NBA Preview: Jay-Z

Still better than Shawne Williams.

I have never enjoyed "big market" sports teams.  It's never been about the money either: the fact that the Knicks, all the Boston teams, and other such franchises get to have slightly above-average players consistently painted as superstars on the national level (see: Stoudemire, Amar'e) just annoys me.  Every preview issue ever puts these teams in the hunt for a title in whatever sport it may be, regardless of whether Julio Lugo is their starting shortstop.  Frankly, big market teams get slanted coverage that is just annoying and makes me root against them.  So really, it's not my fault, it's just science.

This brings us to the Brooklyn Nets, which inexplicably do not inspire my vitriol.  They play in as big of a market as they can, they throw money at players that are vastly overrated (Gerald Wallace, Joe Johnson), and they seem to think they're immediately good enough to win a title just because.  Yet, I don't dislike them.  Mikhail Prokhorov is an enigma as an owner, the quintessential exotic foreign millionaire that nobody understands.  Jay-Z hangs around and makes everyone laugh by pretending he matters for basketball.  MarShon Brooks absolutely refuses to stop shooting, a la Antoine Walker.  Their new uniforms are the default design for "Create-A-Team" programs in video games.



With all of this ridiculousness, the Nets may have put together a playoff team.  Certainly not a contender by any means, but a playoff team nonetheless.  Deron Williams has completely forgotten how to shoot since coming to the Nets (just a tick under 40% FG in a year and a half), but remains an excellent point guard that, hopefully, can get back to his previous talent level where he actually deserved to be considered Chris Paul's rival.

Part of Williams' problems the last two years almost certainly stemmed from the awful talent around him, which was improved (at ridiculous cost) this off-season in a flurry of moves.  Joe Johnson inexplicably improved at threes last year (39% 3PT FG, the second best mark of his year), but remains horribly reliant on isolation plays.  Hopefully, Deron Williams' play-making will allow the Armadillo Cowboy to become more of an efficient, spot-up shooter as his career starts the long road downhill.  Brook Lopez returns to the Nets as well to serve as the worst big man in the NBA for anything but scoring.  Sure, he's always been a great scorer (17 PPG in his career), but anyone that averages 6.1 rebounds per 36 minutes isn't a center.  For the record, that is the same rate as Landry Fields, so kudos to Brook.  Kris Humphries rebounds like nobody's business (13.5 per 36 in 2011), and yet Brook Lopez can't learn any of that from him?  Come on, Kris, we know it's your only skill (14 PPG on 48% shooting for a big man isn't too special), but help a brother out!  Brook could really use it.

Finally, remember Gerald Wallace?  Well, forget about him.  Wallace can't score very well anymore, and all those horrific injuries have taken a toll on his body.  He's still a solid defender, but the blocks that made him so unique have evaporated, and he's never been much of a passer (more turnovers than assists in his career).  Frankly, he's an average small forward at this point, but average small forwards usually don't get $10 million a year.

The Nets are going to be an average team, but boy are they paid like something much more.  If anyone remembers the Knicks teams of Isiah Thomas, before they got truly terrible, that's sadly what the Nets are looking more and more like.  There is just no way they can be a championship contender with the core they have signed for tons of money and a ton of time, and they've more or less destroyed any flexibility they had to get to this point.  Look for a playoff berth that gets hyped too much, and never much more.