A case for 02-04 Nets being underrated

[Dr Positivity]

The Kidd era Nets two finals tend to get treated as a product of someone having to make it in a bad East, as they were never dominant in regular season (usually high 40s or low 50s in Ws).

There is a strong case for this in 02. They are the best East team in record and point differential and beat the Pacers (actually have an interesting roster with a mix of the old and young Pacers, but only 42 Ws), 44-38 Hornets with Baron and 49-30 Pierce/Antoine Celtics, then they get swept by the Lakers proving the real finals was Lakers/Kings.

Their 03 run is more impressive though. There is no dominant East team as the Nets, Pistons, Sixers and Pacers are all grouped up at 48-30 wins, with the Nets having the best point differential, however the Nets run through the East by sweeping the Celtics and Pistons in Rd 2 and 3, after beating the Bucks in 6 in Rd 1. The Celtics had a worse regular season than the year before, but have a quality rd 1 win against Pacers, who were a year away from peaking with that team but already a finals contender in this East. The Pistons while not the 04 team, still had Billups, Ben, Hamilton and Prince (up to 25mpg in the playoffs) and were a 50 W team that beat Tmac Magic and Iverson Sixers in first 2 rounds. I'm not sure this is really a worse than average 2nd and 3rd round opponent at all and they swept them both. The Nets put up a respectable enough 6 game loss to the Spurs, not really any worse than the Lakers and Mavs played the Spurs this year.

Then in 04 after a slightly worse regular season due to injuries, they gave the Pistons their hardest matchup of the playoffs in a 7 game series where the Nets win game 5 in Detroit to go up 3-2, and it's a one possession game at the end of game 6. Now I don't think this guarantees they would beat the Pacers (probably a toss up) or the Lakers (proved to be a bad matchup in 02) nevertheless you could argue it's either their first or second best chance to win a title, certainly ahead of 02.

I would say their 02 finals run overrates them that year, but 03 is legitimate, and losing in 2nd round in 04 underrates how much of a contender they were that season, and they have at least a case for being the 2nd best team in 03 and 04.

[tsherkin]

I'm not sure how their limp construction beating up on an absolutely threadbare East is really an argument. Yes, they were good defensively, and they had a good, structured gameplan. They handled the East for the most part quite well. That's... not impressive. Like, at all. In any way, shape or form.

[falcolombardi]

I'm not sure how their limp construction beating up on an absolutely threadbare East is really an argument. Yes, they were good defensively, and they had a good, structured gameplan. They handled the East for the most part quite well. That's... not impressive. Like, at all. In any way, shape or form.

In the other hand they got a lot closer to beating the pistons in 2004 than lakers did, and did comparably vs 2003 spurs than the 03 lakers

That doesnt mean much but it does mean somethingh i suppose

Were they a championship level team? They probably are a fair bit worse than the median championship team

But i dont know if they are really worse than the median second place finisher if that makes sense

Their east run in 2003 is not that of a weak team

Milwaukee Bucks (-0.2), won 4-2 by +4.4 a game (+4.2 SRS eq)
Boston Celtics (+2.4), won 4-0 by +10.0 a game (+12.4 SRS eq)
Detroit Pistons (+3.9), won 4-0 by +9.0 a game (+12.9 SRS eq)

Having one mediocre against a mediocre first round opponent is not unusual even for great ring winning teams and their next two series they beat good (but not great) teams pretty handily

[Dr Positivity]

I'm not sure how their limp construction beating up on an absolutely threadbare East is really an argument. Yes, they were good defensively, and they had a good, structured gameplan. They handled the East for the most part quite well. That's... not impressive. Like, at all. In any way, shape or form.

