New Jersey Nets 2010-2011 preview
The New Jersey Nets were bad last year, historically bad. They started the season losing their first 18 games and finished the season with only 12 wins.
Surely that means things can only get better? It seems so as the Nets have made some additions to their roster which should at least help them win 20 games.
Brook Lopez is the franchise’s key building block and if they can add talent around him, the Nets will have a pretty competitive team. But as it stands, attracting that talent is hard when you were so bad the season before and you play in Jersey, even when you’re backed by a Russian billionaire.
Years of bad draft picks and awful contracts have left the Nets in this humiliating position, hopefully new owner Mikhail Prokhorov won’t make the same mistakes.
Off-season moves
The Nets had enough cap room to sign LeBron James and another max free agent but got nowhere near that kind of talent. The biggest moves they made were in the front office and management.
Avery Johnson was hired as head coach, replacing Kiki Vandeweghe who took over head coach duties when Lawrence Frank was fired last season. Vandeweghe was also the general manager of the Nets but was released by Prokhorov.
Johnson, according to reports, will be given power over personnel, and if he gets it wrong that could set the franchise back another few years. Billy King was hired as general manager and if history is anything to go by the Nets will again be cursed with bad contracts. Nets fans must be hoping Johnson has been given more power the King.
New Jersey had the third overall pick in the draft and decided to take Derrick Favours, who will slot in at power forward. He might have to spend some time on the bench first with his talent being raw and the Nets’ acquisition of Troy Murphy.
To get Murphy, the Nets traded Courtney Lee to Houston, and received Troy Murphy from Indiana in a four-team deal. He might not be Amar’e Stoudemire but the 30-year-old will give you a double-double every night and make defences pay close attention to him. There are some flaws, however. One is that he’s not the best defensive player (though he grabs defensive rebounds); last season he only averaged 0.5 blocks per game. Secondly, Murphy is currently sidelined with a back injury and won’t be ready for the start of the season. If that problem continues to bother him then he could miss more than a few games.
Ask people around the league what they think of Travis Outlaw and they’ll tell you he’s a decent enough player. Tell them you’ve just paid him $35 million over the five years and you might get laughed at. At least he’s young.
Anthony Morrow was clearly the best player the Nets signed in free agency. He is a shooter and that’s pretty much it, but he’s a very good one. He’ll help with the Nets’ lack of scoring and with a field-goal percentage of .472 he’s going to score quite a few points in New Jersey.
Other signings: Johan Petro for three years, $10 million; sent Yi Jianlian and $3million to Washington for Quinton Ross; signed Jordan Farmar for three years, $12 million; and signed Stephen Graham and Joe Smith to one-year, veteran's minimum contracts.
Prediction
The Nets did one good thing by not blowing their cap space on panic buys so at least that’s a positive. In Murphy, Lopez, Favours and Devon Harris the Nets have some decent players but there are still some glaring holes that will take time to fix. As a result 25 games looks like the maximum this team can win.
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