Nets Are Scorching

Derrick Favors told FanHouse in Orlando during the Nets summer league games that he had no idea who his father was or knew anything about him.  However, Favors’ father got in touch with FanHouse and the result is a really interesting article on the situation, including the fact that his father was a basketball player as well, even playing in college:

What Favors, 19, is doing now is embarking on an NBA career with the New Jersey Nets after being the No. 3 overall pick in last month’s draft. The 6-foot-10 forward will start a basketball season this fall for the first time knowing who his father is and believing he inherited some talent from Parker, who was a high school star in St. Louis before signing in 1976 with St. Louis University, where he averaged 10.3 points as a freshman.

The whole article is really interesting and I urge you to check it out.  A really good read on a slow Nets’ news day.

Alex Kennedy of Hoopsworld.com had a post yesterday that got me thinking.  In the post he ranked the Nets at 15th, last in the Eastern Conference, his reasoning is as follows:

While the young talent in New Jersey is a few years away from making them a competitive team, the additions this offseason were puzzling and won’t help the Nets improve the product they put on the floor in the immediate future. Jordan Farmar, Anthony Morrow, and Travis Outlaw are talented role players but they’re not the big acquisitions that Nets’ fan were hoping for when this summer started. The team wanted to make a splash after missing out on James, Wade, and Bosh but their backup plan didn’t stack up to the ones put in place in Chicago or New York. The Nets will win more than twelve games this season but they’re still a couple years away from climbing up these rankings.

After praising the Nets for their young core, Kennedy moves on to the Nets offseason’, calling their moves puzzling.  Kennedy’s reasoning is something that I have heard a lot from media members fans alike, and it is starting to bother me every time I read it (This isn’t just a personal attack on Alex Kennedy, love his stuff on Hoopsworld).  What Kennedy does is he looks at where the Nets are at, and compares them to what Nets could have been (John Wall, LeBron, or at the very least Chris Bosh) and then says “look what they could have been, they have been awful this offseason!”  They ignore the fact that the Nets have improved at just about every position while still having about $15 million in terms of cap space.

Look, the Nets have been unlucky this season, I get it.  If the Nets end up winning the #1 pick and get John Wall, they perhaps sign LeBron James and are instant contenders.  From that moment on, I assumed that LeBron wasn’t going to take his talents to Newark, and I was hoping for Chris Bosh.  However, the stars aligned an all three of the big free agents signed with the Heat.  While LeBron James (or to a certain extent Chris Bosh) on the Nets would have been fantastic, I think it is important not to judge the team the Nets have now to what could have been.  What people should be doing is looking at the Nets from game 82 of last year and compare them to where they are at now, and that is a huge improvement.

While reading this, you guys can probably guess that I have been in favor of most of the team’s signings.  The one I haven’t been is the hire of new GM Billy King.  Billy King was pretty inept as the GM of the Philadelphia 76ers before being fired by them a few years ago.  King was a surprise hire, especially with guys like Cho and Pritchard available.  However, if you think about it for a moment, the hire does make some sense.  First, there are reports that King is basically going to be a figurehead for the Nets with Avery Johnson actually calling the shots.  I am ok with that, Johnson is the man coaching the team and he knows what their style will be, so it makes sense for him to have a hand in who the team brings in (in terms of personnel).  The second thing to remember is that Billy King is basically going to be a stopgap for the Nets.  Everyone knows that Mikhail Prokhorov wants to bring in his own GM from Russia, so why will Prokhorov bring in a guy like Cho or Pritchard who would be a longterm hire?  The plan originally was going to be Rod Thorn staying aboard for another year or two and then transferring to Prokhorov’s guy.  However, Thorn’s retirement threw a wrench into the plan, and the team was forced to scramble, leading to the hiring of King.

I guess what I am getting to in this rant is that the Nets are on the right track.  Look from point A (the end of last year) to point B (right now) and the Nets are not only improved, but are younger, with cap space left over (for midseason acquisitions or next year).  While the playoffs might not be in the plan for this year, the team is on their way to being a playoff team (and maybe even a contender) two to three years down the line.

With all this talk lately about the Nets needing to trade for a Power Forward, I’ve started thinking more about the merits of just sticking with Kris Humphries to start the season, especially if the ultimate goal for the Nets is to play their starting four for 20-25 minutes a game, while bringing along Derrick Favors. Without even considering his stats, I can conclude that sticking with Hump nets the organization two positives: it eliminates their need to move any worthwhile assets for a stopgap and it keeps the Nets at their current, super-flexible, cap zone. What it doesn’t do is address the current logjam at SG and SF due to the acquisitions of Travis Outlaw, Anthony Morrow and Damion James. Given that Avery Johnson has reportedly been very involved in the front office since being named head coach, I believe these three guys wouldn’t have been imported if they weren’t expected to be part of the rotation immediately – meaning that either Courtney Lee or Terrence Williams is getting relegated to the bench or shipped out of town.

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It has been quiet on the free agency front for about a week now and I think that it is safe to say that the Nets are going to hold off signing anymore players this offseason (a trade is another story, but we aren’t talking about that right now).  What that means is we can now look at the four free agents that the Nets brought in and look at what they can do well, and more importantly, how that fits into the Nets’ system.