In the other hand they got a lot closer to beating the pistons in 2004 than lakers did, and did comparably vs 2003 spurs than the 03 lakers

That doesnt mean much but it does mean somethingh i suppose

Were they a championship level team? They probably are a fair bit worse than the median championship team

But i dont know if they are really worse than the median second place finisher if that makes sense

Their east run in 2003 is not that of a weak team

Milwaukee Bucks (-0.2), won 4-2 by +4.4 a game (+4.2 SRS eq)
Boston Celtics (+2.4), won 4-0 by +10.0 a game (+12.4 SRS eq)
Detroit Pistons (+3.9), won 4-0 by +9.0 a game (+12.9 SRS eq)

Having one mediocre against a mediocre first round opponent is not unusual even for great ring winning teams and their next two series they beat good (but not great) teams pretty handily

Yes, there is not much reason to rate the competition in 03 worse than say some of the years Lebron beat the East easily

eg. 2013 Heat - Bucks, Bulls, Pacers
2016 Cavs - Pistons, Hawks, Raptors

I think when you consider that Billups, Hamilton and Wallace went on to have so much success, and are arguably all in their prime in 03, and old Uncle Cliff at least being the right idea stylistically even if his numbers weren't there, they are not that bad of an opponent for ECF even with the worse version of the team.

[tsherkin]

I'm not sure how their limp construction beating up on an absolutely threadbare East is really an argument. Yes, they were good defensively, and they had a good, structured gameplan. They handled the East for the most part quite well. That's... not impressive. Like, at all. In any way, shape or form.

In the other hand they got a lot closer to beating the pistons in 2004 than lakers did, and did comparably vs 2003 spurs than the 03 lakers

Sure, but the Lakers were injured and also a chemistry disaster. And in the end, they didn't beat the Pistons.

YMMV, to be sure. Their competition, SRS notwithstanding, was not impressive to me given the bulk of their competition coming from crap teams in their own conference. Milwaukee was a decent team, Detroit was very good, and Boston was eh to medium, for sure.

Antoine Walker had one of the worst series that I can remember from any semi-focal player against New Jersey. Aside from Delk and Waltah, they couldn't hit threes, like Boston was atrocious. Some of that can be looked at as New Jersey defensive excellence, but only so far. That was like a -8 ORTG performance relative to the RS.

Detroit was playing 4.5 v 5 on offense and Billups shriveled up his own rear end. Some of that was Kidd and the New Jersey D. And Kidd certainly put a stamp on the first game with that game-winning floater. Kenyon Martin summoned an unexpected 4th quarter offensive rally in game 2. Kidd and Martin had big first-half performances to get them through in game 3 and they had the pulse all game 4 for the sweep.

I suppose I haven't really paid attention to that series in nearly 20 years. They definitely handled the Pistons rather well.

[falcolombardi]

I wonder how good those nets could be if they traded for rasheed instead of the pistons

Kenyon/rashed/jefferson/kittles/kidd with collins as a defensive punch off the bench is quite the defensive monster lineup and kidd was usually able to keep them above water offensively

Maybe they wouldnt match up so well vs lakers tho

[Blame Rasho]

Ask where the the nets would be if they were in the western conference then get back to me.

[homecourtloss]

Probably not, but Jason Kidd was/is underrated. Some of the on/off numbers during those years show an immense amount of floor raising on a team that really wasn’t all that talented.

[falcolombardi]

Ask where the the nets would be if they were in the western conference then get back to me.

Not making the finals that is for sure

but neither did the 2003 mavs or kings and those teams were and those were seen as great contenders

[tsherkin]

Ask where the the nets would be if they were in the western conference then get back to me.

Not making the finals that is for sure

but neither did the 2003 mavs or kings and those teams were and those were seen as great contenders

Probably his point is that the Nets wouldn't even be on the map if they were in the west. 50 wins was 6th seed in the West that year, 1st in the East, you know? Three teams won 59+ games in the West. It was a very, very different competitive environment.

[Dr Positivity]

Making the WCF in 2003 and finals in 2004 isn't impossible for the Nets if they were in the West

[Stan]

I'll agree it was impressive they swept the Pistons in '03 and took the '04 team to 7 games, but that truly was a case of them taking advantage of an abominably bad conference where SOMEBODY had to win. I honestly don't even think I'd pick them to get out of the first round in the West in any of those seasons.

[falcolombardi]

Ask where the the nets would be if they were in the western conference then get back to me.

Not making the finals that is for sure

but neither did the 2003 mavs or kings and those teams were and those were seen as great contenders

Probably his point is that the Nets wouldn't even be on the map if they were in the west. 50 wins was 6th seed in the West that year, 1st in the East, you know? Three teams won 59+ games in the West. It was a very, very different competitive environment.

