The Nets’ four point strategy for asset accumulation has worked – mostly
July 31st, 2018
The Brooklyn Nets’ ill-fated trade for Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett in July 2013 left the team with bleak short, medium and long-term futures. On the court, the pair did not work out. Ageing very quickly after leaving Boston, the two never bettered the team; Brooklyn only got as far as a 44-38 regular season record the season immediately after the trade, which was actually a backwards step on their 49-33 campaign previously, and loafed to a mere 38-44 the season after that. Thereafter, the bottom fell out completely, and the Nets have not cracked 30 wins since. The bigger problem, though, was off the court. To acquire the duo (plus veteran reserve Jason Terry, young forward D.J. White who was soon out of the league, and the #57 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft), the Nets gave up a bevy of assets. They gave up unprotected firsts in all of 2014, 2016 and 2018, and only because of the rule (colloquially named the Stepien Rule) that prevents teams from leaving themselves without a first-round pick in consecutive future seasons were they able to keep a first-round pick in 2017. Even then, though, they traded the right to swap it. In total, this trade cost Brooklyn all of James Young (#17, 2014), Jaylen Brown (#3, 2016), Markelle Fultz (#1, 2017; or Jayson Tatum at #3 if you’d prefer) and Collin Sexton (#8, 2018). With all due respect to Aleksandar Vezenkov, the saving grace of the #57 pick in 2017 coming back the other way probably doesn’t salve the pain much. And that was a lot to pay for no discernible improvement. Ever since that trade, the team has been in a quagmire, with an assets cupboard barer than any asset cupboard should ever be, and no obvious way out of […]
2010 Summer League Rosters: Philadelphia 76ers
July 6th, 2010
Ryan Brooks Ryan Brooks is a shooting guard whose nose is a different colour to the rest of his body. He just graduated from Temple, where he led the team in scoring in his senior season with 14.6 points per game. He also chipped in 4.2 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game, while turning it over only 1.2 times, an incredibly solid number. He’s a solid all-around player and a quality college guard; unfortunately, there’s nothing that stands out about his game. Brooks is slightly undersized, a mediocre athlete, a crafty scorer but not a standout shooter, an interested and pretty effective defender without the physical tools to be so at the next level, a man who doesn’t make many mistakes but who doesn’t create much either. That’s a summer league calibre player, but not an NBA calibre player. Not at 6’4, at least. But he’ll make some money in Europe. Ndudi Ebi Sandwiched amongst all their vetoed Timberwolves first rounders from the Joe Smith debacle came Ndudi Ebi, a half-British man who was a first-round draft pick of the team in 2003 out of high school. He did not justify his draft billing and failed to even get to the third season of his rookie contract, but not before a shambolic a moment that saw the Timberwolves ask the NBA if they could send Ebi down to the D-League for his third season, in circumvention of the rule that states only rookies or sophomores can be assigned by teams to the D-League. Their justification for the request? Ebi hadn’t played much, and thus didn’t really have two years experience. The NBA denied the request, and Ebi was waived to accommodate the incoming Ronald Dupree. After leaving the NBA, Ebi spent a couple of years in the D-League (fittingly), playing […]
Loosely-Informed Thoughts on Ohio State and Purdue Right Now
February 5th, 2009
I have watched a game and a half of Ohio State’s season in this past week, and I feel as though that makes me an expert on everything about them. – The half a game comes from the second half of the Buckeye’s game versus Indiana on Saturday. When we (and by “we”, I mean “the entire nation of England”) joined the game, Indiana was losing by one, 59-58. God knows how, because they proceeded to show nothing at all. They had no big men, no defence, no inside game, no slashing, no spacing, and their guards just took it in turns to hoist up threes. This from the worst three-point shooting team in the conference, apparently. Still, guard Matt Roth’s performance will linger with me for a while; unlike everybody else, Roth could actually hit a three, and proved this by hitting nine of them, each from further away than the last. It was an impressive shooting performance, to say the least, and it kept Indiana in a game in which they were otherwise wildly overmatched. If ever I encounter Matt Roth again in my life, this will be the first thing that I think of. (I looked up Matt Roth on ESPN after this, to see if he was any good. He wasn’t, but I did find something fun; Roth is 40/96 on the season from three-point range, 11/13 from the free throw line….and 3/10 from two-point range. Nice. Daequan Cook is jealous.) There was literally nothing else to report from Indiana’s point of view, who are as undermanned as you’d heard they are. – Ohio State’s seven-man rotation featured a starting line-up of Jeremie Simmons at point guard, William Buford at two guard, Jon Diebler as the other two guard, Evan Turner as both forwards and Dallas […]
