Nets Are Scorching

The Nets have had a hard enough time over the years getting picks right when they were in the lottery, so putting together a “top” list of non-lottery picks is a lot tougher than it should have been. Hopefully when the Nets pick at No. 27 tonight, their selection has a career in New Jersey/Brooklyn more in line with one of these five players rather than past non-lottery picks like Sean Williams, Marcus Williams, Yinka Dare and Mile Ilic:

Honorable Mentions: Tate George (22^nd pick, 1990), Rex Walters (16^th pick, 1993), Antoine Wright (15^th pick, 2005), Josh Boone (23^rd pick, 2006).

No. 5 – Brian Scalabrine: “Veal,” gets points for his longevity in the league, and for his prominent role it what might have been one of the greatest Nets games in recent memory. In a critical game 5 of the 2004 Eastern Conference Semifinals between the Nets and the Detroit Pistons, Scalabrine was forced into playing 23 minutes when four members of the Nets frontcourt – Kenyon Martin, Jason Collins, Rodney Rogers and Aaron Williams – had fouled out. Scalabrine responded with 17 points, including four three-pointers in the triple overtime victory against the Pistons, giving the Nets a 3-2 series lead. If the Nets had only sealed the deal in game 6 in New Jersey, Scalabrine would probably be an even bigger part of Nets folklore.

As it stands, for most of his four-year Nets career, Scalabrine was the 12^th man on the bench, though he did play a more prominent role in 2004-05, when he started in 14 games and averaged 6.3 points on 4.5 rebounds. Picked 35^th overall (second round) in 2001, Scalabrine’s Nets and general NBA career is at least more distinctive coming out of the second round, than numerous first rounders picked by Nets President Rod Thorn during this era.

No. 4 – Ryan Anderson: Anderson, taken with the 21^st pick in 2008, is actually putting together a very solid NBA career for himself as a back-up stretch four. The problem is he’s doing it for the Orlando Magic after the Nets front office threw him in for the deal that unloaded Vince Carter for Courtney Lee and the expiring corpses of Rafer Alston and Tony Battie. Anderson, the throw-in, has probably been the best player since the trade went down, putting up a PER of 18.15 and 19.09 during his two seasons in Orlando, while establishing himself as a solid shooting big-man and a good enough rebounder who fits in perfectly with Orlando’s “spread the perimeter for Dwight” offense. Meanwhile, a case could be made that Anderson should have been given more of a shot in New Jersey, averaging less than 20 minutes his rookie season while the Nets coaching staff and front office continually shoved Yi Jianlian down the fan’s throats. While Yi is never going to evolve into the next Dirk, Anderson is looking like a mirror image of Troy Murphy (before he came to Jersey and his career went to pot).

No. 3 – Jason Collins: So I had to think long and hard here for a minute about the 18^th pick in the 2001 draft because technically, “Twin” was selected by the Houston Rockets and then traded to the Nets (along with Richard Jefferson and Brandon Armstrong) for Eddie Griffin on draft day. While I waffled about including Collins for this very reason, he’s also one of the new non-lottery draft picks to play with the Nets in their rookie year and go on to have a very solid career with both the Nets and beyond.

Collins is never going to win any awards and his statistics are downright awful, but he’s one of the few players in this league whose positive contributions honestly can’t be found in a stat-sheet. Despite being 32 now, he’s still a very solid post-defender and was part of Atlanta’s “kryptonite” strategy against Dwight Howards in the playoffs this past year. He was with the Nets for seven years, making the playoffs in his first six, including back-to-back finals his first two seasons where he had to defend hall-of-fame caliber Centers in Shaquille O’Neal and David Robinson. And that was the extent of Collins role – go out there and defend that big guy. And he did a good job at it. Of course, it leaves you wondering how the Nets could have done if they had a Center who can hold his own in the post defensively, but actually put the ball in the basket, but that’s a debate for a different day.

No. 2 – Nenad Krstic: Krstic gets on this list for his nickname alone, “Curly,” but was also one of the few players taken by the Nets outside of the lottery who was evolving into a potential-all-star with the organization before a crippling knee injury derailed his career in 2006-07. Taken with the 24^th pick in the 2002 draft, the Nets had to wait two years before Nenad joined the team, but he was worth the wait, starting 57 games for the team after the coaching staff admitted they were trying to work him into the rotation slowly. He was a huge offensive asset in his first playoff series in 05 against the Heat, averaging 18.3 points and 7.5 rebounds on 56 percent shooting. In his final season with the Nets, he was averaging 18.1 points on 53 percent shooting before injury ended things for him. He’s worked his way back into being a decent big man option for NBA teams, though he was buried on Boston’s bench during their playoff sputter this past season.

