NetsDaily Off-Season Report #23

This is it, the last Off-Season Report of 2010.  By next weekend, the Nets will be doing two-a-days.  Next weekend  will be PRE-season, no longer OFF-season.  (It does appear, however, that off-season will never end, thanks to Carmelo Anthony.) We take a look at how things could go down if 'Melo Drama gets more interesting; analyze why we expect Devin Harris to have a better and healthier season; take a look at the Nets' plans for a Brooklyn practice facility and how it could help against the Knicks; investigate Moscow practice facilities; read a few basketball annuals and a few overseas reviews of "Just Wright", then offer our final Final Note.

Every Sunday, we’ll be updating the Nets’ off-season with bits and pieces of information, gossip, etc. to help take the edge off missing the playoffs, relying on the Nets’ beat reporters and others who have slipped interesting stuff into larger stories, blogs, tweets...plus our own reporting.

How a 'Melo deal could go down

When Rod Thorn was negotiating with Rob Babcock of the Raptors about Vince Carter in December 2004, Thorn first offered Babcock a choice of 10 players on the Nets roster: anyone but Jason Kidd, Richard Jefferson, Nenad Krstic and Jason Collins, plus any two of the three picks the Nets received in the Kenyon Martin deal five months earlier. To make the salaries work, Alonzo Mourning had to be included.  So Babcock selected Mourning, foolishly thinking he could get 'Zo to mentor Chris Bosh; Aaron Williams and Eric Williams as well as the Nugget pick and the 76er pick from the KMart deal, leaving the Clipper pick to the Nets.

Babcock wanted to include Jerome Moiso in the deal so he wouldn’t have to cut two players in a 3-for-1 deal.  Thorn declined and Babcock cut Roger Mason Jr. before the deal, then Jerome Moiso after. That whole sequence took 48 hours. After the deal was complete, Nets signed Moiso who they cut after a few games. Mourning refused to report to Toronto, claiming injury and he was eventually bought out. Babcock wasn't fired for trading Carter. Ownership wanted VC gone. He was fired for getting such a bad return...thinking that Mourning would leave Miami for Toronto--then having to buy him out; getting two other older players with non-expiring deals. None of the three were young. At the time, Mourning was nearly 35 with kidney disease; Eric Williams who was 33 and Aaron Williams who was 34.  It would have been better if Babock had taken Zoran Planinic, who was only 22.  Finally, he had cut Mason, who turned out to be a pretty good player.

To make matters worse, neither of the first round picks proved particularly valuable. Babcock used the 76er pick to take Joey Graham in 2005 (leaving Danny Granger for the Pacers). Babcock's successor included the Nuggets' 2006 pick in the Jalen Rose salary dump with the Knicks.  It yielded Renaldo Balkman (taken just before Rajon Rondo).  With the remaining pick from the KMart deal, the Nets eventually picked Marcus Williams in 2006.

I suspect that’s how this deal would work, if it’s two-team negotiation: here’s the menu. you can take two from column A, two from column B. The Nuggets will then counter. It's highly unlikely that the Nets would able to get as good a deal as they did with Carter.  We can dream.

Prokhorov Money Watch

The Nets spent some of Mikhail's money this week on jobs that the front office had deemed critical in meetings with him last spring.  In addition to Milton Lee, stats guy, hired at the end of last week, the Nets named Robby Hoenshel as a rehab specialist.  No more outsourcing rehabilitation to people like Leslie Wright.  The team also added its seventh assistant coach, Doug Overton.  Overton, who had been one of Lawrence Frank and Kiki Vandeweghe's assistants, was named Player Development Coach, a role he had filled without the title the last two years.  The team may also have to add another scout, with Roy Rogers perhaps headed to Boston to coach big men. We says perhaps because ESPN Boston says the deal is not done...at least yet.

For the record, the coaching staff consists of head coach Avery Johnson, lead assistant Sam Mitchell and assistants Larry Krystkowiak, Popeye Jones, Tom Barrise, John Loyer and Rich Dalatri (strength and conditioning) plus Overton (player development).  At the end of last season, the Nets had Vandeweghe, Loyer, Rogers and Dalatri.  Barrise had taken refuge in the front office and Overton was on the road as an advance scout.

The Last Hiring

Overton is likely to work closely with the yet unnamed Director of Player Programs, whose responsibility will be to work with young players on off-court issues.  What might that new job look like? Gary Bogdanski was the Nets' equipment manager a few years back. The Nets informally asked him to keep Sean Williams on the straight and narrow.  On the simplest level, Bogdanski encouraged Williams to do the right thing.  That job was close to what the Nets would like to see formalized in a director of player programs.  It's not an easy job.

"Sean is a person with a very good heart and he's a good person, but he's made some mistakes," Bogdanski told Matt McQueeny back in March 2009. "No question. However, the important thing is...to learn from them and make sure they don't happen again. When I was there with the Nets, I was constantly telling Sean 'make the right decisions, be ready, be prepared just in case.' Always whispering in his ear 'do the right thing.'"

Bogdanski, of course, did more than that and whoever gets the new job will as well but that's the idea.  Bogdanski, FYI, is now a player agent.

Living in the City

Henry Abbott of ESPN's True Hoop offered another opportunity for the Nets to steal the Knicks' advantage once the team moves to Brooklyn.   Commenting on a report that Amare Stoudemire won't be living in the city, but rather the suburbs, Abbott wrote:

"I think the Knicks made a huge mistake putting their practice facility in the exclusive suburbs (Greenburgh in suburban Westchester). It's easier to be the city's team if the heroes are people of the city, you know? They're practically forced to live out by the Clintons and all those Wall Street titans. The Nets, on the other hand, once they're in Brooklyn, will be practicing, I have heard, in Brooklyn. If some of them live in Brooklyn, locals are going to love that and make the Knicks look aloof in contrast."

Indeed the Nets will be practicing in Brooklyn, in a gym that will be, along with some team offices, located within Barclays Center.  Moreover, the practice facility will be visible from Atlantic Avenue.  Like the arena floor, the practice gym floor will be 25' below street level.  Fans and other passersby will be able to view the goings-on from the sidewalk...and yes, the vantage point will be close by the ticket booths.  It works on a number of levels although one does wonder what happens if the team is in the playoffs and wants to try out some new sets. 

One other point about Abbott's commentary...the Knicks need help in looking aloof?

Harris as "Muscle Devil"

It's that time of a year when players announce they have put on "15 to 20 pounds of muscle".  Remember Yi Jianlian, Muscle Devil?

Usually, like Yi and Devin Harris, the muscle is seen as a way of improving needed strength and/or avoiding injury. There's a lot of talk on boards about how injury prone Harris is.  We ask compared to who?  If you compare him with the cohort of guards who sacrifice their body by constantly driving to the hole, Harris is no more injury prone than most of the big names.

Here's a list of how many games some players who drive the lane to get to the line have lost over the past five years.

Jameer Nelson -- 95 games lost or 19 a season...with a high of 40 in 2008-09.

Dwyane Wade -- 75 games lost or 15 a season...with a high of 31 in both 2006-07 and 2007-08.

Chris Paul -- 65 games lost or 13 a season...with a high of 37 in 2009-2010.