The 2017-18 Brooklyn Nets: Who Cares?
- Thread starter Jed Zeppelin
- Start date
So going into tonight's final games, Philly (@MIL) is up 1 game on Cleveland (@NYK), and the Knicks are tied with the Nyets (vs BOS) for the 8th/9th pre-lottery spots. Cleveland has a reason to win, the Knicks have a reason to lose, and the Nets don't really care but we can expect the Celtics to totally Nader it up tonight.
The Lakers pick is locked into the 10th slot, so we have a 2.9% chance of pingpong balls locked in (+1.1% of Philly getting #1). Cleveland will either end up with a 10% chance of a top-3 pick (if Brooklyn is 8th), or 6.1% (if 9th), or the average of the two if they remain tied. But let's hope Cleveland sees more value in winning, and Brooklyn likewise doing so for pride.
The Lakers pick is locked into the 10th slot, so we have a 2.9% chance of pingpong balls locked in (+1.1% of Philly getting #1). Cleveland will either end up with a 10% chance of a top-3 pick (if Brooklyn is 8th), or 6.1% (if 9th), or the average of the two if they remain tied. But let's hope Cleveland sees more value in winning, and Brooklyn likewise doing so for pride.
Wow. Someone put together a detailed timeline video (including news clips) of the Nets demise:
Billy King, how we miss thee.
P.S. The big Boston trade at the 5:30 mark. The infamous Bill "30 cents on the dollar for 3 first round draft picks" Simmons clip soon after.
Billy King, how we miss thee.
P.S. The big Boston trade at the 5:30 mark. The infamous Bill "30 cents on the dollar for 3 first round draft picks" Simmons clip soon after.
That's pretty funny although Simmons wasn't that wrong at the time. Zach Lowe made the point the other day that most experts agreed with Simmons at the time. Pierce was still very useful and Garnett was expected to fully bounce back from his injuries. They were projected to be a monster that first year and expected to compete for at least a few more years than they did but injuries hit them and Prokhorov did a 180 and decided to tank instead despite not having their picks.
Also, Jordan Farmer?
Also, Jordan Farmer?
Their first year in Brooklyn, Pierce was 36 and KG was 37. Nobody thought it would go as bad as it did, but I fully expected that while the pick would not be good in 2014, after that all bets were off.
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Right I think at least the last pick we got would probably be during a rebuild for the Nets but Pierce and Garnett weren't expected to be main pieces. They were added to bring championship pedigree to the "young stars" Lopez and Williams. They were going to help put them over the top for their anticipated run the next couple of years.
Edit: A lot of being against the trade was also emotional (including myself) because Pierce was the best Celtic of the past 20 years and Garnett helped bring the title
I think it's awesome that Pierce basically embraced it after the fact. He could have held a long-term grudge and pouted about being traded, but now the guy is joking about his final goodbye present to the Celtics. I love the guy.
Now that Cleveland gets the #8 pick in 2018, all that currently remains from the Brooklyn Job is the non-#1 higher of the 2019 Sacramento-Philadelphia picks.
They should have had a long-term (at least for the life of the picks) floor of 8 seed or low lotto at worst, especially in the East. The one thing that could not have been predicted was the complete self-destruction of Deron Williams.
At any given time he was either injured, out of shape, playing poorly, or simply checked out. Many times he was a combination of all of them. Between his contract and those of Lopez and Johnson, they were pretty much cap-stuck. They needed him to be great, or even just good, because as it stood he was both unplayable and unmoveable. And by the time it was clear that he had torpedoed the team, it didn’t make sense for them to do anything but try to rebuild ASAP.
Billy King was the gatekeeper, but Deron was the key master...or something.
I feel like I could write a book about those Nets.
At any given time he was either injured, out of shape, playing poorly, or simply checked out. Many times he was a combination of all of them. Between his contract and those of Lopez and Johnson, they were pretty much cap-stuck. They needed him to be great, or even just good, because as it stood he was both unplayable and unmoveable. And by the time it was clear that he had torpedoed the team, it didn’t make sense for them to do anything but try to rebuild ASAP.
Billy King was the gatekeeper, but Deron was the key master...or something.
I feel like I could write a book about those Nets.
Your comments on Williams reminded me of this article.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2744678-deron-williams-is-not-in-the-nba-and-he-doesnt-seem-to-care
Brooklyn related quotes:
Williams feels he has been burned multiple times in the press, particularly by the New York media. There was the time he raved about living in New York City to local lifestyle publication Resident but admitted he faced challenges in sending his four young children to different schools. "It was a tough situation, but that doesn't even matter," he said of a resulting New York Post article. "The title of the story is like 'I don't like New York.'"
He also scoffs at circumstantial stories constructed by "sources." In one instance, he reportedly argued with coach Jason Kidd in practice. That resulted in their playing one-on-one to settle it. In another, Deron decided to coach practice after Avery Johnson was fired.
Prokhorov really had very little to do with it, and they didn't "tank". Deron Williams' career was killed by injuries (and his lack of a strict workout regimen) and they had no way of luring free agents to replace Pierce and Garnett.
So the managment just stopped thinking about the draft picks as they were gone and went into asset accumulation mode. It was the team's only shot at improving. So they took on other team's mistakes in exchange for draft picks hoping to uncover late round finds, took on reclamation projects, made aggressive bids on restricted free agents, etc..
There really wasn't another option for the Nets with all those picks gone. Given the starting point, they haven't done a bad job.
The Nets now own all of their future 1st round draft picks for the first time since 2012.
They do however owe their 2018, 2019, and 2020 2nd round picks (to be fair, they are receiving 2 second round picks in 2018 and 2019)