Nets Press Conference For New Players (YES Interviews, Pg 6)

[BK nets BK]

Oh okay, that's what I thought.

People were saying Pierce pushed for the trade and I was like ummm, not to my knowledge.

I believe Peter Vecsey reported that. It basically came off as, Ainge basically laid out to Pierce that he was going to be traded and Pierce hand picked us as his preferred options out of all of the teams that was willing to deal for him. I think Cleveland and Milwaukee were interested in him at the time.

Yeah that makes sense.

I think Ainge likely said "Paul, we have offers from Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Brooklyn. If you go to Brooklyn though, we may be able to send Kevin with you."

The choice was pretty obvious at that point. Go to Cleveland or Milwaukee and be a 1st round exit, or finish your career next to your best friend with a real shot at a ring.

actually no, billy king said on yes network him and ainge had a trade set already for pierce alone then out of nowhere billy king asked if he can get garnett too and ainge hesitated until billy king threw a few offers his way. I'm actually shocked that it was harder for him to acquire garnett than pierce

[vincecarter4pres]

The radio interview is a lot better. I think the press conference was just a moment where they realized "Well ****, we're not Celtics anymore." Can't blame them for that.

Yeah and I'll tell you, listening to what I could on the radio today, a lot of it was kind of somber, almost like there was some bitterness, but watching it now on replay finally, it just comes across more as bittersweet awkwardness and some sadness about no longer being Celtics, like reality finally hit, but no animosity and the regret seemed not in a fashion like, "Why did we agree to this?", but "Man, this **** is real now, my emotions are overwhelming me, got to keep it together..."

Pierce and afterwords even KG were on the verge of tears. But again the way it came across on radio without facial expression and getting to see their eyes and that human awkwardness, it comes across different.

They're gonna be with it soon enough. Smiles are less forced and more genuine, less afraid to be shown the further I'm watching this.

[vincecarter4pres]

Man, was halfway through that and into those interviews with Bird and Jim, they are digging it!

So excited for this season.

Jim asked Pierce such a great question too about Brooklyn getting all the press last year and how did that make him feel as a Celtic and how did it make him feel about the Nets in general.

[624]

Putting Kidd, Terry, Garnett, and Pierce in the locker room is absolutely huge. Four battle-tested veterans with great leadership ability and championship experience.

[HelloBrooklyn]

The radio interview is a lot better. I think the press conference was just a moment where they realized "Well ****, we're not Celtics anymore." Can't blame them for that.

Yeah and I'll tell you, listening to what I could on the radio today, a lot of it was kind of somber, almost like there was some bitterness, but watching it now on replay finally, it just comes across more as bittersweet awkwardness and some sadness about no longer being Celtics, like reality finally hit, but no animosity and the regret seemed not in a fashion like, "Why did we agree to this?", but "Man, this **** is real now, my emotions are overwhelming me, got to keep it together..."

Pierce and afterwords even KG were on the verge of tears. But again the way it came across on radio without facial expression and getting to see their eyes and that human awkwardness, it comes across different.

They're gonna be with it soon enough. Smiles are less forced and more genuine, less afraid to be shown the further I'm watching this.

100% agree when I was watching the whole conference this was exactly the thing I was thinking about. It showed a lot when the words coming out both KG and Pierce's mouth was so hesitant. That it just seemed they are saying words to have a and try to be appeal to us Nets fans.

Boston's marketing scheme has got to be incredible. My buddy who is a die hard Celtics fan was actually depress about this whole situation. Even though he understands the dynamic of why the front office had to do this move. Even other C's fan in this site shows how much respect they have towards both of this 2 guys. I gotta give them credit for that.

The only person really excited is Terry it seems. Hopefully they feel home towards BKN. The way they feel with the C's. I feel bad because I am a big KG fan even when he was in C's.

[Nondescript]

The radio interview is a lot better. I think the press conference was just a moment where they realized "Well ****, we're not Celtics anymore." Can't blame them for that.

