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Overall
Win/Loss Record (as of November 30th): 4-12, fourth place Atlantic
Division
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6
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This Month:
29
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Team
Statistics and League Rank
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Individual
Statistical Leaders
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SDH’s Worst of the Month: +Kevin Garnett
 After a rather reasonably solid season in his last year in Boston, many expected much of the same from the 38 year old Garnett upon his arrival to Brooklyn; sadly, however, that did not happen. Garnett came into the season looking old, tired and played like a shadow of his former self averaging just under seven points per game while shooting a dreadful career low .371 from the field. Now the Brooklyn Nets are now stuck with an deteriorating, washed up, and over the hill player for not just this year, but the next as he is owed a ridiculously whopping 24$ over the next two seasons. Many blasted +Boston Celtics GM Danny Ainge for basically giving Garnett away for what was believed to be pennies to the dollar, but as it turned out, he got the better of that deal and it is the Nets that have the burden of carrying the erroneous contract extension that he originally signed KG to in the first place. From being considered as one of missing pieces for a championship run has not become a sad long standing reminder of the failure that the Nets have been thus far. |
SDH’s First of the Month: +Mason Plumlee
 Many expected this rookie who was a low first round pick in last summer's draft be spending most of his debut season on the bench as he was supposed burried under the depth chart with a roster of talented veteran bigs. Luckily for Mason Plumlee, good fortune managed to shine his way with the early season injury of star Brook Lopez and the rather sad display of effort that his predecessors have given on the court. Plumlee can in fact be considered as one of the few bright spot of this rather pathetic Brooklyn team as has provided more energy and leadership in his 17 minutes of playing time per game than the rest of the front court on his team. Coming off the bench, he has averaged seven points and four rebounds per game while making a unconscious .690 efficiency on the floor. If the Nets manage to climb themselves out of the huge hole that they have made for themselves, than much of the credit of their turn around would have to go to Mason Plumlee--the sole consistent and reliable player and this shameful excuse of a team. |
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Somewhere in Moscow, Nets owner Mikhail Prohkov must be seething in anger watching the team that he is paying nearly 200$ million for this season alone to be faltering the way that it has been and plotting not just fire his team's manager Billy King, but to literally set his aflame while he runs screaming out the doors of the +Barclays Center. King has certainly made a huge mess of things because not only are the players that he hand picked to lead the Nets to championship glory are under performing, but he virtually sold the farm in making sure his vision become a reality. Not only did he acquire up to 100$ million in players' contract that the team will be stuck with for the next two or three years, but he gave away the team's next two first round draft picks ensuring that it will never have any chance of getting better in the near future. To go along with the near 75$ million dollar that the team will have to swallow over the next three years for a grossly overpaid player in Joe Johnson, whose best basketball playing years are just about done, King added another 30$ million in useless over the hill players in Garnett and Paul Pierce. Add the fact that 36$ million of his team owners money has been sitting idle as three of the team's key players--namely, Brook Lopez, Deron Williams, and Andrei Kirilenko--have missed a bulk of the regular season thus far due to injuries, it is little wonder how King, the orchestrator of this awful mess, is not sitting at the bottom of the East River wearing a pair of cement shoes or have yet to see his lifeless corpse to wash upon the Jersey Shore. In retrospect, however, one can see the reasoning and virtue behind King's gambles which have all but crippled this team for years to come as the Nets had come off a less than spectacular finish last season winning just 48 games in the regular season while being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs as well. King needed to shake this up and what better way to do that than to trade for two future Hall of Famer candidates who boast two NBA Finals appearances and a championship ring to boot. Sure he would be taking 33$ million in additional salary to go along with his already balooning 80$ million payroll, but he also managed to relieve the team of bad contracts sending free agent failures +Kris Humphries and +Gerald Wallace to the Celtics. In acquiring Garnett and Pierce, King, as many believed at the time, all but guaranteed another strong playoff run adding two although wuite overpriced piece to an already solid core of Williams, Lopez, and Johnson. Unfortunately everything fell apart upon the commencement of the regular season as both Pierce and Garnett both showed signs of their advancing age to compound upon the loss of both Williams and Lopez at the start of the season. Even King's rather unwise selection of +Jason Kidd as head coach over much more qualified candidates can be viewed with some justification since Kidd not only had a strong history with the franchise, but also considered one of the smartest minds in basketball. Looking back in recent years, the track record for NBA players who go straight to coaching without any prior experience has been rather positive to say the least with the most prominent examples being Larry Bird in Indiana, Doc Rivers in Orlando, and most recently Mark Jackson in Golden State. Plus, he would have been set with a team of veterans who have achieved great personal heights as professional and have strong reputations of being winners thus the transition would not be as difficult as any other coach starting out in the league. Who would have guessed that Jason Kidd upon arriving in the coaching seat would act as a deer trapped in headlights or his team would come out on the court looking more like washed up has-beens rather than a the winners that they were expected to be? So far the only highlight in Kidd's career was that stunt he pulled late in one game where he told one of his players to bump him forcing him to drop his drink on the court and lead to a delay of game and as his team continues to struggle, so will his credibility as an NBA coach. The plight of the Nets just goes along with all the drama that has been occurring in professional sports in the Big Apple as both the city's NBA teams have come out stumbling out the gates with the +New York Knicks making both them an the Nets the two biggest disappointment of this young NBA season. Both the Nets and Knicks not only sport the two worst records in the eastern conference, but two of the highest payrolls to boot with Manhattan based team following the same example as its Brooklyn predecessor buying big name only to see them falter in the end. They also share the same financial constraints being locked into very expensive dead weight contracts in which neither can get out of nor the cap space or draft picks to get any chance of getting any better. Both teams essentially sold the farm when it came to the future sending away valuable first round picks to focus on winning now; however, in both cases both their investments fell through leaving them in a situation where they have no choice but to push through and try to salvage the season instead of simply tanking the season because neither team have the draft picks to justify such a move. It all points to the sad state of professional sports currently in the Big Apple where not only its NBA team, but also its +NFL and Major League Baseball team have suffered their own setbacks as well; however, that is for another story to be written about. Fortunately for the Nets, the situation is not as dire as it may seem as it is still early in the season and once their players return on the court from injury, they can still potentially make a strong run for the rest of the season. Add the fact that the Eastern Conference is so terrible that the Nets, despite their sad record are still within an arm's reach for the Atlantic Division title as the current leader, the +Toronto Raptors, only have a three game lead ahead of them. Regardless, even if the Nets manage to pull through and finish the season respectably, they will still fail to live up to the lofty expectations placed upon themselves of winning an NBA championship. Both the +Miami HEAT and +Indiana Pacers are simply too strong to handle and with how sluggishly they have played thus far, the Nets will be lucky enough to even pass the first round, let alone contend to represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals; however, that is right now too far away for the Nets right now. Right now the focus should be about getting to .500 as they are nine games away from that mark before they set any more lofty goals that they simply will not reach. |
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Thursday, December 12, 2013
SDH Presents the NBA's Worst to First for November: 29. Brooklyn Nets
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