No. 1 – PJ Brown: The 6’11” Power Forward/Center out of Lousiana Tech University, has had, by far, the most accomplished NBA career of any non-lottery pick for the Nets. He was picked with the 29^th pick (second round) in 1992 and sat out his first year to play in Greece. Brown played three solid seasons with the Nets, where he became known as a great rebounder and defender with a decent mid-range jumper. He started in 198 games, overall averaging 8.4 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.37 blocks during his tenure in New Jersey. He also played in the inaugural NBA Rookie Game during the 1999 All-Star Weekend.

After leaving the Nets, Brown’s profile was raised when he joined the Miami Heat. He made the all-defensive second team twice during in Miami and may be best known by Knicks fans for flipping Charlie Ward and igniting a brawl during game 5 of the 1997 Eastern Conference Semifinals against New York. The brawl changed the course of the series, as a number of key Knicks players were suspended and the Heat came back from a 3-1 deficet to take the series.

Brown went on to spend the next chunk of his career in Charlotte/New Orleans. During the 2002 Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Nets, Brown averaged 8.6 points, 9.2 rebounds and 2 blocks a game against his former team. Brown finally won an elusive ring, along with Brian Scalabrine, on the 2007-08 Celtics team.

Also see the Nets top 5 worst non-lottery selections.

There isn’t as much of a buzz this year for the NBA Draft as there was last year when the Nets owned the third overall pick. However, with the 27th overall pick, the Nets could possibly draft a player that can contribute off the bench or even develop down on the farm with the Springfield Armor, possibly making some noise later in the season. So, who might be available?

In my first round mock draft on The Basketball Jones, I have the Nets taking Justin Harper of Richmond. However, he’s been fluctuating on other mock drafts and could possibly be gone by the time the Nets pick. What’s great about the draft is all of the speculating and seemingly quick movement, up or down, of players. For example, in the same mock draft, I have Marshon Brooks going to the Chicago Bulls with the 28th overall pick. But if a team likes him better than Alec Burks, the projected top shooting guard in the draft, Brooks could possibly be a lottery pick and likely picked in the teens or early 20s. Read more…

Nets Post-Up is a stream of consciousness post without editing. Luckily, the author can filter profanity, possesses excellent grammar, and isn’t lazy about spelling. Basically, he’s amazing.

Uh oh, here we go again. New Jersey Nets fans were subjected to the Carmelo Anthony trade drama recently and that can easily be identified as a bummer. However, the mood quickly changed and Nets fans are basking in the glory that is the Deron Williams trade. So, for the sake of improving the Nets, let’s get back on that roller coaster of emotion and hypothesize about the future, one that sees Dwight Howard in a Nets uniform. Read more…

By all accounts, it’s a done deal… or is it? Well, are you ready for this mind-blowing announcement? Nets fans are exhausted! It’s no secret how I feel about all of this, preferring to go young heading into Brooklyn, even writing an open letter to Billy King, the Nets GM. However, it seems all of my efforts and thoughts may be for naught as the seeming inevitability of a group of strangers in Nets jerseys will soon invade my thoughts on NAS.

Yet, I feel like I still need to go down fighting (the Queens, NY in me… STAND UP!) and give one last effort despite being beaten up over the last 11 rounds AKA the last couple of weeks. Read more…

Did the Nets make the right call?

Now that the Nets are 24 games into the season, I think we’re at the point in which we can compare “what is” with “what could have been.” I’m talking, of course,  about the NBA Draft, and how differently it could have gone down for every team (except Washington) in the top five picks.

As far as anyone can tell, for the third pick the Nets had four players on their radar: Evan Turner, Wesley Johnson, DeMarcus Cousins, and current Net Derrick Favors. For their late-round selection, they traded Jordan Crawford and the 31st pick (which became the rights to Tibor Pleiss) for 24th pick Damion James. This leads to two questions:

1) What if Atlanta had decided against the Crawford/31 for James swap?

Jordan Crawford, who on draft night was the darling of many Nets fans, fell into Rod Thorn’s lap with the 27th pick. While Crawford is still best known for dunking on LeBron James, he also showed off deep range at Xavier, averaging 20 points per game on 46% shooting (39% from 3). Crawford also has pretty form and a scorer’s mentality. However, that mentality hasn’t really translated to NBA success yet. He hasn’t been effective when in the game, shooting only 38% from the field in just 101 minutes (9 games) of play. Crawford entered an Atlanta Hawks team that was already deep in the backcourt, and as a result he’s been somewhat buried in the bench. With the recent Joe Johnson injury, you’d expect his play time to increase, but he’s been a DNP-CD since November 28th – before the injury.