Yeah and I'll tell you, listening to what I could on the radio today, a lot of it was kind of somber, almost like there was some bitterness, but watching it now on replay finally, it just comes across more as bittersweet awkwardness and some sadness about no longer being Celtics, like reality finally hit, but no animosity and the regret seemed not in a fashion like, "Why did we agree to this?", but "Man, this **** is real now, my emotions are overwhelming me, got to keep it together..."

Pierce and afterwords even KG were on the verge of tears. But again the way it came across on radio without facial expression and getting to see their eyes and that human awkwardness, it comes across different.

They're gonna be with it soon enough. Smiles are less forced and more genuine, less afraid to be shown the further I'm watching this.

100% agree when I was watching the whole conference this was exactly the thing I was thinking about. It showed a lot when the words coming out both KG and Pierce's mouth was so hesitant. That it just seemed they are saying words to have a and try to be appeal to us Nets fans.

Boston's marketing scheme has got to be incredible. My buddy who is a die hard Celtics fan was actually depress about this whole situation. Even though he understands the dynamic of why the front office had to do this move. Even other C's fan in this site shows how much respect they have towards both of this 2 guys. I gotta give them credit for that.

The only person really excited is Terry it seems. Hopefully they feel home towards BKN. The way they feel with the C's. I feel bad because I am a big KG fan even when he was in C's.

I'm not worried about it. They'll play at high level, their absolute best for the Nets feel more comfortable with time, today was just an emotional day for them.

[HelloBrooklyn]

I like what KG said about Brook about him lacking counter moves. This shows Brook really needs the Mentor that KG will bring towards this team.

[HelloBrooklyn]

Yeah and I'll tell you, listening to what I could on the radio today, a lot of it was kind of somber, almost like there was some bitterness, but watching it now on replay finally, it just comes across more as bittersweet awkwardness and some sadness about no longer being Celtics, like reality finally hit, but no animosity and the regret seemed not in a fashion like, "Why did we agree to this?", but "Man, this **** is real now, my emotions are overwhelming me, got to keep it together..."

Pierce and afterwords even KG were on the verge of tears. But again the way it came across on radio without facial expression and getting to see their eyes and that human awkwardness, it comes across different.

They're gonna be with it soon enough. Smiles are less forced and more genuine, less afraid to be shown the further I'm watching this.

100% agree when I was watching the whole conference this was exactly the thing I was thinking about. It showed a lot when the words coming out both KG and Pierce's mouth was so hesitant. That it just seemed they are saying words to have a and try to be appeal to us Nets fans.

Boston's marketing scheme has got to be incredible. My buddy who is a die hard Celtics fan was actually depress about this whole situation. Even though he understands the dynamic of why the front office had to do this move. Even other C's fan in this site shows how much respect they have towards both of this 2 guys. I gotta give them credit for that.

The only person really excited is Terry it seems. Hopefully they feel home towards BKN. The way they feel with the C's. I feel bad because I am a big KG fan even when he was in C's.

I'm not worried about it. They'll play at high level, their absolute best for the Nets feel more comfortable with time, today was just an emotional day for them.

definitely not worried about it too. It's just crazy to me how good the Celtic's organization really is.

[Paradise]

I know we aren't supposed to talk about ND but this poster over there put together a fantastic detailed decent breakdown of KG's defense over the last year.

There are a lot of ways that someone can be an excellent defensive player. Some are really good one-on-one defenders. Some are really good at defending the pick-and-roll. Some are really good team defenders. Some are really good communicators.

And then there's KG, who is all of the above.

People remember that KG won the Defensive Player of the Year in 2008. But did you know that he's finished in the top-3 of the DPoY vote 5 times in his career, including a 2nd place finish as recently as 2011 at age 35? In fact, Garnett is the only player in NBA history with both 9 First-Team All Defense selections and also five top-3 DPoY finishes.So his pedigree as a dominant defensive player over his career is very well established. But what about him now...what can he do in his mid/late 30s?

Well, here are a few links to some of his crazy defensive feats since he turned 35 years old. I'll give you cliff note highlights for each link, but I really suggest you check out the entire articles if you have the time.

