Will Nets set record for NBA futility?

[PhoSita]

Somebody upset because they were wrong. Take it like a man and admit defeat.

I've never once read one of your posts and thought, "That added to the discussion."

[PhoSita]

Haha. There is that, or the alternative of slowly moving the goal posts until the season is over. I've never done a way back bump before because I think the board would be a disaster if everyone did that, but the Nets threads from over the summer may warrant that. The things the advanced stats people were writing look absolutely prophetic right now.

I'm glad it's looking like the Nets will be much worse than the 30 or so wins I thought they'd end up with.

Part of that, all along, was setting expectations low.  Do you know how excited I'll be if the Celts end up with a top pick from the Nets?  As excited as anyone.  The Celts desperately need some luck in the draft to get this rebuild turned around.  But I don't want to let myself believe that will definitely happen until the Nets have already put 30 losses or so in the bank.  That said, if they come close to repeating the 0-18 start they had in 2009, maybe I'll start thinking about what type of champagne I want to buy for lottery night.

Still, I've never quite understood how incredulous people were to the idea that the Nets might actually not be horrible this season.  After all, they started poorly the last two seasons and ultimately made the playoffs.  They were the boring half-court team that somehow kept making it to 40 wins or so and doing better in the playoffs than you'd expect.

Sure, they got rid of Deron Williams, but it's not like Deron was very good for them last year.  Mirza Teletovic?  That guy wasn't doing much to win them games, either, especially since he missed a lot of last season.

But hey, look at how good the Trailblazers are doing, defying expectations.

It must be Mason Plumlee!  He's the key in all of this.

[SHAQATTACK]

Welp the Hawks just lost at home to the Wolfs
 
I doubt they ll be easy on the next opponent.

Nets going down to Altanta are going to get blown out by 50

[kraidstar]

if the nets are really smart (which they've shown no inclination of being), they'll admit that they wrecked their franchise, and will start collecting assets for a rebuild 4 years from now, when they start getting their own picks back.

- trade lopez, thad young, jack, bogdanovic etc for expirings and whatever picks you can get. be willing to accept picks a few years down the road so you can synchronize these picks with your own in 2019. try to negotiate so that those picks are unprotected (or limited protection) in exchange for their being so far down the road, even if some of them are just 2nd-rounders. you get nothing in the short-term, but you get a chance at a much better pick several years from now. make it known you won't be buying out any players, as you can't tank and have nothing to lose by keeping their contracts. so if somebody wants jarrett jack, they'll definitely need to trade for him.

- use JJ's contract and other scraps to take back toxic contracts in exchange for draft picks. use your cap/trade exceptions to help other teams out.

- sign players to short/partially-guaranteed contracts to give other teams cap space via trade

- find underrated bargains in free agency, then, at the trade deadline, flip them for picks to desperate teams who need talent

[PhoSita]

if the nets are really smart (which they've shown no inclination of being), they'll admit that they wrecked their franchise, and will start collecting assets for a rebuild 4 years from now, when they start getting their own picks back.

I think they're far too now-focused as a franchise for that to happen.  Unless Prokhorov decides to simply sell the team for whatever he can get, which might prompt them to get rid of as much future salary as possible.

My feeling is the Nets would prefer bottom-seed playoff appearances in 2017 and 2018 to entering a rebuild phase, especially since they won't be able to mollify fans with the promise of high draft picks until June, 2019 at the earliest.


Also, I just don't see how trying to trade Lopez and Young for whatever they can get (i.e. not very much) would really help them collect assets, aside from opening up more playing time for whatever D-League / 2nd round / undrafted FA types they might try out over the next few years.

Basically, it seems like people in this thread are saying the Nets should go into Sixers mode without having the incentive of a high draft pick each season.  As a Celtics fan, I'd love that, but I don't know why the Nets would do it unless it's to sell the franchise.

[celticsclay]

Haha. There is that, or the alternative of slowly moving the goal posts until the season is over. I've never done a way back bump before because I think the board would be a disaster if everyone did that, but the Nets threads from over the summer may warrant that. The things the advanced stats people were writing look absolutely prophetic right now.

I'm glad it's looking like the Nets will be much worse than the 30 or so wins I thought they'd end up with.

Part of that, all along, was setting expectations low.  Do you know how excited I'll be if the Celts end up with a top pick from the Nets?  As excited as anyone.  The Celts desperately need some luck in the draft to get this rebuild turned around.