Before his foot injury, James had also struggled early in his NBA career. While he was a leader at Texas – improving steadily each year & averaging a double-double his senior year – he’s clearly still in the midst of an adjustment period. While he’s played more than double Crawford’s minutes, James is only shooting a paltry 35% from the floor – and despite shooting 38% from 3 his senior year at Texas, has only attempted two (and made none) from beyond the arc this season. He’s shown flashes of talent, dropping 30 points in a summer league game, and despite his struggles was able to steal the starting small forward spot from Travis Outlaw (who, to be fair, is struggling more than anyone these days).

Also, while there’s no telling who the Nets might have taken with the 31st pick, a quick look at players taken in that range reveals a verifiable list of no-shows and nobodies. Only Landry Fields has been a consistent rotation player, and the Knicks shocked everyone with that pick. The Nets wouldn’t have taken him.

The Final Verdict: While Crawford does have a nice shooting touch, James brings a more diverse skillset to the floor and fills a bigger need for this team. While the foot injury sucks, once he’s healed and ready to go I’m confident that he’ll produce.

2) How would the Nets look with any of the other four players they could have gotten in the top three?

Ha! You thought this was just going to be another Favors vs. Cousins debate, didn’t you? Truth be told, the Nets could have ended up with any one of the non-Wall top 5, even though the battle was clearly between DeMarcus Cousins & Derrick Favors. If the Sixers ended up taking Favors second, the Nets would have ended up with Evan Turner. If the Nets softened on Favors at the last second, both Johnson and Cousins fit what the Nets needed, and the Nets were rumored to be highly interested in both (although the interest in Johnson didn’t fool us at NAS – both Sebastian and I agreed that it was a bad idea & seemed more like a smokescreen than anything else).

However, a little over a quarter-way through the season, here’s how the big four stack up (leader in bold):

Per Game

Evan Turner – 6.9 PTS, 4.5 (0.3-4.2) REB, 2.0 AST, 0.2 BLK, 1.3 TOV, 0.421 FG%, 0.167 3P%, 0.739 FT%, 24.9 MIN

Derrick Favors – 6.5 PTS, 5.3 (2.0-3.3) REB, 0.1 AST, 0.6 BLK, 1.0 TOV, 0.543 FG%, 0.600 FT%, 18.7 MIN

Wesley Johnson: 9.1 PTS, 3.4 (1.0-2.4) REB, 2.0 AST, 0.7 BLK, 1.6 TOV, 0.433 FG%, 0.380 3P%, 0.636 FT%, 28.8 MIN

DeMarcus Cousins - 11.0 PTS, 6.8 (2.4-4.4) REB, 1.2 AST, 0.5 BLK, 2.2 TOV, 0.396 FG%, 0.143 3P%, 0.674 FT%, 24.0 MIN

All four are rotation players, but Johnson is the only one who’s officially staked a claim as a starter throughout the season, as he’s started in 20 of 24 games. Favors is the only one who has not started.

Looking at the raw per-game numbers, they look somewhat even – Cousins & Johnson appear to have the biggest edge. Let’s look deeper. Per 36 minutes, Cousins is averaging 15 shots, 7 free throw attempts, and 3 turnovers – an awful lot of usage for a rookie. Truthfully, he’s leading all true rookies in usage rate, which is how he’s able to put up higher scoring numbers despite shooting poorly from the field. Johnson is the opposite – his numbers look higher solely because of his increased playing time. He actually has one of the lowest usage rates among all qualified rookies – 22nd out of the 26. Evan Turner, on the other hand, has just been awful.

As a result, while the raw figures produced by Cousins & Johnson look more impressive, when digging a little deeper you see it’s just a façade. As mentioned before on this site (and many others), the best way to look at individual efficiency is to look at more advanced analytics, which is what I’ll use here. For any explanations, refer to the awesome glossary over at Basketball-Reference. Again, leaders in bold.

