It’s July 23, and a vast majority of the free agents have found homes, meaning that the player movement portion of the offseason has nearly come to a close. So most fans would love to see where their team stacks up, right? Right. [Read more…]
BROOKLYN — Two significant things about today’s Brooklyn Nets news conference — what was said, and what wasn’t said. First, the latter: The word “Knicks” was not mentioned one single time. It would have been like being at a wine-tasting, and uttering the word “Thunderbird.” No bigger sign of disrespect than treating an adversary as though it does not exist. Because in the new world of the Nets, the only other team that merits mention, the only other team that is in
After a practice at the Team USA training camp in Las Vegas before the 2008 Olympics, Jason Kidd sat in the first row of the bleachers and talked about Chris Paul and Deron Williams, who were sitting on the opposite side of the court. At age 35, Kidd knew he would get limited playing time in the Olympics because of Paul (23 at the time) and Williams (24), who were extraordinarily talented although each still had much to learn. Kidd played the
When the Brooklyn Nets acquired Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry from the Boston Celtics, the team instantly became a juggernaut in the Eastern Conference. Joining Deron Williams, Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez, the amount of talent on the team was almost overwhelming, but not without some questions. Most notably, many wondered if a combination of Johnson and Pierce – who is turning 36 in October – would be good enough defensively against some of the better teams they will have
Unpredictable. Chaotic. Climactic. Frenetic. Turbulent. These are just several words to describe Thursday night’s NBA Draft at the Barclays Center in downtown Brooklyn. For the first time in a while, nobody had any idea what was going to happen. And from the first selection down to the humongous blockbuster trade that went down, the theater and drama of the 2013 draft more than made up for the lack of an impact player among this year’s talent pool. With very few surefire
It is not often that you are eating dumplings in Chinatown at 3 a.m. on a Friday morning and learn that Kosta Koufos has been traded, but that true story only just added to the bizzarro nature of the 2013 Draft — the craziest draft night I have ever witnessed in more than 20 years of covering them. [Read more…]
When Brooklyn Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov became the majority owner of the team, he made a promise that raised plenty of eyebrows: the Nets will win a championship in five years. It sounded like an impossible promise for a team that had been so awful ever since the departure of Jason Kidd back in the 2007-2008 season. Slowly but surely, though, Prokhorov made sure that his words would prove to be meaningful by building a new arena to help attract free
The 2013 NBA Draft is here. And, as the future of many NBA hopefuls draws nearer, the NBA front office phones ring with regularity. Many are trying to trade up or trade down in the draft. Some are trying to acquire players. Two of the latter include the Boston Celtics and the Brooklyn Nets, who have been engaged in “advanced talks” for the better part of an hour, to finalize a deal that could send Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett to Brooklyn