Before the season began, the New Jersey Nets had a minuscule chance to make the playoffs, especially when you consider the fact that their roster was filled with rookies, developing youngsters, unproven veterans and one superstar in Vince Carter that seemed like he was ready to start his decline.

However, the Nets managed to bite off more than a hearty helping of mediocrity and stay out of the cellar despite injuries and inconsistency.

Nevertheless, the team isn’t happy with the way the season ended.

“You should never allow anyone’s outside expectations to affect your internal expectations. Our goal was to get to the playoffs and we didn’t make it so we’re disappointed,” Nets coach Lawrence Frank, who will return as the Nets’ head coach next season, told the Associated Press. “But I think our guys have played with integrity, honor and respect for the game.”

There is more than enough light at the end of the tunnel however.

Over the last 15 or so games, Chris Douglas Roberts proved that he could be much more than a player that could round out the bottom of a depth chart. With Keyon Dooling expected back healthy after hip surgery a few days ago, the Nets should have plenty of depth at the guard position and shouldn’t have nearly as many problems as they did this season when Devin Harris or Vince Carter were hurt or cold. That alone should play a role in the team’s success next season.

However, the development of Brook Lopez and hopefully the attitude adjustment of Sean Williams would sure up the Nets where they need it most, on the boards. If Lopez continues to be a guy that can score anywhere from 12-16 points and can grab a few more boards, the Nets will be in a much better shape and will officially have a new “Big Three.” Williams, in turn, can earn a reputation as an energy guy who can play power forward and center, giving the Nets added versatility, especially considering how inconsistent Ryan Anderson and Yi Jianlian can be at times.

The small forward position still seems like a conundrum at this point and maybe that’s something the Nets can solve in the draft. Nothing against my favorite lunch-pailer Trenton Hassell or the undependable Bobby Simmons, but if the Nets are ever to get back in the playoffs, addressing the situation at small forward is a great place to start.

Photo by Bill Menzel.

After a month of speculation, New Jersey Nets head coach Laurence Frank will be sticking around through the rest of his contract, which is set to expire after the end of next season.

Missing the playoffs and winning just 34-games for the second consecutive season, the Nets brass still have faith in Frank’s ability as a coach.

“If you get rid of a good coach, you have to get a good coach,” Thorn told the Associated Press. “In my mind he is a good coach, he has done a good job here. I think this past year most people didn’t think we would do well and we did better than expected. Our younger players got better for the most part and my feeling is we are on the right road.”

While Thorn has a point that Frank exceeded expectations with a team that many predicted to be around the 25-win mark, the team played horribly during the second half, winning only four games in March and failing to capitalize on the momentum they had during the first 35 or so games of the season.

Nonetheless, the Nets have a plethora of youngsters on the team that will get better in time and if Frank can find a way to get them the playing time they need, while not being forced to play veterans that can’t get the job done, this team may be in much better shape than the rest of the league thinks.

Knowing this, Frank must find a way to stay firm and put his best lineup on the court every night. Perhaps he’s learned his lesson from keeping Jason Collins in the Nets rotation for so long over the years, especially when the team had other players that could pick up the slack in his place. However, even if the Yi Jianlian situation that started at the end of this season begins again with another player, Frank owes it to the organization to let his youngsters develop and earn their bumps and bruises.

Nothing against Collins, but he never had the potential of guys like Chris Douglas-Roberts, Ryan Anderson, Brook Lopez and Devin Harris. Those guys need every opportunity to prove they belong and can thrive in this league. Playing guys like Eduardo Najera and Bobby Simmons in crucial game situations won;t help the Nets next season and won’t help them in the future as well.

As well, the Nets have to address their needs via free agency and the draft this summer, or else, regardless of what Frank does, this team will revel in mediocrity once again.

That’s something Frank can’t be responsible for, but will have to make the most of.

Despite the fact that many NBA insiders feel that the New Jersey Nets had a better season than they should have expected, staying at .500 for a good half of the season, the team itself feels they still have a ton of work to do before becoming the team they’d like to be.

Battling injuries to key players and inconsistency from their bench and several young players, the Nets indeed have a plethora of work ahead of them before they’ll be a playoff team once again.

“It’s very disappointing,” Nets head coach Lawrence Frank told the Burlington County Times last week. “It hurts. It hurts not being able to participate in the playoffs. We’re a 34-win team. Is that acceptable? No. We want to put ourselves in position to be a playoff team. It you’re not in the postseason, then you should be disappointed.”

Earlier in the season, many felt that Frank was in danger of losing his job. However, it appears for the time being that the young coach has a home for at least one more season.

A season that will either cement his reputation in the league or force him to attempt to find a new home to do his job.