Still, I've never quite understood how incredulous people were to the idea that the Nets might actually not be horrible this season.  After all, they started poorly the last two seasons and ultimately made the playoffs.  They were the boring half-court team that somehow kept making it to 40 wins or so and doing better in the playoffs than you'd expect.

Sure, they got rid of Deron Williams, but it's not like Deron was very good for them. 

But hey, look at how good the Trailblazers are doing.

It must be Mason Plumlee!  He's the key in all of this.

Mason Plumlee has actually looked quite serviceable in the few games I have caught of the blazers (they are on national tv a lot and living on the west coast, these are unfortunately the late games are the ones i see the most frequently). I guess the part that I was pretty incredulous of is that there were a lot of statistics that supported the idea of a nets regression. Here are kind of the key points of why I (and linesmakers, and 538 and all national prediction models I could find had the nets in the low to mid 20's for wins)

1) Deron Williams was not a world beater by any stretch of the imagination, but compared to Larkin he is and he can definitely run an NBA offense a lot better. Williams Jack versus Larkin Jack is one of the biggest downgrades at a position this offseason mainly because Jack is not starting quality and Larkin has not shown any evidence he belongs in the NBA. Having a point guard play that can at least competently run a few plays is really critical in the NBA. The numbers were there last season to support this in their record and numbers when he did not play.

2) They lost some rotation caliber rotation players and did not replace them with anyone leaving them with a horrible bench. For whatever reason Plumlee fell out of favor in the second half of the season, but he had showed a lot of promise his rookie season and in the beginning of this year. Right now he is averaging 10 points per game, 8 rebounds a night and a block in 27mpg. Compared to the Nets backup bigs this was a huge downgrade. Alan Anderson is also a proven playoff rotation caliber guy. He is again playing heavy rotation minutes for a playoff team in Toronto providing some pop off the bench and solid defense. You look at the Nets bench unit in any of their games and they just get obliterated anytime they come in. Perhaps this would not have been so bad with plumlee and anderson at least playing NBA caliber defense and cleaning the glass (then consider having Jack in with that unit instead of Larkin)

3) They had an unusually good record in close games last year. If you had read stat based analysis of basketball or football these close records wins often regress to the mean (Barnwell has written some great columns on this in the defunct Grantland).

4) They were relying on two players on the back 9 of their career for heavy minutes including one guy that is leaving the 17th green in Johnson. Of all the assumptions people said over the summer it is pretty hard to not feel the claims of Johnson being a near all-star recently were just flat out dumb. The dude is 35. This is what happens to 35 year old players, particularly small forwards. He can not keep playing 32 minutes forever effectively like some sort of cyborg.

I was not trying to really make this personal about you. A "I probably got a little hard headed on some of these points" post from you isn't going to make or break my day or week. However, if you do look back at the 4 points I have made here, they were made repeatedly by some very astute posters in much greater detail than I made them. I think those posters deserve some credit for that and conversely it would be cool if people that were on the far end of it could acknowledge it.

[PhoSita]

I was not trying to really make this personal about you. A "I probably got a little hard headed on some of these points" post from you isn't going to make or break my day or week. However, if you do look back at the 4 points I have made here, they were made repeatedly by some very astute posters in much greater detail than I made them. I think those posters deserve some credit for that and conversely it would be cool if people that were on the far end of it could acknowledge it.

I think I've been fairly consistent in basing my expectations for the Nets this season on the fact that the Eastern Conference stinks, and has stunk for awhile, and that in a league with plenty of teams happy to tank the second half of the year away, it's hard to end up with a bottom record if you have no such incentive.

In other words, intangible stuff.

I appreciate that the statistics, looking-at-them-on-paper approach justified a gloomier outlook for the team.  So far, that's been borne out in how the season has begun.  I truly, deeply, hope that continues.  I really, really want to be wrong.

As I posted in a different thread, though, if you look at teams that have started out 0-7 or worse over the last 10-15 years, some of them have ended up well below 20 wins, and a good number have finished with 25-29 wins.  A couple even made it to 40+.  So it's still early.

You're right that the Nets won a lot of close games last season.  Part of that is luck, and expecting a regression makes sense (though, funny, nobody seems to apply that to the Celts when predicting 45-50 wins). 

