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The real reasons for our 10-21 start last season.

The poor start

After last summer we all had very high expectations. We added 2 future Hall of Famers in Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to our already existing core trio of stars: Deron Williams, Brook Lopez and Joe Johnson.

Clearly, the Nets played horrible for the first 2 months of last season. When Brook went down for the whole season it was all doom and gloom.

They managed to turn their season around in 2014, when Shaun Livingston was inserted to the starting lineup at SG, and JJ, Pierce and KG were all shifted forward by one position to SF, PF and C respectively.

The debatable reasons

Based on this, most Nets fans came to the conclusion that KG can not play PF anymore, and JJ is more of a SF than a SG.

While those claims are not totally baseless, as KG is indeed more effective as a center, and JJ is obviously not a speed demon, I think the 10-21 start can not be used as proof that they can not play effectively at their original positions anymore.

I actually believe that KG is still the best PF on our team, and JJ is clearly our best option to start at SG.

I can agree that Pierce can not really defend the SF position anymore, but I debate KG not being able to defend PFs, or JJ not being able to defend SGs.

The main reason for the 10-21 start was not our players playing out of position.

The real reasons for the slow start were injuries and rust (plus Kidd needing time to adjust to caching, but I'm not touching that topic).

Rust

KG and Pierce are notoriously slow starters every season, but last year they took it to a new level:

For the month of November KG shot 44 of 123 (35%) from the field in 14 games. TS% of 37.
Pierce shot 52 of 147 (35%) from the field also in 14 games.
He got to the line more, and hit some threes, so his TS% was 48.

Basically the 2 hall of famers from Boston combined to shoot 96 of 270 from the field in 14 games.
That averages out at 6.8/19.3 shooting per game for the 2 of them…
7/20 is pretty horrible for one game, but these guys managed to average that for a whole month…

Pierce picked up the slack for December, when he often came off the bench and raised his TS% to 61.
KG took a bit longer, and he was still horrible in December at 42%TS, but he also returned to his normal self in January and February with 57% FG shooting ~60%TS

We all remember the minute restrictions on D-Will for the first month of the season. He was struggling with his ankles, and played only 24 minutes per game in the first month, with TS% under 50. (for the rest of the season he was also back up around 60%TS).

Injuries

In that horrible 31 game span:

With the full starting lineup healthy, we played 11 games, we went 5-6
(8 of those 11 games were the first 8 games of the season, with PP, KG and Deron struggling, we went 3-5 in those 8)
With 1 starter missing we played 8 games, went 2-6 (always Brook)
with 2 starters missing we played 11 games, went 3-8
with 4 starters missing, we played 1 game, and we went 0-1

Brook missed 14 games, we went 3-11 in those
Deron missed 11 games, we went 3-8 in those
Pierce missed 5 games, we went 2-3 in those
KG missed 3 games, we lost all 3
JJ missed one, we lost it.

AK was out the whole time, so we could never insert him to start, altough he was exactly what we needed with his length, defense, basketball IQ, and ability to play off the ball.
It was mostly AA (13), SDot (9), Mirza (6), Blatche (5), Evans (5), even Tayshon Taylor (3) starting.

Here is the full breakdown of games if anyone is interested in the details:

nov:
1 – L at Cle – full starting lineup
2 – W vs Mia – full starting lineup
3 – L at Orl – full starting lineup
4 – W vs Uta – full starting lineup
5 – L at Was – full starting lineup
6 – L vs Ind – full starting lineup
7 – L at Sac – full starting lineup
8 – W at Phx – full starting lineup
9 – L at LAC – brook deron kg pierce injured - sdot, aa, blatche, evans starting
10 – L vs Por – brook deron injured - sdot, evans starting
11 – L at Cha – brook injured - evans starting
12 – L at Min – brook deron injured - sdot, evans starting
13 – L vs Det – brook deron injured - sdot, blatche starting
14 – W at Tor – brook deron injured - sdot, blatche starting
15 – L vs LAL – brook deron injured - sdot, blatche starting
16 – L at Hou – deron kg injured - sdot, blatche starting
17 – W at Mem – deron pierce injured - taylor, aa starting
dec:
18 – L vs Den – deron pierce injured - taylor, aa starting
19 – L vs NYK – deron pierce injured - taylor, aa starting
20 – W at Mil – deron pierce injured - sdot, aa starting
21 – W vs Bos – full starting lineup (pierce off bench) - aa starting
22 – W vs LAC – full starting lineup (pierce off bench) - aa starting
23 – L at Det – brook injured (pierce off bench) - evans, aa starting
24 – W at Phi – brook injured (pierce off bench) - mirza, aa starting
25 – L at Was – full starting lineup (pierce off bench) - aa starting
26 – L at Phi – joe kg injured - mirza, aa starting
27 – L vs Ind – brook injured (pierce off bench) - mirza, aa starting
28 – L vs Chi – brook injured (pierce off bench) - mirza, aa starting
29 – W vs Mil – brook injured - sdot starting
30 – L at Ind – brook injured - mirza starting
31 – L at SAS – brook injured - mirza starting
jan:
32 – W at OKC – brook injured, Sdot inserted for good, turnaround starts

Conclusion

Basically we will never find out what last year’s team could have done if they have had the chance to mesh together.

What could the Deron - JJ - Pierce - KG - Brook super starting lineup do with an experienced coach and with time to build chemistry? We will never find out... It's important to remember that it never had the chance to be really tested.

I think they would have became a very good team. I'm not saying they would have beaten Miami, but I think it's totally possible.

The upcoming season

As good as last year team "could have been", we might have something just as good on our hands this upcoming season. Andrei Kirilenko is an NBA All-Star himself, but younger, longer, much better defender, and a better off the ball player, therefore a much better fit than Paul Pierce. Many people wanted him to start over Pierce last summer for a good reason.

I think the Deron - JJ - AK - KG - Brook starting lineup has superb potential both defensively and offensively.

- If health is on our side
- Deron and Brook return into the All-Stars that they used tobe
- JJ keeps up his play from last year
- AK and KG are in good shape, and can still play some D
We can reach very high with this team.

We can bring some high octane shooting and scoring off the bench in Jack, Bojan and Mirza,
We also have some athletic, energetic, defensive minded guys on the bench in AA and Plumlee.
If anyone from the Teague-Brown-Karasev-Jefferson-Jordan reserve lineup turns into an NBA player, that's just an added plus.

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