The NETS Effect: Kiki is Coming to Town

Having seen Ed Stefanski leave to be General Manager of the 76ers the Nets apparently wanted to bring in more help for Team President Rod Thorn. Today the Nets named Vandeweghe special assistant to the team president in a role that will essentially replace Stefanski. As a Nets fan the question is clear, should you be happy or afraid?

The answer to that question is much less clear and quite frankly I don’t know how to react. Vandeweghe is the same man to draft one of the all time greatest draft busts Nikoloz Tskitishvili. However in the same draft he orchestrated a trade that brought them Nene, and Marcus Camby for a 25^th pick in that draft (which New York took Frank Williams) and Antonio McDyess. Camby being the reigning defensive player of the year you have to say that’s an unquestionably good deal.

He also drafted Carmelo Anothy which I don’t think anyone would question, but considering Anthony was clearly the second best prospect in that draft at the time I don’t know how much credit he gets for it. In 2004 he traded away the rights for Jameer Nelson to Orlando for a 2005 first round pick. The pick turned out to be a number 20 pick which they used on Julius Hodges who’s only claim to fame is having been shot. Not a great move but considering Orlando had won the lottery the previous year I guess the thinking was it would be a higher pick than number twenty.

You could blame him for giving Kenyon Martin a huge contract since Martin has been a bust, however Martin was 26 years old at the time coming off a season averaging 16.7 points and 9.4 boards a game. (nearly a double double) On top of that Martin had improved every season he had been in the league. Can’t really predict a player is going to end up needing micofracture surgery.

So welcome aboard Kiki let’s hope the good you bring to the team outweighs the bad… and stay way from those foreign guys.

The NETS Effect: Sean Williams for ROY?

The Nets a 14 and 16 team overall have won 4 of their last 5 excluding a blowout loss to a hot Pistons team. Not coincidentally those win have come at the same time Josh Boone and Sean Williams have started to play more often. A little know fact that I think only the most educated NBA fans would know is that Sean Williams is currently leading all rookies in PER. Without watching Williams this might be surprising, but having a chance to watch him on a regular basis, it’s not. Simply put the man is a blocked shots machine. Last night he blocked Bogut on a two handed jam. Most people know he’s good at blocking shots, but they might not understand how hard he fights for rebounds. They also might not understand how he’s able to use that athleticism he exhibits defensively to get easy baskets on pick and rolls and with timely off the ball cuts to the hoop. Is Williams the rookie of the year? I don’t know, but he’s been very good.

So with a rookie like Williams and the big three of Carter, Jefferson and Kidd why aren’t the Nets better? Well for one thing Carter hasn’t been very good. He’s been playing better recently, but he’s still not the elite player that deserves 65 million. Second Jason Kidd can’t/refuses to score points. Now his role is not to score it’s to distribute, but in the past he’s scored at least a little bit more than the 11.5 points a game he’s scoring this season. Interestingly in the Nets game Saturday they came up with a close victory against Milwaukee and Kidd made some big shots. When he made some of those plays he showed some legitimate emotion. This is big because it’s one of the few times I’ve seen that on the court from any of the Nets.

The last reason is the fact that their best front court players, Boone and Williams, have so little experience. Josh Boone averaged a grand total of 11 minutes a game last year in his rookie year and will need to learn to shoot free throws. Sean Williams spent a good deal of last year not playing basketball at all after getting kicked off his BC team. While they are very talented players and learning quickly, they simply make some dumb mistakes. Lawrence Frank must have the patience to except that they are young and let them grow because without them they’re probably not talented enough to even make the playoffs.

Stefanski Makes a GREAT Move

Philadelphia 76ers's new GM, Ed Stefanski, has started off his reign in impressive fashion making a GREAT move today. He traded Kyle Korver away for Gordan Giricek and a first round draft pick. Now Giricek sucks, so that part of the move is not what makes it a good move. The first round draft pick is not even what makes it a great as it'll most likely be a late first round pick considering Utah will most likely find a way to make the playoffs. (If I had to guess, Portland will probably slow down and Utah will overtake them.) What makes this a great trade is the amount of cap space and money Stefanski is saving the team over the next three years. While the two players have similar salaries this year, Korver is signed for three years after this season at 4.7 mil, 5.1 mil and 5.5 mil a piece where as Giricek is a free agent after the season. With Chris Webber's 19 mil and Aaron McKie's 7 mil coming off the books next year Philly has aprox 35 million on the books, a full 20 mil under the salary cap. Now if he can find a taker for Andre Miller who is willing to give them an expiring (Kwame Brown?) They'd be down to approximately 26 mil.

Now they'll most likely have to resign Andre Iguodala for somewhere around 10 mil, leaving them potentially 19 million dollars of cap space for trades or free agents. Without trading Miller they'll have somewhere around 10 mil to go after guys like Jermaine O'Neal, Elton Brand, or Gilbert Arenas who have ETO's or Emeka Okafor and Luol Deng who are restricted free agents.

Now it's quite possible none of those guys opt out and it's quite possible the teams with restricted free agents match offer sheets, but at least Philly is giving themselves a chance. As currently constituted Philly isn't going anywhere. Allen Iverson and Louis Williams are nice players, Samuel Dalembert gives them a great defensive presence up front, but stars win championships in the NBA not nice players.

This is not to say it's a bad move for Utah, they could use a good shooter, which Korver has been in the past (not as much this year), and as a team that needed to trade Giricek they didn't do an awful job. But for Philly this is a great move.