inclusion as one of the Top 44 Nets of all-time, I’m suddenly at a loss. I’m clearly biased. Petro was undisputedly the player who made me a Nets fan and by proxy, an NBA fan. Watching him launch three-pointers with pinpoint precision, while seemingly never backing down against some of the league’s best SGs of all time was a joyful experience for me. News of his death the summer of 1993 devastated me in a way that no other sports moment has since. But do all of these reasons add legitimate justification as to why Petro was one of the “best” to wear a Nets uniform?
Read more…
Before converting to my current Nets fandom due to a series of idiotic events that began with the hiring of Scott Layden, I was a New York Knicks fan. Save your boos and cheer on the converted. I see the high potential with the Nets and won’t revert back to rooting for the Knicks to any degree until I see the demise of, well, I won’t let this post get that dark. But fans of the New York Mets should know what I’m talking about.
In any case, even as a Knicks fan spoiled by big men Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley, and Charles Smith (kidding!), I still gave a lot of props to Charles Linwood Williams AKA Buck Wiliams. How could you not give the man his respect? Okay, well, that was actually easy because of the aforementioned Knicks being a huge attraction thanks to Ewing’s dominance, rendering the Nets as “there’s an NBA team in New Jersey” fodder.
Read more…
Firstly, a (lot of) word(s) about “Vince Carter.”
I get that Vince Carter is super fun to make fun of. It’s easy. Vince Carter is the airline food of NBA humor. Making fun of him — for anything — is like shooting fish in a barrel. (Or letting VC shoot you out of a game, AMIRITE!?) Between his acidic departure from Toronto and the collective perception that he never fulfilled his vast potential, you’re bound to construct an easy pun and get a laugh out of using Vince Carter as the lightning rod for everything that’s wrong with basketball.
But that’s the problem — they’re not about him anymore. At some point, Vince Carter’s story stopped being about Vince Carter.
Read more…
I could talk about Rod Thorn’s charisma, the slight twang in his accent, how he always came off as an affable, upstanding man. I could talk about how Thorn arguably was the fairest Executive VP of Player Operations the league has ever seen, curtailing the violent play of the 80s and 90s as he ruled with a calm iron fist. I could talk about how his NBA playing career influenced his future in front office politics.
But those things are only a modicum of your overall impact. Truthfully, your record defines your greatness. And Rod Thorn’s front office record with the Nets is nothing short of phenomenal.
Read more…
I hope the new fans of the NBA don’t see Kenyon Martin as some old man. I mean, he’s aged in NBA years, but an old man is not what a longtime observer of K-Mart would call him, I doubt that.
My memories of Kenyon are tied to the University of Cincinnati and the New Jersey Nets, not those powder blue crème puffs out in Colorado. You know, the Denver Nuggets. I never really cared for him as a Nugget, and that probably has more to do with the fact that he hasn’t been consistently healthy in Denver. He was the first athlete ever to undergo microfracture surgery on both knees. He’s been pretty jacked up, but he never let that keep him from playing.
Read more…
Byron Scott may not have had Lawrence Frank’s longevity, Chuck Daly’s career resume, or the stunning blazer/shirt combinations of Kiki Vandeweghe, but he’s done one thing that no other franchise coach has been able to accomplish, or even come relatively closing to accomplishing: he brought the Nets to back-to-back NBA Finals appearances.
Read more…
