With one game already under their belts, the team is on pace for an undefeated season and has four players looking at 1,000 point seasons, in Vince Carter, Jarvis Hayes, Yi Jianlian and Devin Harris.
Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves here.
Even though the Nets won their first game of the season over the Washington Wizards, things are only going to get more difficult from here.
Coach Lawrence Frank knows this better than anyone.
“We’re not going to be a finished product now,” the coach said to the AP after the game. “This is going to be an evolving thing—clean up and improve and continue to put in things whenever the group is ready for it. We have hardly anything in.”
Guys like Jianlian [who looked extremely solid in his first game and may in fact be able to live up to the hype this season if he isn’t over exposed early on] and Hayes helped out by going a combined 13 for 20 from the field and in the end, contributions like that have to be almost every night occurrence for this team to stay above water. Josh Boone and Brooklyn Lopez also played well too, and should be able to provide a solid presence down low this season. That to me is a good sign that this team understands what they have to do this season and all that extra time spent together during the summer is looking to have paid off.
Aside from that, it’s a little weird to see Sean Williams sit this one out and it makes you wonder if Frank is going to ostracize another first round pick this season. Simply put, they have to find minutes for this guy. Once Eduardo Najera comes back, it’s not going to be easier either, so he has to earn his bumps and bruises now.
In other news, the Nets picked up the options of Boone, Jianlian and Williams, keeping the size and strength they’ve lacked over the past few years, locked up for another season. That’s good news if you ask me. Seriously, how solid could the Nets have been last season if they had that much depth at power forward and center? Wait, aside from Yi, they had Boone and Williams last season, so what was missing? I don’t know, maybe a bit of polish as Williams and Boone both showed how green they were as the season wore on the Nets flubbed their way out of a playoff spot.
Let’s hope the added depth turns this team into heroes, rather than…what they ended up being last season.
With the first game of the season less than a week away, the New Jersey Nets still have some shop keeping to do, as they still have plenty of decisions to make. Aside from Vince Carter and Devin Harris, every spot in the starting lineup is wide open. The Nets have a lot of depth this season and have some size than I’ve seen in quite some time from them, but that doesn’t make any of the decisions any easier. Especially considering the fact that many of the players involved are youngsters that need considerable playing time in order to thrive, Nets coach Laurence Frank will have plenty of decisions to make over the next few days.
In spite of that though, the players themselves feel comfortable where the team is going this season and aren’t worried about a sloppy preseason that has produced a less than mediocre 2-4 record. Instead, they are focusing on all the hard work they did this offseason and regardless of what anyone else believes, they feel they are ready to challenge for a playoff spot.
“The summer really helped us,” said Carter to Yahoo Sports. “From the first day of practice, we didn’t have to play catch-up in camp. When we started camp, we started like any other (veteran) team as far as familiarity, understanding what guys like to do and don’t like to do.”
Well, that’s exactly what you want to hear if you are a fan of this team. These guys knew they had a lot of work ahead of themselves this offseason and at the very least they will start the season on the right page and won’t need a few weeks to get to know everyone’s games.
On another note, has anyone seen the Youtube video of Devin Harris getting schooled by British street ball legend Stuart Tanner? If you haven’t, you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks, as the video has gotten over four million hits since October 10. Nonetheless, there is more to the video than meets the eye.
“When I first went out there, they told me one of the Special Olympic kids wanted to play me one-on-one,” Harris explained to Yahoo Sports. “So I went down there, shot jumpshots or whatever. So he hit the first shot, and I was like, ‘Okay, he has a little talent.’ Then he just whipped out the other thing. I was kind of confused at that point with all these dribbling moves and before I knew, he threw it through my legs and laid it up. At that point it was time to go. So they had fun with it, they got me pretty good. I didn’t expect it to be that popular, but it is what it is.”
In the big scheme of things, a preseason loss to the Celtics won’t mean the world to the rebuilding New Jersey Nets, but to Yi Jianlian, last night’s game may end up meaning more than a can of Campbell’s chicken soup on a cold winter day.
Despite fouling out in the third quarter, Yi ended up with 15 points, shooting six for nine from the floor in less than 21 minutes. Not bad if you ask me. If this guy can put up numbers similar to that during the season and the team’s bench can produce someone else to play power forward and contribute [maybe Ryan Anderson?] for 15-20 minutes a game, then good times will be had in New Jersey.
Well let’s be fair here, things won’t be as bad.
I know Nets general manager Kiki Vandeweghe has a lot of love for Yi’s game, going as far to compare him to Dirk Nowitzki, but I don’t think anyone has seen him in enough crucial situations to truly trust that assessment yet. Sure, he scored 15 points, but Kevin Garnett and a host of other players were out of the lineup for Boston yesterday. Let’s see how this guy performs against those guys before we start comparing him to legitimate NBA superstars.
However, if he keeps up this kind of play 20 games into the season, you can expect me to fully claim I had the utmost amount of faith in him and his game, despite the inconsistency he showed last season and proclaim him as one of the most promising young players in the NBA today [wink].
