Off-Season Morphs Into Pre-Season.
We now know how long an off-season is when your team misses the playoffs: 23 weeks. The pre-season is now upon us, or will be starting with Friday’s Media Day in East Rutherford. So, this will be the last NetsDaily Off-Season Report. There should be plenty of news starting Friday, with training camp in full swing. We hope we filled a need.
So in closing, we’re going to take a look at the key off-season moves, from late April to late September, giving what we think are the best and worst case scenarios as well our take.
Here goes:
April 23 – Almost immediately after the season ends, Vince Carter has surgery on his ankle, which he injured in Game 6. Although he missed only six games—five right after the injury and one late in the season—the recuperation protocol shows how bad the injury was: no basketball for four months.
Best case: He returns 100%, which by all accounts he has.
Worst case: No longer applicable.
Our take: Getting it done early was smart for the team and Carter. He had the surgery less than a week after he season ended. Prior to that, Carter had said he would weigh his options, suggesting he might wait or not have the surgery at all.
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May 9 — Shortly after he becomes GM, Kiki Vandeweghe invites Julius Hodge to work out at the Nets’ practice facility.
Best case: Hodge becomes a quality bench player at age 24, costing the Nets $800,000. Hodge had been looking for a new opportunity and with Kiki, the GM who picked him in the 2005 draft now in New Jersey and him back in New York after stints in the Australian NBL and the D-League, things could work out nicely.
Worst case: He doesn’t make the team.
Our take: Probably too much has been made of Hodge’s chances but we like the idea of giving someone like Hodge, a “fallen angel” a chance rather than stringing together a roster from “fallen arches”, as the Nets have done in the past. (See Lamond Murray, Scott Padgett, Rodney Rogers, etc., etc.)
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June 26 – Early in the afternoon, the Nets trade Richard Jefferson to the Bucks for Yi Jianlian and Bobby Simmons.
Best case: Yi becomes what the Nets and particularly Vandeweghe thinks the can be: the next Dirk Nowitzki, and what Brett Yormark hopes he can be: a huge magnet for the Chinese and Chinese-American communities in New York/New Jersey. Simmons regains his health and returns to his Most Improved Player form. Nets sign Lebron James or another member of the 2010 free agent class with the money saved from trading Jefferson.
Worst case: RJ becomes a key contributor for the Bucks, while Yi continues to display the tentativeness and inconsistency he showed in his rookie year and the Olympics. Simmons’ foot issues continue to bother him. Lebron signs with the Knicks because the Nets don’t have a winning foundation in place.
Our take: as big a gamble as any made in the Macau casinos or in the Thorn era. Nets think RJ’s peaked and that he’s overpaid. They want to be in the Lebron mix and quietly note that Lebron wants to be a “global icon”. If Yi pays off, he has double value in luring Lebron, first as a foundation player, second as a bigger entrée into the Chinese market. We would have liked an exchange of picks, but really if things had gone the same from #1 through #7 that night and the Nets had the Bucks’ #8, don’t you think they still would have taken the big man?
I would consider them bigs, but whatever...