At the same time, the Nets are a boring, grind-it-out half-court team, as befits their most talented player and their coach.  That lends itself to close wins.  It also lends itself to beating up on younger teams that tend to fall apart when the going gets tough late in a close game.

I still think the Nets will ultimately benefit from that.


But, there are two caveats.  One that I've consistently allowed for, and one that I admit, I did not consider until recently.

First, Lopez might suffer another foot injury after playing a lot of minutes last year and at the start of this season.  If he's out for a while, the Nets will take a dive.  To be honest, I think the vast majority of posts I read about how the Nets were going to stink were premised on that idea, first and foremost, not so much the in-depth, detailed, astute analysis you're talking about.


Second, if the Nets go through an admittedly tough opening stretch to the season and end up losing all or almost all of their first 20-25 games, the negativity of that losing spiral could sink the team and prevent them from ever righting the ship enough to put together a month or two of .500 or better basketball.  That's the thing I didn't consider until recently.  That definitely seems in play right now.


By the way, I like Mason Plumlee, and I'm aware he's doing well for the Blazers.  I'm glad to see it.  I never really understood why the Nets gave him up like they did.  I guess it was a cost-saving measure.

[tankcity!]

Somebody upset because they were wrong. Take it like a man and admit defeat.

I've never once read one of your posts and thought, "That added to the discussion."

And yet I was right about the Nets and you weren't. What am I supposed to do? Make crazy predictions and look like a fool. You and Lbrrd make this forum entertaining, but let's not get it construed that you're intellectual beings bringing some insightful thoughts into the discussion. Sorry, I'd rather be right, lol.

[PhoSita]

but let's not get it construed that you're intellectual beings bringing some insightful thoughts into the discussion.

Yep, clearly the insightful thoughts and intelligent construing is all your doing, buddy.

[tankcity!]

but let's not get it construed that you're intellectual beings bringing some insightful thoughts into the discussion.

Yep, clearly the insightful thoughts and intelligent construing is all your doing, buddy.

Okay...You clearly didn't see that Joe Johnson was aging and that an older Jarrett Jack was their starting PG in an era where they threes are more valuable than two point shots. They don't have a bench, and Lionel Hollins isn't a game changing coach. Not to mention the fact that the players have no motivation to win since the roster stinks. Is that enough detail for you? I'm sorry I don't write detail posts, but it's just a waste of time when I know time will only tell that I'm right.

[Lucky17]

By the way, I like Mason Plumlee, and I'm aware he's doing well for the Blazers.  I'm glad to see it.  I never really understood why the Nets gave him up like they did.  I guess it was a cost-saving measure.

I guess the Nets were thinking that if Lopez is under contract for the next couple of years, better to deal the backup center for a shot at a potential starting wing defender (RHJ).

[Monkhouse]

I hope so, for the Celtics sake.

[PhoSita]

I'd be lying if I said that part of my motivation in pumping the brakes a bit on the whole "THE NETS ARE GIVING US A TOP 5 PICK THIS YEAR!" train all summer wasn't a desire to manage expectations and not set myself up for disappointment, plus a dash of disappointment over how the off-season went.

I don't think I've ever stated a belief that they have a terribly great chance of making the playoffs, though, so I resent a little bit getting lumped in with LarBrd, who I think got some chuckles out of trumpeting the argument that the Nets had a better chance of making the playoffs than the Celtics, thereby igniting the forum indignation he seems to so greatly enjoy.

[tankcity!]

I'd be lying if I said that part of my motivation in pumping the brakes a bit on the whole "THE NETS ARE GIVING US A TOP 5 PICK THIS YEAR!" train all summer wasn't a desire to manage expectations and not set myself up for disappointment, plus a dash of disappointment over how the off-season went.

I don't think I've ever stated a belief that they have a terribly great chance of making the playoffs, though, so I resent a little bit getting lumped in with LarBrd, who I think got some chuckles out of trumpeting the argument that the Nets had a better chance of making the playoffs than the Celtics, thereby igniting the forum indignation he seems to so greatly enjoy.

I lumped you in with LarBrd because I thought you both had the Nets in the 12-17 range for lottery picks. If that's not true, then I apologize because I thought that pick would be in the 6-10 range. In fact, barring a Lopez injury, I still think they could fall in the 6-10 range.

[Monkhouse]

The Nets may give us a top 5 pick, but I see that pick landing at 6-10.

The basketball gods hasn't exactly been our best friends.