Aside from Yi’s play, I also liked what I saw from Chris Douglas-Roberts offensively. Just like Yi, he’s another player that will be an intriguing guy to watch this season. Last year, aside from Boki Nachbar, the Nets really didn’t have a consistent offensive threat off the bench. If DR can continue to produce for them like he did last night, this team will the depth needed to stay alive in the craptastic Eastern Conference.
In spite of that though, I must say that it has been great to finally get back in the swing of things after a long summer off. Olympic basketball is one thing, but NBA basketball is another. Guys play their hearts out for their country, but play for their pride and reputation in the NBA. With all the cosmetic changes the Nets made this season, regardless of where they finish, I believe they will be more than interesting to write about as well. So many players have something to prove this season that, I think it’s impossible not to have something interesting to discuss here.
Considering the fact that I just read the Yahoo Sports Nets Preview that says the team is projected for an 18-win campaign, I figured I’d interject my two cents:
Yes, the Nets seem like a team that is trying to save cap space with barely 25 million dollars on the pay roll, but a few players have contracts laden with incentives. What does this mean exactly? The Nets are taking chances on several players and if those gambles pay off, this team is going to be a heck of a lot of fun to watch.
Last week, I spoke about the team’s commitment to defense and while it seems that the team will be holding it’s breath on offense, one look at the bench says otherwise. Ryan Anderson, Eduardo Najera and Jarvis Hayes can all hit the three and Devin Harris looks ready for a breakout season. Yi Jianlian, Sean Williams and Josh Boone all have something to prove and Chris Douglas-Roberts seems like the perfect fit for the team’s new offense.
Simply put, I think a lot of NBA pundits are having a huge problem taking the Nets seriously because they lack a “Big Three” presence now. However, even with those three players, this team wasn’t good enough to win a championship. Now while the team is in a rebuilding mode, they still have enough depth and talent to swim in the lower ranks of the Eastern Conference.
Lets face it; if the Hawks could make the playoffs last season, I see no reason why the Nets can’t stay in the mix this season.
Laurence Frank seems to think the same way as well.
“It is not about one player, it is not about the big three, it’s about being a team, because that’s going to be our recipe to be successful,” Frank told the AP. “We can’t focus on who’s not here. We can’t focus on one guy like Vince and he’s got to do everything. It’s about everyone doing their part and doing it together.”
I personally think that while this team will challenge for the last playoff spot in the Eastern conference, they will falter down the stretch, similar to what happened last season. This team is taking a few chances and it’s almost impossible to have everything go a planned over the course of a long NBA season. If it does, this team will sneak into the playoffs. However, I just don’t see that happening. Nevertheless, I see them winning a lot more games than 18.
Anything else would be uncivilized.
Projection- 33 Wins. 10th place Eastern Conference.
The way the Nets offense muddled through most of the season, it’s safe to say that a tighter defensive system could have saved a few games down the stretch and perhaps nabbed them a playoff spot. Early on through this season however, through voluntary practices, the team seems to be taking the necessary steps to becoming a more than solid defensive team.
With a team this young, it’s good they’re shooting for an identity early on and considering the voluntary practices have been going on for quite some time, it’s quite possible that the team could come into camp stronger than the other teams they’ll be fighting for a playoff spot with.
Add in a few young faces like Ryan Anderson, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Yi Jianlian and Brook Lopez, alongside veterans Eduardo Najera, Bobby Simmons, Jarvis Hayes and Keyon Dooling, who all have something to prove on offense and it’s easy to see that this could be an energetic group of guys that have the speed, depth and size to challenge for the final two playoff spots in the Eastern Conference.
“Defense,” said Najera, told Yahoo Sports. “We’re emphasizing it every day, and you can see the strides. We want that as our identity, especially now, because we’re young and that’s the one thing that you can do together as a team. We’re aware of that. It’s what we want to accomplish, to be known as a defensive team.”
Well, it may not be the most exciting type of basketball to watch if you’re a fan or member of the media, but it may be just what the doctor ordered for this young team. It would be way too easy to try and let Devin Harris, Vince Carter and the youngsters who can shoot go out there and have a grand ole time on the court, running up insane amounts of turnovers and sometimes points on the scoreboard. However, showing restraint and playing a smart game, especially on the defensive end, may play a part in maturation factor of many of these young players, giving Nets coach Laurence Frank an opportunity to take more chances down the stretch and let the guys off the chains as the season develops.
Setting a sort of sublimely mandated system like this, focusing more on the defensive game will also take plenty of pressure off of Carter on offense and instead should build a kind of team camaraderie very quickly. Will it play a part in the team making the playoffs this season? I think it’s too early to tell just yet, but it should be interesting to watch develop as the season progresses.
The way the Nets offense muddled through most of the season, it’s safe to say that a tighter defensive system could have saved a few games down the stretch and perhaps nabbed them a playoff spot. Early on through this season however, through voluntary practices, the team seems to be taking the necessary steps to becoming a more than solid defensive team.
