Who deserves the Nets blame?

[JSmooth93]

It's time to stop the injury excuse. CP3 has dealt with an assortment of injuries and right now he's on the trajectory of repeating his 2008/2009 season. Deron will never be an elite PG considered in the same breath as other greats like Payton and Kidd, and this is coming from a huge Deron backer who thought he was only slightly behind CP3 until his play plummet after joining the Nets.

I agree. I thought with the media attention, the fact he's got a ton of full support and people looking to lead probably the deepest team the league has seen on paper in years would get him going, then he injuries himself...Okay understandable. Now, he's 100% healthy and he's still playing mediocre basketball. The talent is there. The winning mindset is not. Paul plays on drive, passion and competition not talent, Deron believes he can show up and let his talent do the talking. This team isn't going to any ECF appearance with him at the helm until he plays like an elite PG instead of his usual 5 month stretch which at this point looks unlikely. It's ashame considering Brooklyn fans have been nicer to him than Melo and if he was a Knick, he would have been booed by now.

This team in general right now is straight up coasting on the belief "they need to build chemistry and system understanding" so basically they all believe they can go on a 10 game win streak and erase this. It's disappointing the veterans actually believe they can show up against younger lesser teams and coast because they have a higher IQ level. Which right now, they do not.

So, everyone deserves the blame.

In all fairness...if they went on a 10 game win streak RIGHT NOW.
That's exactly what would happen.

Everybody is gonna talk about how good they are and this will be erased.

[mamadontcry]

ESPN

[dan_atko97]

the hype

with a new team coming together, it is impossible to know how good they can realistically be. much in the same vein as the 2012-2013 LA Lakers, the hype outweighed the production.

however, only 7 games in, they still have lots of time to improve, just saying TO THIS POINT the hype is the main factor in the failed expectations.

[deliriousmouse]

Whoever's decision it is to not run the game through Lopez.

[Seccci]

At least trader joe stopped making 1 thread a day about the nets or asking questions if bulls are legit, rose will be rose, or if they are any good.

to answer the question... father time.
it happens to everybody folks, we saw MJ in Washington, at some point no matter how hard u practice and try, your body won't respond as well as when u are in your 20' s.
Kg looks really done, JJ wasn' t much of a superstar so the decline looks worse than it should and idk what happened to Williams?

BUT THE MOST SURPRISING is their BENCH> i thought they had legit deep bench, but i don' t see it in performance. they don' t really impact the game much and help starters that well except maybe that game against the heat.

also coach kidd so far i dont see anything he brings to the table other then name recognition lol
it will take him few seasons to get it going.

[jowglenn]

oh man I can't wait til the Nets have a 100 million payroll in 2016 and nonetheless send the 13th pick to Boston, it'll be hilarious

[Superhuman]

Trader Joe

[Jellybeans824]

Obama

[boateng]

90% of their team are overpaid....

I won't blame KG or Pierce that much as we all know they are on their last legs and really are done soon but deron, joe johnson etc....huge dissapointments..

Both Deron and JJ are among the highest paid players in the league lol. Williams isn't a leader and had always been overrated. He was a product of Soloan, and it is no surprise that since he got him fired, he has looked average and overpaid.

[Buckeye-NBAFan]

The Nets owe 4 unprotected 1st round picks over the next 4 years to Atlanta and Boston and have already dealt a #6 pick for Gerald Wallace, so I'm going to say Billy King deserves the most blame.

Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez are performing as expected. KG and Pierce are old, father time was going to hit them at some point. So the next most deserving of blame is Deron Williams. At age 29, his production has fallen off a cliff.

[The_Ghost_of_JB]

I don’t think that Kidd is a good coach so far. Johnson is a good player but does not have the killer instinct, AK47 is not what he used to be, Williams is not playing well either.

They have a bunch of new guys on the team. I think the main issues is that they are just old. What nets fans are going through for the past 7 games is what us Celtics fans have been witnessing for 2 season. PP is the best of the bunch out of KG and Terry but overall those guys simply cannot hang with younger teams. They had problems with this back in 2007 and now 5 years later is only worse.

That said I would not count them out, I don't see them winning a title but I can see them making the playoffs.

[jbs]

The Nets owe 4 unprotected 1st round picks over the next 4 years to Atlanta and Boston and have already dealt a #6 pick for Gerald Wallace, so I'm going to say Billy King deserves the most blame.

The Celtics can also swap picks with the Nets in 2017.

[prophet_of_rage]

The fans are to blame for buying the hype in the first place.

The Nets are:
A superior low post scorer who doesn't rebound and doesn't touch the ball.
A power forward who is on a minutes restriction and was going to retire last year and plays a pick and pop game
A small forward drafted 16 years ago who needs the ball in his hands to create his own shot
A shooting guard declining athlete who needs the ball in his hands to create his own shot
A heavy point guard with balky ankles who needs the ball in his hands to create
A rookie head coach who played has never coached at any level any where and just finished playing against the same people he is coaching six months ago

ESPN took that roster and anointed them and the people ran with it. Are they as bad as 2-5? Probably not, but they aren't going to be a dominant team and they were often mentioned with Indiana and Chicago. Yet all these players assembled were eliminated in the first round last year because they were either too old or too soft to gut out a series against a team that was missing their primary scorer and didn't have homecourt advantage.

Throwing a bunch of "superstars" together worked once in Boston and only for a year and that was because the mix was slightly past their prime and complemented each other. KG in the post area, Ray behind the arc and Paul Pierce in the mid range.

Other than that it isn't a strong formula for success. Teams need pieces that don't duplicate each other but complement each other and work at optimum efficiency (see the Spurs and their mix of shooters to give parker and Duncan room to operate in the in between game and the post)

[Winsome Gerbil]

Probably the GM I suppose.

How can you blame any 1 player for everybody getting old. And that's what they are. There comes a point when every veteran crosses over to just old, and the Nets bought an entire team of guys right on that cusp. We've seen this same syndrome before in other franchises trying to buy the old man championship run. But once the age goes too far, the old teams just get really drab and boring. The Nets might be there. Its not just Deron. Its Deron and JJ from last year, the Boston gang from this year. AK. Lopez is the only young guy, and he's a big lumbering thing. Nobody else is what they once were. KG may be entirely done. Take that same exact roster, make everybody 5 years younger, and they are just about the most talented team in the league. Now? Eh...

[illiance]

The Nets are fine. They are just sleepwalking with no significant player playing big minutes. Watch the Miami game and see when the team actually tries.

With that said, the rotation is a mess. Stick to a 8-9 man rotation and call it a day. The bench is too deep and is causing indecision on distributing minutes.

[Winsome Gerbil]

The Nets are fine. They are just sleepwalking with no significant player playing big minutes.

Probably those late nights at the bingo parlor.

[Biased_Fan6425]

Kidd cant coach.. D. Will was perfect in that Sloan system. Replace Kidd with Sloan and they improve IMO.

[shmito17]

Billy King. I think he's one of the worst GMs in the league. If it wasn't for Prohkorov, he'd be fired already.

[nyk4L7_21]

I've been saying this since this summer, but no one would listen to me cause ESPN said the Nets were good

If anyone deserves blame its Prokhorov, trying to buy a championship so desperatley he just got every big name he could without regard to how they'd fit together.

[Kobe8Forever]

How about AK47 taking millions of dollar less (assuming no under the table money was involved) to go to a loser? He could have gone to the Spurs and got paid more.