1. 1-on-1 defense mastery, from spring of 2012: "Below are 10 such match-ups that I looked into which include the top-3 (and five of the top 8) scoring centers (one of them twice) in the NBA and two of the top-3 (and four of the top-7) scoring power forwards. I chose situations in which I remember Garnett as the primary defender for those players (i.e. I didn't include Blake Griffin, because I know for a good chunk of the game KG was on DeAndre Jordan). And in each case I went back through the play-by-play log to see how the player scored when he was on the court with KG, and compared that to how he was scoring in the 5 games preceding the Celtics match-up. Here is what I found:


On court with KG 5 previous (per 36)
Min Pts TS% Pts TS%
Nowitzki 1/11 30.2 14 55.4 20.1 53.9
Howard 1/23 12.4 3 19.6 21.3 55.6
Howard 1/26 21.4 5 37 21.3 55.6
Hibbert 1/27 16.3 6 30 18.4 57
Bynum 3/11 32.9 18 57.1 20 70.3
Smith 3/19 26.7 6 27.3 22 54.3
Gooden 3/22 19.4 6 33.8 21.2 63
Jefferson 3/28 21.9 8 40.9 22.3 59
Love 3/30 26.6 8 38.8 29.3 62.8
Bosh 4/1 25.7 4 20 19.6 58.3

Total (per 36) 12.0 37.9% 21.8 59.3%


On the whole, with Garnett as their primary defender their scoring volume is cut in HALF with a more than 20% drop in scoring efficiency compared to what they were doing coming into the game. That's unheard of! The only ones with anywhere near normal production were Andrew Bynum and Nowiztki, and even they were down a bit in either shooting efficiency or volume. But the rest?

Over 2 games, KG held Dwight Howard to eight total points on less than 28% true shooting percentage in almost 34 minutes as his primary defender!

Love had been averaging more than 33 points on 63% TS in the five games leading up to running into the buzz saw and getting shut down!

Poor Big Al, Bosh, and Josh Smith scored 18 points TOTAL on 29% true shooting in more than 74 minutes. That's a combined 8.7 points/36!"

2. Postseason defensive dominance: Playoffs, 2012: "I've been hearing for awhile about how Garnett is leading the NBA in postseason +/-. Doc has mentioned it a couple of times, it's been noted a couple of times in passing on Sportscenter. But it wasn't until after Game 3 on Friday that I really looked into it. Here is the post that I saw that caught my eye, from a poster named bs_and_cs on another message board:

The Heat shot 38% with KG on the floor, 85% with KG on the bench....yes you read that right, 85%.

Later that night I saw that corroborated on TV, when NBA TV reported the same numbers (except the Heat actually shot ONLY 84% when KG was on the bench).

Then, last night, it happened again. I was watching NBA TV in the aftermath of the overtime win, and they reported that the Heat had shot about 35% in Game 4 when KG was in the game, but 75% with him on the bench.

So then, I started doing the math...through the two wins, the Celtics were holding the Heat in the mid-upper 30% range with Garnett in the game...but were allowing the Heat to score at roughly an 80% clip with Garnett on the bench. To put it mildly, that seemed like a big difference.

So, I went on over to basketballvalue.com and checked out the results through 17 playoffs games...

* The Celtics' defense is allowing 89.72 points/100 possessions when Garnett is on the court (the #1 mark in the NBA)
* The Celtics' defense is allowing 122.44 points/100 possessions when Garnett is off the court (the absolute worst mark in the NBA)

In short, the Celtics' defense is 32.7 points better with Garnett on the floor this postseason than with him off through 17 games and almost 650 minutes on-court. Not only that, but if you follow that link you'll see that it's Garnett and only Garnett that keys the defense. Sometimes with net on/off team ratings you run into a case where there's just a dominant unit and everyone on that unit has great and similar ratings. Not here. After Garnett, the next best Celtics are:

Avery Bradley (defense 11.1 points better in about 250 minutes before injury)
Marquis Daniels (4.4 points better in 80 minutes)
Mickeal Pietrus (2.37 points better in 323 minutes)

And NO OTHER ROTATION PLAYER IS ABOVE ZERO.