We will never know for sure, maybe they become as forgotten as the jason kidd suns, or mayve those 2004 nets beat los angeles and make a surprise finals run for all we know

But even just judging them by how they played against the teams in front of them, they have the results of a legit really strong team (playoffs at least) that is only a level below the top contenders imo

[Dooley]

Probably not, but Jason Kidd was/is underrated. Some of the on/off numbers during those years show an immense amount of floor raising on a team that really wasn’t all that talented.

I think Kidd, Vince and Richard Jefferson are all probably kinda underrated and they should have been a strong core (although that's slightly after 2004 obviously).

But the quality of the depth and rotation on those teams was just brutal, in a way that you don't really see in anymore in teams that are trying to win.

[tsherkin]

Probably not, but Jason Kidd was/is underrated. Some of the on/off numbers during those years show an immense amount of floor raising on a team that really wasn’t all that talented.

I think Kidd, Vince and Richard Jefferson are all probably kinda underrated and they should have been a strong core (although that's slightly after 2004 obviously).

They were somehow pretty bad on offense with Vince, which always puzzled me, because Carter seemed somewhat revived by the trade.

[FuShengTHEGreat]

The 2001-02 Nets were probably the worst team I've ever seen make the Finals.

Nobody was even good enough to even average 15ppg in the regular season. I wouldn't be surprised if that hasn't happened any other year in NBA history for a team that made the Finals.

If they played out West that year they'd have been lucky to even get out the 1st round and surely would've exited in the 2nd round.

[Blame Rasho]

Ask where the the nets would be if they were in the western conference then get back to me.

Not making the finals that is for sure

but neither did the 2003 mavs or kings and those teams were and those were seen as great contenders

Probably his point is that the Nets wouldn't even be on the map if they were in the west. 50 wins was 6th seed in the West that year, 1st in the East, you know? Three teams won 59+ games in the West. It was a very, very different competitive environment.

You have to also consider the balance of easy games the nets had vs eastern conference teams compared with western conference teams before we arrive at 50 wins.

[falcolombardi]

Not making the finals that is for sure

but neither did the 2003 mavs or kings and those teams were and those were seen as great contenders

Probably his point is that the Nets wouldn't even be on the map if they were in the west. 50 wins was 6th seed in the West that year, 1st in the East, you know? Three teams won 59+ games in the West. It was a very, very different competitive environment.

You have to also consider the balance of easy games the nets had vs eastern conference teams compared with western conference teams before we arrive at 50 wins.

Conference strenght influence in regular season record is way overstated. Teams play 30 games vs the opposite conference and 52 vs their own.

In other words the difference is playing 22 games vs the west and 22 games vs the east.

And since at worst inteeconference records get to around 55-45~ it actually comes down to 1~ extra expected win for west teams if they played in the east

[tsherkin]

You have to also consider the balance of easy games the nets had vs eastern conference teams compared with western conference teams before we arrive at 50 wins.

I had mentioned as much.

If we look at the top 3 teams in the West that year (SAC, SAN and DAL), we can see their record vs the East well enough.

SAS: 24-6 vs the East
SAC: 23-7
DAL: 26-4

They rocked the crap out of the East at a winning percentage considerably higher than their seasonal record.

[ronnymac2]

I think the Nets best chance was in 2004. People forget this all the time, but Jason Kidd's knee was busted up badly in those playoffs. Guy was a warrior out there in a hyper physical series/era against Detroit.

People look at their SRS, Eastern Conference playoff competition, and team build and rightly aren't all that impressed with this three-year run. Yet, I believe they are underrated in that many of those people don't appreciate how they competed in reality against the era's best. It took a near quad-double from a top-3 player ever in GM6 to finish the Nets off in '03. The champion Pistons were lucky Kidd was hurt or else Detroit doesn't win that title. Hell, even the '02 sweep had 3 out of those 4 games as close against Shaq and Kobe.

In '02, NJ went 65% vs. the East and 61% vs. the West. 4-4 vs. LAL, SAS, DAL, and SAC. I do believe they fared worse in '03 vs. the West.

That was a cohesive, scrappy squad. Best defense in a league featuring Tim Duncan (w/ the Admiral), KG, Ben Wallace, Jermaine and Shaquille O'Neal, and Deke.