Anthony Morrow

What He Brings? Anthony Morrow might very well be one of the best catch and shoot three point shooters in the NBA today.  In fact, according to a tweet from NetsDaily, Morrow currently has the highest career three point shooting percentage in the history of the NBA at 46%, he just needs nine more attempts to qualify.

Does He Fit? Yes he does.  The Nets biggest problem last year was that they had nobody who could hit a jumper, let a lone a three point shot for them.  Sure, Keyon Dooling or Courtney Lee would have games where they would hit their shots, but they were far from consistent (and don’t even get me started on Bobby Simmons…the Nets’ “shooter”).  What does a consistent outside threat do for the Nets?  It opens everything up, especially for Brook Lopez.  What Brook Lopez did last year averaging 18.8 points per game was pretty remarkable considering the amount of double (and even triple teams he saw).  Teams were able to bring all this pressure on Brook because there was nobody he could kick it out to on the outside.  In addition to helping Brook, having Morrow stand at the three point line clears the middle and opens up the Nets’ pick and roll game (and Devin’s drive and kick game).  Morrow will force defenses to be honest and keep a man close to him at all times.

The Problem? Morrow’s only really excels at shooting the basketball.  He doesn’t play defense particularly well, and despite showing some athletic ability he can’t really put the ball on the floor or create his own shot (95.7% of his threes were off of teammates’ assists).

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With all of the starting caliber power forwards free agents pretty much locked up, the only way the Nets can get a guy to play in front of Derrick Favors for a few years so he can develop is through a trade.  As Mark told us over the weekend, Terrence Williams might be the guy who gets sacrificed to make this happen.

People who read this site on a daily basis know how much I like Terrence Williams, but I do think if a deal gets made he is the one most likely to be dealt.  In my opinion, Terrence Williams is valued higher by other teams than by the Nets.  This is because Avery Johnson loves guys who can play both ends of the court, and right now Terrence Williams is weak on the defensive end.  So who can the Nets bring in by dealing Terrence Williams?  Well, I decided to use Trade Machine to take a look:

Terrence Williams for Carl Landry

Carl Landry is the exact type of Power Forward the Nets are looking for.  He is only under contract for another two years, and he is a guy who wants to bang on the inside…the Nets need that.  As for the Kings, they don’t have a standout Shooting Guard on their roster, and T-Will can be that.

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With the news cycle starting to slow down somewhat, for the time being, I’m going return to doing the “Daily Link” approach and give you some early morning fodder for discussion, rather than dump a bunch of links into your lap which all say essentially the same thing. If you all don’t like the format, let me know in the comments.

With that said, new Nets GM Billy King was formally introduced yesterday, while outgoing team president Rod Thorn got the rare opportunity to introduce his successor. Say what you will about Thorn, but he’s been class all the way during this process, though I wonder if after some time has passed if we’ll ever get the real dirt behind why he decided to leave so abruptly after Mikhail Prokhorov made it known how badly he wanted him to stay (money? power? clashing with Avery Johnson?).

King, somewhat acknowledging that he’s made some bad moves in his time in Philadelphia, says he’s grown up a little in Dave D’Alessandros’ report:

“I’m wiser,” said the 44-year-old GM. “When I took over Philly, I was 32 years old. I did a lot of listening to guys like Rod, Donnie Walsh. Jerry West and Wayne Embry. I think now I have a better understanding and probably a little more patience. In Philly, we tried to do a lot of things quickly. In this league, if you do some things and it doesn’t work, you’re punished for a while.”

Devin expressed his opinions a little bit earlier in the week, and I’d like to echo and say I’m not wild about this hiring, but it’s also pretty clear that this is Avery Johnson’s team right now and King seems to be a bit of an empty suit if you believe the reports. Whether that’s true or not, in an attempt to be positive on the King hiring, the NBA is a sea full of bad contracts that were handed out by GMs not just named Billy King. In Philadelphia, he took his shot with an undersized headcase as his team’s focal point, and he even got to the Finals one year. You can’t say that about a lot of GMs.

With tomorrow expected to be Rod Thorn’s last day with the Nets organization before he either edges into retirement or finds another job in this league, I thought it would be appropriate to relive the highs and lows of his tenure with the organization. It was undoubtedly a roller coaster with Thorn, who was the NBA’s executive of the year in 2002 while the organization found itself in back-to-back Finals before vying for the worst record of all-time in the latter stages of his time here. For the sake of avoiding arguments, I’m not going to rank these highs and lows – but feel free to use the comments section to dispute or arrange what I’ve put down.

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Jordan Farmar on why he picked the Nets over the Lakers: “We talked about it, and it wasn’t really how I wanted to spend my whole career, being a backup in a triangle (offense),” the Nets’ new backup point guard explained yesterday.

Al Iannazzone continues to speculate the Nets options for PF. They include Andrei Kirilenko, Troy Murphy, Kenyon Martin, Brandon Bass and Paul Millsap.

Daily News has part two of their interview with Mikhail Prokhorov. There’s more amusing stuff in there, including this nugget:

Q: Can you play (PF)?

A: Power forward? I’m too old for this. And I don’t like the salary of the players. I can make more in business.