Advanced

Evan Turner – 0.478 TS%, 0.428 eFG%, 1.6 ORB%, 19.3 DRB%, 11.9 AST%, 0.7 BLK%, 15.4 TOV%, 93 ORtg, 15.7 USG%, 0.4 WS, 0.035 WS/48, 8.8 PER

Derrick Favors – 0.571 TS%, 0.543 eFG%, 12.3 ORB%, 21.4 DRB%, 1.2 AST%, 2.5 BLK%, 14.3 TOV%, 109 ORtg, 16.9% USG, 1.0 WS, 0.107 WS/48, 13.9 PER

Wesley Johnson – 0.525 TS%, 0.510 eFG%, 3.6 ORB%, 9.7 DRB%, 10.3 AST%, 1.8 BLK%, 15.4 TOV%, 103 ORtg, 14.9 USG%, 0.4 WS, 0.026 WS/48, 9.3 PER

DeMarcus Cousins – 0.457 TS%, 0.399 eFG%, 10.6 ORB%, 22.3 DRB%, 8.5 AST%, 1.6 BLK%, 15.4 TOV%, 92 ORtg, 26.1 USG%, 0.0 WS, 0.002 WS/48, 11.8 PER

TS% – True Shooting Percentage
eFG% – Effective FG%
ORB% – Offensive Rebound Rate
DRB% – Defensive Rebound Rate
AST% – Assist Rate
BLK% – Block Rate
TOV% – Turnover Rate
ORtg – Offensive Rating (Points produced per 100 possessions) (league average – 106.7)
USG% – Usage Rate (average NBA player – 20.0)
WS – Win Shares
WS/48 – Win Shares per 48 minutes (average NBA player = 0.100)
PER – John Hollinger’s Player Efficiency Rating (average NBA player – 15.0)

Amazing what a more thorough look can uncover, huh? Despite his lack of playing time, Favors statistically outranks every other player the Nets could have taken in the top 5, even though he’s by far the youngest of the four (Wesley Johnson is the old man at 23). He’s never been accused of being a great passer – and he’ll need to work on that – but he finishes strong at the hoop, is a tenacious rebounder, blocks a decent amount of shots for a rookie, and has overall had a much bigger impact in his limited minutes than the other rookies. Favors is also doing all of this while enduring bumps in the road; he’s the youngest player in the NBA and has had his name stirring the “Carmelo Anthony to the Nets” pot since draft night.

The Final Verdict: When David Thorpe did a re-draft earlier this week, he called Favors the no-doubt #2 selection in this draft, and after doing the research I 100% agree. Between Evan Turner’s shocking struggles (seriously, thank goodness the Sixers took him second), Wesley Johnson’s lack of upside, and DeMarcus Cousins’ inefficiency & need to dominate possessions (not to mention headbutting with management), I’m very happy with our selection. Favors has both skyscraping upside and has effectively executed his role in limited time. Kris Humphries has been better than advertised in his starting role, but as Favors continues to develop, I wouldn’t be shocked to see him starting very soon.

So as my introductory piece, I’d like to do a re-post. Some of you have likely already seen this on the popular SBNation subsidiary NetsDaily – I originally posted it under my NetsDaily username Newark2Brooklyn. It elicited a fair amount of discussion once it was put on their front page. I wrote this before Thorn said he’d take Wall with the first pick, and it was partly a response to the Wall-Turner debate that was going on there. Some people agreed with my assessment completely, others were the exact opposite. I usually consider that a good sign.

Glad to be writing for NetsAreScorching, and rest assured, mostly everything else I write will be less than half this length.

Read more…

According to DraftExpress.com, Davidson G Stephon Curry is declaring for the draft:

Sources close to the situation tell us that Curry will call a press conference shortly to announce he is putting his name in the draft. From what we understand, it’s very likely he keeps it in too.

Good for him right?  Well, yeah, but there is this:

Curry looks like a pretty solid bet to get drafted somewhere in the 8-15 area, with teams like the Knicks, Nets and Suns currently looking to be the most interested amongst that group.

DraftExpress.com is probably the best draft site out there, but we don’t know who this Nets source is.  However, if the Nets’ interest is true, let me be the first to say “No!  No!  No!  Do not fall for this Kiki!”

Now don’t get me wrong.  Stephon Curry is a great player and he will become a great pro EVENTUALLY.  That is the key word, because if the Nets want to make the playoffs next year they need to draft a rookie who will have an impact right away.  Any 3 or 4 the Nets would be able to take at the 11 spot will be more pro ready than Stephon Curry will be.  Plus we don’t really need a 2 right now, we have more glaring problems in our frontcourt.   Plus, I would love to see VC playig the 2 next year, not the three.  It creates more mismatches.

This all may be a moot point though.  Hopefully our draft position moves up due to the lottery, and we won’t even have to consider Steph Curry.  We will eventually see how true these rumors are, but I would like it to be known that I am one of the first ones on the “Don’t Draft Stephon Curry” bandwagon.