Another First for Dooling...But More Bittersweet

He is everything for this team. I really hope that Alston remains 3rd string.

RIP

Dooling’s great. Alston shouldn’t play a second. Package Rafer Alston + Sean Williams together and you should be able to get something.

Alston would be better off somewhere else.
May have to throw in a 2nd round pick and some cash considerations (to be repaid by Proky).

Please get one of the 4-5 Physical PF’s that were passed on during the offseason and Nets would be fine.

How about Leon Powe (coming back in two months). Imagine adding either Powe or Bass and all those close games become easy wins.

The nets have better talent than you guys want to give them credit for. Its was really all on the coach. I can’t think of one player that liked playing for Frank, sorry 2. I’m sure Hassell loved the guy.

Kiki can still reach Frank last season record this year.

So glad we are getting Dooling back. He is the leader on this team, the guy all the young players look up to. He plays great defense, distributes the ball well, and he can get into the lane and score. I am hoping he hits his threes at the same rate he did last season, but to me that is a question mark because that was a career type year shooting 3’s for him last season and he had never shot that well prior to last season.

@Chris2
Of course you are right. Alston, who other than Lebron has the only triple double in the NBA this season, will be fine once he gets some rest. He was available last night, but Kiki chose not to play him.

Harris captain???? I feel CDR and keyon more vocal than harris! Keyon would make a great coach someday!!

Alston should be traded…he is useful on other teams. Dooling is very important to this team IMO

Alston IS fine. That’s why he should be traded while he has value to a competing team.

Dooling on the other hand is perfect for the Nets. He has finally come into his own, on a perfect team for him, with young players whom he can teach and lead.

Last year he played his most minutes in his career. He took more 3pt shots than in his previous 3 1/2 years so last year’s percentage is a more reliable marker of what to expect going forward. Maybe he has just become a better shooter, just as everyone believes that JKidd is a better shooter these days. They just work hard at it.

Coaches all say that PGs take many years to learn their position. Could it be that Dooling is just now entering his prime (age 29 vs. 33 for Alston) and the Nets are lucky to have him as a reserve with an affordable contract for next year.

And Dooling appears to have recovered nicely from his surgery.

I would like to see a poll of Nets fans on whom to keep, Dooling or Alston (LOL)!

Wow! Yeah!
K.Dooling is back in the rotation.
Cannot wait for J.Hayes to get back so he can start at the 3. C.Lee becomes the two guard with the second unit with Dooling.
D.HARRIS/C.D-ROBERTS
K.DOOLING/C.LEE
Now we will have some balance with our rotation of ten.
Good Luck! K.Dooling and welcome back.

GO BROOKLYN NETS! GO BROOKLYN NETS! GO BROOKLYN NETS!

I am not sure if teams would be interested in Alston right now. I think a team that has playoff aspirations needs to have an injury to their point guard…then they may come calling for Alston. What do I want in return? My big wish is to have that team take on Najera, and give us some useless expiring contract. Having Najera on the books for 3 million next year is a bigger deal than it seems at first glance. If we have Prokhy and Brooklyn in place, we will be in a prime position to spend big. We know we can sign one max player, but its that second free agent that will be impacted by Najera. Its 3 million less we can offer a player in the first year of that contract, but with how the contracts are allowed to escalate, providing a starting salary at say 9 million instead of 12 million could be a net difference of 25 million over the course of the contract. I haven’t done the math, but its signifcant. Having Najera on the books could easily be the difference in us being able to get a guy like Boozer to pair up with another max guy. Najera has been the dumbest free agent signing of the Thorn era, when you consider what is at stake here.

Hayes will have to earn his way back to the starting rotation. You can be sure he won’t be starting immediately.

However, Lee is more suited to start at 2-Guard – just look at how good he was from the start yesterday.

CDR may be better as a spark off the bench at 2 or 3. His history shows that his performance is just as good off the bench; plus the Nets need a slasher in the game at all times.

What really counts is total minutes, and on most nights CDR as well as Lee deserve 30+ minutes, depending on how well they are playing.

TWill will need to earn his minutes, by being required to get more points in the point (more dunks, less outside shots). By the end of the year, I expect TWill to be starting at 3 – if LFrank was telling the truth about TWill having a very high basketball IQ?

FYI, Alston was not available last night. They held him out. He was supposed to be available. So the Nets had only 11 players again.

