The 2010-2011 NBA season for the New Jersey Nets went as expected. There was no playoff berth, no hope of a winning season, and no real chance of making any noise whatsoever in the Eastern Conference. Instead, this year was defined as a “transitional year,” one that saw the Nets starting to make moves to get out of the mediocrity that has beleaguered this team since the end of the Jason Kidd era.
The team had its ups, its downs, its positives, its negatives. For one, they doubled last season’s win total. And for what it’s worth, it may not seem like much for this team considering they still only won 24 games, but doubling your win total from the previous season is a huge achievement. Imagine if your team won 25 games last season, and they doubled that this season. They’d win 50. It just shows how horrible the Nets were in 2010, that they won 24 games this year and that figure being exactly double what they had last year. Yet the Nets had more positives to draw on from this season.
Believe it or not, there was much that went right for the Nets in 2011. They saw excellent play from two players that needed to have great seasons: Anthony Morrow and Kris Humphries. Humphries had a breakout season especially, getting a career-high 29 double-doubles this season. He started slow, losing his starting job to the now departed Derrick Favors, but with improved and stellar play off the bench, coupled with the trade of Derrick Favors, Humphries earned his way back into the starting lineup. Having never finished a season averaging a double-double, Humphries finally did that this season, finishing the year with 10 PPG and 10.4 RPG. Those numbers blow away any other numbers he has had during the course of his career, making him, in my mind, a candidate for Most Improved Player of the Year. However, I think he will be a long shot for the award because of the futility of the Nets, and that will be a huge shame.
Anthony Morrow also had a stellar year for the Nets. He started strong, then slumped, missed a couple of stretches during the season with injuries, and then got hot at the end of the season once Deron Williams arrived. In 11 less games this season than what he saw in 2010, he averaged more PPG at 13.2, which at this point in his three year career, is a career-best. His overall FG% and his 3-pt FG% were down wehen compared with his first two seasons in the league, but he still came up big in the clutch numerous times for the Nets, hitting clutch 3s that either forced OT or won games for the Nets.
Another bright spot for the Nets this season was their defense. After having one of the worst defenses in team history in 2010, the 2011 version of the Nets defense was much better. Make no mistake, the Nets still have a long way to go defensively, and at times they were manhandled by individual players or teams, especially at the end of the season. But they were 15th in PPG allowed (100.4), they finished 19th in FG% allowed (46.5), and they finished 17th in RPG (40.8), and 20th in RPG allowed (41.7). Those were improvements of 1.1 PPG from 2010, a 5.2% improvement on FG% allowed, 1.1 RPG, and an improvement of 2.3 RPG allowed from 2010. So the defense made strides, even though they fell 2.5 percentage points short of their ultimate goal of 44% defensive FG%.
With an improving defense, and Humphries and Morrow stepping up to help out the superstars of Brook Lopez and Deron Williams, the future of the Nets looks bright. Yet with all positives, come negatives, and the Nets had plenty of those.
When you lose 58 games, alot goes bad for you. And for the Nets, there was a slew of things that went wrong. First, we begin with the most obvious: the decline of the rebounding prowess of Brook Lopez. His rebounding totals went way down, and he didn’t even get his first double-double until the 19th game of the season. He had 11 games where he had 10+ rebounds, and 10 of them were when he registered all 10 of his double-doubles. He finished with a career-high 20.4 PPG for the season, but a career low 6.0 RPG, and it was more than 2 RPG lower than in either of his 2 previous years.
Now there can be many reasons for the down numbers in the rebounding department, but the prime reason is that Kris Humphries was crashing the boards so much that it
didn’t give Brook Lopez alot of opportunities to grab the board. Yet there were other times this season when I noticed that Brook Lopez would be the only Nets player in a position to grab a rebound, and he just slacked off. Brook Lopez has to be more aggressive defensively in the paint, and learn how to box out better. Sure, Kris Humphries can clean up the boards, but if Brook Lopez wants to be the dominant big man that I believe he can be, he must be able to rebound alot. It will be crucial to the future success of the Nets.
Another area that the Nets struggled with was offense. When they traded Devin Harris and Derrick Favors to Utah for Deron Williams, the Nets were 28th in offense. With how well Deron Williams can distribute the ball, there was a general consensus around the Nets organization that the offense would dramatically improve. It did, but only in games Deron Williams actually played in. In the D-Will era, the Nets went 7-18, and D-Will missed half of those games due to injury, rest, or the birth of a child. So for all the offense the Nets got with him on the floor, they did worse with him off the floor. As a result, their offensive ranking didn’t budge from 28th.