[SpeedyG]

Gotta give Pierce credit. Another Mazzeo article:

“It was a situation where [the Celtics] were going to make a move, and once the deal with the Clippers didn’t go through for [Garnett], it was like, the Celtics were trading me, Doc was leaving, so what was left for Kevin?” Pierce said, according to ESPNBoston.com. “I talked to Jason Kidd, and he was warming me to the fact of coming to Brooklyn, then he started warming me to the fact that they were trying to get Kevin, too.

“That’s when I called Kevin and asked him what he thought about coming to Brooklyn, he immediately said, ‘Well, what pieces are they going to give up? Who is going to be left? Is it going to be possible for us to win a championship?’ He was excited when I talked to him after warming him up, just to have the opportunity to come and win a championship and be alongside a young prospect like Brook Lopez, who he can try to take to the next level. And once I warmed him up to that, he was all in for it.”

“I was like, ‘Do you understand what’s going on in Boston? [A potential trade to the] Clippers thing appears to be dead. So what do you think, big fella? I know you don’t want to retire. I know you don’t want to retire,” Pierce said he told Garnett. “You have too much in the tank, you love the game too much. Sometimes you just have to tell Kevin to sit back and think about it. He reacts to everything. Like his initial reaction to everything is, ‘No.’ [You say,] ‘Kevin I got $100 million,’ [And he replies,] ‘No.’ Then he has to sit back and think about it and then once he warms up to it, he makes his decision, and that’s about anything.”

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/brookl ... d-kg-on-bk

For how much hate I give Kevin, this has always been an underrated thing about him. He knows rosters, and he does know the inner workings of the NBA. Him asking who we're giving up to get him is something we fans talk about, but rarely players.

[SpeedyG]

Gotta give Pierce credit. Another Mazzeo article:

“It was a situation where [the Celtics] were going to make a move, and once the deal with the Clippers didn’t go through for [Garnett], it was like, the Celtics were trading me, Doc was leaving, so what was left for Kevin?” Pierce said, according to ESPNBoston.com. “I talked to Jason Kidd, and he was warming me to the fact of coming to Brooklyn, then he started warming me to the fact that they were trying to get Kevin, too.

“That’s when I called Kevin and asked him what he thought about coming to Brooklyn, he immediately said, ‘Well, what pieces are they going to give up? Who is going to be left? Is it going to be possible for us to win a championship?’ He was excited when I talked to him after warming him up, just to have the opportunity to come and win a championship and be alongside a young prospect like Brook Lopez, who he can try to take to the next level. And once I warmed him up to that, he was all in for it.”

“I was like, ‘Do you understand what’s going on in Boston? [A potential trade to the] Clippers thing appears to be dead. So what do you think, big fella? I know you don’t want to retire. I know you don’t want to retire,” Pierce said he told Garnett. “You have too much in the tank, you love the game too much. Sometimes you just have to tell Kevin to sit back and think about it. He reacts to everything. Like his initial reaction to everything is, ‘No.’ [You say,] ‘Kevin I got $100 million,’ [And he replies,] ‘No.’ Then he has to sit back and think about it and then once he warms up to it, he makes his decision, and that’s about anything.”

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/brookl ... d-kg-on-bk

That's awesome. A little inside scoop on how everything went down.

So let's think about this...as much as many of us (myself included) were very wary about hiring Kidd, he made an immediate impact and very well could've been the deciding factor in whether we were going to get Pierce (and even more importantly) along with Garnett.

I don't think anyone have that doubt about Kidd though. In fact, that was the #1 reason most had for hiring Kidd. As far as his rep in the NBA with the players? He's the anti-Kobe. All else equal if they can play for/with Kidd? They'd do it. At a time when Kidd was starting to break down in the Olympics, players in their prime like Wade, Lebron, and Kobe were all looking towards him for leadership. That's just the kind of player he is as far as his peers is concerned.

That's how the stars react to him. And the non-stars? Well, just take a look at Terry's reaction.

[SpeedyG]

The radio interview is a lot better. I think the press conference was just a moment where they realized "Well ****, we're not Celtics anymore." Can't blame them for that.

