Realistically, the Brooklyn Nets don’t have room for Kevin Garnett next season. Garnett had by far the worst statistical season of his career in 2013-2014, capped off by a two-point, eight-rebound performance in Wednesday’s Game 5 loss to Miami that eliminated Brooklyn. Garnett scored 24 points total in the five games against the Heat and is a sad shell of his former self on the floor. Garnett is scheduled to make $12 million next season in the final year of his contract and is considering
When the Brooklyn Nets acquired Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry last summer, Mikhail Prokhorov said, “Today, the basketball gods smiled on the Nets.” Neither Garnett, Pierce nor Prokhorov was smiling after the Miami Heat eliminated Brooklyn in the Eastern Conference semifinals in five games. “The only reason we came to Brooklyn was to win another ring,” Garnett said. In retrospect, Brooklyn took a gamble that didn’t pay off. The Nets gave up a king’s ransom to acquire Garnett and Pierce to
Mikhail Prokhorov didn’t get his money’s worth from Deron Williams, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce in Game 2 against the Miami Heat. After Williams posted a scoreless game, ESPN’s Bill Simmons ripped Brooklyn’s franchise player after the putrid performance. “Brook Lopez had a better game tonight than Deron Williams,” Simmons said. The criticism for Williams was warranted after the $100 million man posted a donut in the scoring column, but he isn’t the only person who should be called out for his poor
Why did the Nets acquire Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett from Boston last offseason, mortgaging key future assets to do so? To help win a championship? To be on the floor in important moments in the playoffs, where their championship experience and leadership would prove invaluable to a team that previously had no players with real, legitimate postseason success? In the most important moments in the Brooklyn Nets’ season, the final minutes of the team’s Game 5 loss in Toronto, Pierce and
The Brooklyn Nets are legitimate contenders to dethrone the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference – whether or not LeBron James wants to admit it – as I outlined in my latest column. As for New York, the futures of Carmelo Anthony and Mike Woodson will be impacted heavily if the Knicks fail to reach the playoffs – a likely scenario. With the Nets seemingly entrenched as the fifth seed and the Knicks on the brink of mathematical elimination, I joined WFAN
Before the season, championship expectations were attached to both the Knicks and the Nets. The Knicks were coming off the team’s first season with at least 50 or more wins and a trip to the Eastern Conference semifinals since the 1999-2000 campaign, when Jeff Van Gundy patrolled the sidelines, Patrick Ewing wrapped up his final season in New York and Allan Houston was in the prime of his career. The Nets were coming off their first trip to the playoffs in six years
As the calm after the Super Bowl subsides, the sports world officially belongs to the NBA. Well, if the Winter Olympics in Sochi aren’t your thing that is. We are just under two weeks away from the 2014 NBA All-Star game and have already seen trade talks intensify. With February 21st’s trade deadline quickly approaching, the outcome of these next two weeks will largely shape the second half of the season. Is there potential for any conference to be swung by
So far, my preseason predictions look a lot like the Red Wedding scene in Game of Thrones. Jason Kidd as Coach of the Year? Um, probably not. (Although he might well be the Eastern Conference Coach of the Month for January.) The Nets as NBA champions? Um, sure doesn’t look like it. Not now, anyway. They are three games under .500 (19-22) at the halfway point of the season. But . . . and you knew there was a ‘but’ coming .