But just as their PPG kept rising with D-Will on the floor, so did their points allowed. The Nets had countless games with D-Will where they cracked 100, but they’d allow 120, 136, 115, or some other exorbitant point total. So just as the offense got better, the defense got worse. The Nets need to straighten that out for next season, or acquriing Deron Williams will have meant nothing.
Lackadaisical play also contributed to the woes of the Nets. There were times this season where they looked like they didn’t want to be bothered playing a game. They would show no hustle, and sometimes no heart. Now with the season being strenuous, I unsderstand sometimes fatigue sets in. But that’s where conditioning comes in. A well-conditioned athlete can handle the rigors of the season. And if the Nets are well-conditioned, they can hustle every game, and while they won’t win every game, they’d at least be competitive.
Injuries played a role. Promising rookie sensation Damion James was seemingly injured at every turn, depsite never having an injury history in college. If the Nets would have been able to utilize a healthy Damion James at certain spots this season, they may have won a few more games. Anthony Morrow, Devin Harris, Jordan Farmar, and Deron Williams also saw shortened playing time due to injury, none of which contributed to the success of the team.
There is one more area of analysis we need to look at, and that is the ugly.
There were so many areas of ugly is hard to pick out the ones that stand out the most, but I can think of two: turnovers, and Travis Outlaw. Turnovers killed the Nets in so many ways, and in the vast majority of games, they committed more turnovers than the opposition. And one clear example of a game the Nets should have won but didn’t due to sloppy play was the game televised on ESPN in early Arpil against the Knicks. The Nets lost that game 120-116, but led by double digits for most of the game. However, 4 consecutive turnovers in the second half all led to Knicks points, and before you knew it, the Knicks were back in the game. The mark of a champion is to have excellent ball control. The Nets need to focus on controlling the turnovers next season, and also creating more opportunities off of opposing turnovers.
Then there is the really ugly: Travis Outlaw. After being the “big signing” that the Nets got this offseason, getting a lucrative 5-year, $35M contract, Outlaw was largely a bust this year. He had career lows in shooting percentage and 3-pt shooting percentage, at 37.5% and 30.2%, respectively, and he only averaged 9.2 points per game over 82 games, which was just a touch over his 9.1 from last year when he played in only 59 games.
For a guy that was supposed to be an everyday starter, he started only about two-thirds of the games. And when he came off the bench, he was largely ineffective. The Nets need quality play from their swingman if they ever expect to get back to the playoffs. Outlaw was envisioned to be a part of their success, hence his contract, but he hasn’t been much of a factor.
…acquire a power forward and a shooting guard or small forward. Why a power forward, you ask? Well as much as I like the progression of Kris Humphries, I think his 10 points and 10 rebounds could do wonders coming off the bench. If the Nets spent the offseason getting a quality power forward that can start and help Brook Lopez down low, not only would the Nets add depth, but it would make them a serious contender for offensive and defensive post presence. A quality PF might also keep Deron Williams in town a bit longer, which would help the long-term success of the franchise.
Some key power forwards that the Nets might want to go after are Zach Randolph, David West, and Jeff Green. All are playmakers, and all will make an impact on the PF position. Having Humphries come off the bench would add depth to that position, and since Humphries can also play the 5 spot, it will make him a more versatile piece off the bench. Signing Humphries is a top priority for the Nets, and it should be.
But I also noticed another area of weakness for the Nets, and that is at one of the wing positions. The Nets have a talented shooter in Anthony Morrow and he has been a huge beneficiary of the arrival of Deron Williams. But Sasha Vujacic, while getting off to a strong start after being traded from the Lakers, wasn’t as effective towards the end of the season unless Jordan Farmar was on the floor. Since he has a good repore with Farmar from ther Laker days, it only makes sense to have Vujacic come off the bench, not start, and be on the floor when Farmar is out there. Then the Nets can go and either get a SG or SF to play at SF since Morrow will be the SG. Some candidates would be Tayshaun Prince, Caron Butler, Thaddeus Young, Jason Richardson, or Shane Battier.
The starting lineup would then be D-Will, Lopez, Morrow, and any combination of the players listed above (if the Nets can land them). That would be a higher quality starting lineup, while also producing a higher quality bench that would see Farmar, Vujacic, and Humphries headlining the bench.
The Nets also need to dump Dan Gadzuric and Brendan Wright, the players sent over from Golden State in the Troy Murphy trade, and the Nets need to find a way to trade Johan Petro and get the other team to take over his contract. This would open further cap space for the Nets, allowing them to get more pieces for their bench. Right now, I am peering very far into the future, especially with a lockout looming, but if the Nets do all of this, they will be well on their way to keeping D-Will long term, as well as putting themselves within championship contention in the 5-year plan that Prokhorov laid out for this team.
In short, it was another long year for the Nets. But the offseason is coming, and with it, another chance to make this team playoff worthy.
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