Yeah and I'll tell you, listening to what I could on the radio today, a lot of it was kind of somber, almost like there was some bitterness, but watching it now on replay finally, it just comes across more as bittersweet awkwardness and some sadness about no longer being Celtics, like reality finally hit, but no animosity and the regret seemed not in a fashion like, "Why did we agree to this?", but "Man, this **** is real now, my emotions are overwhelming me, got to keep it together..."

Pierce and afterwords even KG were on the verge of tears. But again the way it came across on radio without facial expression and getting to see their eyes and that human awkwardness, it comes across different.

They're gonna be with it soon enough. Smiles are less forced and more genuine, less afraid to be shown the further I'm watching this.

I agree with this, because when you watch their one-on-one interviews after...the mood was much better.

[Basileus777]

I never saw anything worrisome or somber about KG's attitude even in the press conference. I bought his excitement, and it seemed like he was just toning it down a bit for Paul.

[Petrofor3]

Nets have gone from laughing stocks to one of the best teams in the NBA. This trade was all made possible by the move to Brooklyn and of course MR. Prokorov.

[NyCeEvO]

Putting Kidd, Terry, Garnett, and Pierce in the locker room is absolutely huge. Four battle-tested veterans with great leadership ability and championship experience.

When we need to man up, KG will be there to call the players out.

When we need encouragement, Terry will start preaching lol.

When we need to relax, Pierce will pull out the poker chips.

[NyCeEvO]

I don't think anyone have that doubt about Kidd though. In fact, that was the #1 reason most had for hiring Kidd. As far as his rep in the NBA with the players? He's the anti-Kobe. All else equal if they can play for/with Kidd? They'd do it. At a time when Kidd was starting to break down in the Olympics, players in their prime like Wade, Lebron, and Kobe were all looking towards him for leadership. That's just the kind of player he is as far as his peers is concerned.

That's how the stars react to him. And the non-stars? Well, just take a look at Terry's reaction.

I wasn't referring to the sole aspect of him being able to recruit players. We all assumed that he'd be able to do that.

I was more referring to Kidd as a total package. We know he is well liked by players but do we pass up over proven coaches who have succeeded to take a chance on Kidd. If we had another coach who was proven, but didn't have the relationship that Kidd with these guys, we probably would feel better about the coach's coaching ability but we almost definitely would've missed out on this opportunity.

I was wary of hiring Kidd at first, especially with the team that we had prior to the trade, but I had to give my support because of my fandom. In hindsight, I'm glad they didn't take the safer route and get a more seasoned coach. Even if Kidd turns out to be a mediocre coach, he is the reason why this deal went through and we are able to honestly consider ourselves championship contenders. If he is mediocre, hopefully we can be like the Heat and win in spite of the coaching.

[Paradise]

If anyone watched the KG interview with Ian/Jim, he said he tried to play with Kidd at one point. They really do view him as Doc Rivers 2.0.

Who would have thought Kidd would be one of the main driving forces to assemble this sort of super team?

[jerseyjac]

I know we aren't supposed to talk about ND but this poster over there put together a fantastic detailed decent breakdown of KG's defense over the last year.

There are a lot of ways that someone can be an excellent defensive player. Some are really good one-on-one defenders. Some are really good at defending the pick-and-roll. Some are really good team defenders. Some are really good communicators.

And then there's KG, who is all of the above.

People remember that KG won the Defensive Player of the Year in 2008. But did you know that he's finished in the top-3 of the DPoY vote 5 times in his career, including a 2nd place finish as recently as 2011 at age 35? In fact, Garnett is the only player in NBA history with both 9 First-Team All Defense selections and also five top-3 DPoY finishes.So his pedigree as a dominant defensive player over his career is very well established. But what about him now...what can he do in his mid/late 30s?

Well, here are a few links to some of his crazy defensive feats since he turned 35 years old. I'll give you cliff note highlights for each link, but I really suggest you check out the entire articles if you have the time.