“I have always liked Lawrence as a coach and been supportive of Lawrence,” Thorn told the Associated Press a few days ago. “I know a lot of good things he does as a coach, it’s part of it. We’ve won a certain number of games two years in a row and it’s natural we sit down, we always sit down at the end of the year and talk about players, coaches and this is part of it.”

While Frank and the organization feel a bit more pessimistic about the team’s current situation, the team itself has a few ideas on how to make sure they don’t miss the playoffs for a third consecutive season.

“We’re just a couple of pieces away,” Vince Carter insisted to Yahoo Sports. “Rebounding, that’s what we need. We just need a guy who cleans up the glass. We have a lot of scoring. We have a lot of shooters. We have guys who can just get a bucket when you need it.”

While Brooks Robinson was no slouch on the boards this season, Carter definitely has the right idea here. A player that could help out on the boards at the power forward position could be a huge step in the right direction for this team, especially considering how inconsistent Yi Jianlian was last season.

Photo by Bill Menzel.

Right before Yi Jianlian got injured in early January this season, he finally looked like he’d turned the corner. He was scoring about 12 points a game and was playing anywhere from 25 to even 38 minutes a game.

Why?

Because he was producing. It was a reward.

After he came back a month later, he wasn’t the same player and his playing time diminished significantly. Now, it appears his agent is miffed about it.

As TNA superstar James Storm says, “Sorry bout your damn luck.”

“His agent is supposed to represent Yi’s interest, and that’s his job, that’s his loyalty. With Yi … we wish post-injury he had more success, but he didn’t,” Nets coach Laurence Frank told the Associated Press. “And the difference between an agent and a coach, the coach’s loyalty is to the whole team, not to an individual player. Whereas the agent’s job is to be loyal to his clients.

“We feel with Yi, look at it as a simplistic model—he’s a good person, a very hard worker, and he has talent. You put those three things together, he’ll be as good as he possibly can be because of those three factors.”
That my friends is a nice way of saying that Yi’s agent doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

By the numbers alone, it’s fair to say that Yi’s agent has as much bargaining power in this situation as Ike Turner would have in a domestic violence case.

Before the injury, Jianlian reached double digits in scoring 20 times and recorded more than 10 rebounds three times. After the break, he failed to get more than seven rebounds in a single game and has broken double digits in scoring a measly three times, despite playing for over 20 minutes in seven games.

After Jason Collins was allowed to revel in mediocrity for years, Frank has finally learned his lesson and won’t allow another player to do the same thing. Yi has averaged only 5.9 points per game since the All-Star break and in those 23 games he’s played, he’s been far from the player the Nets had before then. He can say that the Olympics and his training for them caused him to peak earlier in the season and run out of gas later on, but let’s be fair here, this is a professional athlete that gets paid millions of dollars to make sure he can play a sport to the best of his ability all season. If anyone is to blame for Yi’s demise this season, it’s not Frank and his decision not to give him playing time.

It’s his own.

Sorry bout your damn luck kid.

Photo by Bill Menzel.

I remember when I did my season preview piece this season and I projected the team would win 33 games and come in tenth place, scoffing at places like the Yahoo Sports Basketball Blog that predicted the team would come up with a paltry 18 wins.

Nonetheless I understand where most of these places were coming from at the time. Small payroll, unproven young talent, what did you expect, a championship?

Highly unlikely, even to the most ardent Nets fan.

With four games left this season however, while the Nets have 32 wins and are two games out of tenth place, they have exceeded the expectations of many.

Who would have thought? Me, that’s who.

Am I good or what? Well, let’s be fair here. I’m alright.

I don’t think anyone could have expected Devin Harris to play as well as he has this season and at the same time, many of the youngsters have shown that they have the potential to be useful players in the future.

Because of that, the New Jersey Nets should be proud with what they accomplished this season and should feel good about the direction they are going in.

“We have some nice pieces in place to win. But obviously we have a ways to go,” veteran Keyon Dooling told the Associated Press. “You can tweak a roster here and there, or you can get one player, and that can take you. Look at Boston. You bring KG in and bring Ray Allen in, and they’re the best team in the league. We’ll see. Maybe we’ll get something good in the draft, or a free agent pickup that will get us over the hump.”

However, unlike the Celtics, I think the Nets have some of the pieces on their roster already. Over the past three weeks, Chris Douglas-Roberts has shown that he can thrive with more responsibility and I still have faith that Ryan Anderson can be productive as well. However, more than anyone, I think Brook Lopez has the makings of an excellent center that will eventually be someone who will not only score 15 points a game, but someone who can average a double-double every night.

“He’s exceeded what we expected,” Nets coach Lawrence Frank told the AP. “Even going in, to seeing him from summer league to seeing him from training camp, he’s exceeded expectations.”

So while missing out on the playoffs for a second season in a row may be a tough pill to swallow for most fans of this team, the future is still a bright one.

Photo by Bill Menzel.