As for Dooling, we don’t know if he will be fine. I don’t see how anyone can says he appears to have recovered nicely from surgery based on a limited appearance in one game. He had major surgery. He said this week it will take him a while to recover his athleticism, not that’s what happened in LA when he hurt his ankle. Dooling is injury prone. Finally, he played great last year, but it was a career year for him. Can he match that performance after major surgery and a longer layoff than anticipated. Remember, he was supposed to be ready for the start of the season.

Finally, he has a $500K guarantee next season. I can see the Nets wanting to trade HIM this season because it frees up more cap space. I cannot imagine them paying him $3.8 million next season. If that’s the case and this season continues to be a disaster, there’s no reason to keep him around after the trade deadline. It’s a business.

@ jerry25 – Why would the Cavs want Rafer Alston?

@ And

Agreed

Trading Dooling for the sake of saving $500K is beyond hilarious. Absolutely ridiculous. This is a key guy to this team and he needs to be kept around after this season. I love to have a vet like him next to those kids.

Alston should be traded. I dont even care that much about what we could get in return. I dont think there’s anybody out there really willing to give up anythin of any significant value for him. He’ss 33 and he’s a FA next summer. I agree w/ Chris2, I hope we could trade Skip and unload Najera’s deal in the process… but I think it’d be really hard. Hopefully we find some sucker who takes Skip and Eddie off our hands.

Unloading Najera is the key to keeping Dooling, who will otherwise be bought out after the year. Letting Dooling walk would be a stupid decision – but one that sounds right up Rod’s alley…

We should keep Keyon as long as he is healthy. I always thought we should have kept Eddie House as well. A cheap option off the bench and had a significant role for our team the one year he was here. He has been a great role player in Boston’s success. I think Keyon can be that guy off the bench as we add more pieces to this team to get better.

Lets just have a poll on Keyon and send the results to Thorn!

Why don’t they ask that question on the team’s home web page (LOL)?
Keyon or Alston? I’ll bet they would have thousands of responses and Keyon would win by 9 to 1.

Keyon is a keeper if he is healthy. He has the value of one of the lesser FA the Nets may have to settle for anyway. He certainly is someone any potential FA would want to have coming off the bench – makes others better and doesn’t complain about PT. He could have 4 more good years.

The Business of Prokhorov is supposed to be about winning.
Ratner was the one who was about saving $ so that team could be sold, rather than truly being interested in spending on FA in 2010.

No trades will get done by Thorn without secretly consulting with Proky or his consultants.

Alston has not shot the ball well this year, so his value is down from last year.

Any Nets fan should love Doooling. He’s a good bench player, a veteran leader that plays with heart, and seems to be a great person with good character.

Alston, though in the twilight, is probably still a pretty decent backup PG in the league and he plays hard, so it’s not fair, to trash him, but Dooling is way more useful to the Nets this year, and I would like him around next year too no doubt. I was very happy to see him in uniform last night.

That said, would it surprise me if one or both of these guys was gone either this or next – not at all. This is the Nets afterall. The fans have no control over it though reading the statements – you get the sense that certain people think they do LOL!!

R.Alston will not be on the team next year.
K.Dooling will be our second unit PG along with him pairing up with C.Lee as his backcourt mate.
T.Williams will be the third guard in the rotation at the point and two position nexyt year.

Our needs will be drafting a PF/C/SF in next years draft.

Jarvis hayes is a long ways away from getting back into the starting lineup. Courtney lee, as we saw last night, has the ability to take over the game and plays good defense. Hayes can’t do much of that when he’s healthy, and he’s gunna be very raw coming off this injury. Don’t expect hayes to be the starter once he comes back.

“Chris Douglas-Roberts who fumed and seethed Wednesday — actually for the better part of 18 defeats — saw everything he wanted to see in his team last night. After charging the Nets lacked toughness and heart, he had no complaints this time.

“I saw hard fouls out there. I saw all of the stuff I was talking about, which was great. I saw everything I was talking about,” Douglas-Roberts said. "We protected the paint. We didn’t let guys just do what they wanted to do. That’s a sign of toughness, so I’m very happy with that.

“I saw a lot of guys who looked like new guys out there so I’ll have to introduce myself to these new guys.”

That mentality has been missing from this team for years. Good to see.

In an ESPN chat, they mentioned something about Keyon Dooling possibly going to the Lakers for Adam Morrison. Could this have something to do with 2010?