1. 1-on-1 defense mastery, from spring of 2012: "Below are 10 such match-ups that I looked into which include the top-3 (and five of the top 8) scoring centers (one of them twice) in the NBA and two of the top-3 (and four of the top-7) scoring power forwards. I chose situations in which I remember Garnett as the primary defender for those players (i.e. I didn't include Blake Griffin, because I know for a good chunk of the game KG was on DeAndre Jordan). And in each case I went back through the play-by-play log to see how the player scored when he was on the court with KG, and compared that to how he was scoring in the 5 games preceding the Celtics match-up. Here is what I found:


On court with KG 5 previous (per 36)
Min Pts TS% Pts TS%
Nowitzki 1/11 30.2 14 55.4 20.1 53.9
Howard 1/23 12.4 3 19.6 21.3 55.6
Howard 1/26 21.4 5 37 21.3 55.6
Hibbert 1/27 16.3 6 30 18.4 57
Bynum 3/11 32.9 18 57.1 20 70.3
Smith 3/19 26.7 6 27.3 22 54.3
Gooden 3/22 19.4 6 33.8 21.2 63
Jefferson 3/28 21.9 8 40.9 22.3 59
Love 3/30 26.6 8 38.8 29.3 62.8
Bosh 4/1 25.7 4 20 19.6 58.3

Total (per 36) 12.0 37.9% 21.8 59.3%


On the whole, with Garnett as their primary defender their scoring volume is cut in HALF with a more than 20% drop in scoring efficiency compared to what they were doing coming into the game. That's unheard of! The only ones with anywhere near normal production were Andrew Bynum and Nowiztki, and even they were down a bit in either shooting efficiency or volume. But the rest?

Over 2 games, KG held Dwight Howard to eight total points on less than 28% true shooting percentage in almost 34 minutes as his primary defender!

Love had been averaging more than 33 points on 63% TS in the five games leading up to running into the buzz saw and getting shut down!

Poor Big Al, Bosh, and Josh Smith scored 18 points TOTAL on 29% true shooting in more than 74 minutes. That's a combined 8.7 points/36!"

2. Postseason defensive dominance: Playoffs, 2012: "I've been hearing for awhile about how Garnett is leading the NBA in postseason +/-. Doc has mentioned it a couple of times, it's been noted a couple of times in passing on Sportscenter. But it wasn't until after Game 3 on Friday that I really looked into it. Here is the post that I saw that caught my eye, from a poster named bs_and_cs on another message board:

The Heat shot 38% with KG on the floor, 85% with KG on the bench....yes you read that right, 85%.

Later that night I saw that corroborated on TV, when NBA TV reported the same numbers (except the Heat actually shot ONLY 84% when KG was on the bench).

Then, last night, it happened again. I was watching NBA TV in the aftermath of the overtime win, and they reported that the Heat had shot about 35% in Game 4 when KG was in the game, but 75% with him on the bench.

So then, I started doing the math...through the two wins, the Celtics were holding the Heat in the mid-upper 30% range with Garnett in the game...but were allowing the Heat to score at roughly an 80% clip with Garnett on the bench. To put it mildly, that seemed like a big difference.

So, I went on over to basketballvalue.com and checked out the results through 17 playoffs games...

* The Celtics' defense is allowing 89.72 points/100 possessions when Garnett is on the court (the #1 mark in the NBA)
* The Celtics' defense is allowing 122.44 points/100 possessions when Garnett is off the court (the absolute worst mark in the NBA)

In short, the Celtics' defense is 32.7 points better with Garnett on the floor this postseason than with him off through 17 games and almost 650 minutes on-court. Not only that, but if you follow that link you'll see that it's Garnett and only Garnett that keys the defense. Sometimes with net on/off team ratings you run into a case where there's just a dominant unit and everyone on that unit has great and similar ratings. Not here. After Garnett, the next best Celtics are:

Avery Bradley (defense 11.1 points better in about 250 minutes before injury)
Marquis Daniels (4.4 points better in 80 minutes)
Mickeal Pietrus (2.37 points better in 323 minutes)

And NO OTHER ROTATION PLAYER IS ABOVE ZERO.

PM sent.