NetsDaily Off-Season Report - No. 12
We’ll be updating the Nets’ off-season weekly, with bits and pieces of information, gossip, and everything in between to help fans get ready for ... anything. Well, we’re back on schedule, sorta. After holding up publication for a few days to take advantage of free agency moves, we finally published on July4. Now though, we have some news of the biggest change in Netsdom since the “Clean Sweep” five less than glorious years ago: a final decision to forget the modified limited retool and tear it all down.
Now we’re digesting and analyzing what’s happened, the finalization of the Knicks trade which had a few minor detours along the way and the official signing of Nic Claxton, done deals.
So, in that context, let us vent for a while.
We have written a lot this week about the switch, from counting up all the draft picks and all the trade exceptions, fantasizing about Cooper Flagg but also warning that while the fan base is happy with the direction now, it’s going to be painful for a while ... and of course there’s no guarantee of success. (Should we call this era, “One Direction,” following on “Clean Sweep,” the “Dwightmare?”)
As has happened so often in the history of the franchise, fans are left with an impression that can best be reduced to “Well, that was awful, but, hey, nice recovery!” That is nowhere near as refreshing as the sounds of a championship parade down Flatbush but for now, it will have to do ... again.
Let’s start with Sean Marks. He is nearly a decade after his first rebuild, at the center of things .. again. Few GMs dominate their franchise like he has. He remains in charge. Fans who wanted him gone after an awful 50-loss season are now cheering the “nice recovery” phase. So let’s take a look at how he’s done it in the past and what that can tell us about this rebuild, assuming he’s allowed to stick around. Most reports indicate he’s got a year left.
First of all, Marks is very, very skilled at rebuilding. That is inarguable. Steve Kerr said of the Nets situation when Marks walked in the door back in 2016 as the worst any GM had ever faced. You know: No stars, no picks and the daunting challenge of rebuilding in the demanding sports culture of a city where loyalties can and often do change in, you know, a New York minute. The Nets were irrelevant and ignored. And yet within three years, there he was posing with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, two of the top 15 players in the NBA, one maybe a top 15 player in the history of the game of basketball.
No matter what you think of how it ended, the “Clean Sweep” was a stunning achievement. Marks used every tool in the GM book: exorbitant offer sheets to let agents and players know Brooklyn was still in the game, took chances on players other teams wouldn’t touch because of previous injuries or some bizarre notion that they didn’t love the game enough. He hired wisely, starting with Kenny Atkinson who like his current head was seen at the game’s best assistant, a patient teacher.
He and his staff were also very very good at drafting and development. The Nets draft history since he took over includes Nic Claxton, taken at No. 31, Cam Thomas taken at No. 27, Jarrett Allen at No. 22, Caris LeVert at No. 20, Noah Clowney (still a work in progress but looking good) at No. 21. Perhaps more importantly, those players got better after arrival. Staff recognized what was best for each. Allen was more a process player, one who got better incrementally as he mastered one skill after another. Claxton was more instinctive, but needed to take things more seriously. Thomas needed patience and commitment ... both ways.
Development wasn’t limited to those who Brooklyn had drafted. Joe Harris famously had undergone surgery, been traded and released all in one day. Brett Brielmaier, who had come from the Cavaliers to the Nets in Marks first summer had worked with Harris in Cleveland and recommended the Nets sign him. Harris became one of the game’s best 3-point shooters, leading the league in 3-point percentage twice and besting Steph Curry in the All-Star Weekend’s 3-point contest. Spencer Dinwiddie had been cut by the Pistons, sent to the G League by the Bulls, then was discovered in a Windy City - Long Island Nets game. Matt Ricciardi, a development specialist who liked what he had seen of Dinwiddie in a G League game at Barclays, pushed Marks to sign Dinwiddie and he did. D’Angelo Russell had famously “snitched” on a Lakers teammate and was persona non grata in Laker land before Marks traded Brook Lopez for him, a controversial move then. DLo blossomed into an All-Star.
The performance team, nicknamed the “Melbourne Mafia” for their hometown in Australia and closeness, got a reputation as one of the league’s best. Their player amenities, from a new, million dollar family room at Barclays Center, to chef-prepared meals of players’ favorite foods, was similarly praised. The medical staff is, bar none, the league’s best. Ask Kevin Durant.
He constructed rosters with rising stars but also players like Jared Dudley, on his way out of the league, and Theo Pinson, who probably never belonged in it if you based your hiring decision merely on talent. Both made their teams better, the games fun. By 2019, things were ready to bloom.
Then, came the payoff: Woj’s famous “Clean Sweep” tweet which some fans had stenciled onto t-shirts. Championship dreams were legit. James Harden wanted to come to Brooklyn ... and did. Fans would come up to Marks at the arena to thank him. Not normally sentimental, Marks admitted it made him emotional.
It was not to be and therein lies the biggest criticism of Marks as GM: that he did not manage stars well.
First, critics lamented, he let the stars have too much power, passing key decisions along to his privy council: KD, Kyrie, James and Harris if not for approval then real influence. It had a bit of a star chamber effect. Relationships were uneven, coaches looked over their shoulders and sometimes saw the grim reaper, armed and ready. The decisions to fire coaches — three of them in four years — were made by management and ownership with players often expressing mock surprise. Of course, everyone knew that if KD wanted Kenny Atkinson or Steve Nash to stay, they would have. The culture also took a hit as more of the original band of brothers, those staffers who had helped mold the culture, left for other parts, some of natural, others not so much.
Finally, one by one, the pieces of the “Clean sweep” fell away. Within a a year and a day, first James, then Kyrie and finally KD demanded out, giving up huge financial rewards in the cases of James and Kyrie. They held the organization hostage with trade demands — fire the GM, fire the coach — in the case of KD. When days after Kyrie was traded, KD left. Kyrie, asked about it, said he was glad his friend was out of Brooklyn. There were reports that key “players” in the drama weren’t even talking to each other off-stage, that there was a need for intervention.
There are plenty of reasons why Nets stars and superstars decided they wanted out. Kyrie’s story was just a mess of conspiracy theories and other “antics,” as one insider described things, many of which never made the papers. The ones that did caused a great deal of pain. James blamed a lack of “structure” and hinted that Kyrie’s lack of commitment changed his role, made it more difficult. And KD’s hunger for legacy demanded more championships. He may have soured on Kyrie at the end, but before that, he’d sided with his point guard and his many talents. Indeed, there wasn’t a lot of maturity or humility in supply on the players’ end. There was plenty of ego however and that extended from the locker room to the executive suites. Decisions were made then unmade, some by Tsai.
It’s so much more complicated that, of course, It’s worth of a book or Harvard Business School study at the least. There was COVID dread and mandates, Tsai getting fed up with said antics. Not to mention indecision. Can Kyrie play? Will he? Injuries also limited KD and Kyrie to 74 games between the “Clean Sweep” and their departure dates, three and a half years later. The “Big Three” played a total of 365 minutes in 16 games, going 13-3. NBA players were in awe of their potential.
Bear with us. We know you’ve read this before. We’re not going to parse things out much further. Been there, done that ... to you. Everyone shares blame, we’ve been told. That is no doubt true but also is a bit of a copout. Maybe the whole concept of a “Big Three” is flawed. That seems true enough as well.
That all would’ve been fine if things had ended there with the new era led by Mikal Bridges BUT a year after the last of the “Big Three” exited, it looks like it’s still happening. Spencer Dinwiddie who owed his career to the Nets front office was fed up with coaching and got out. He publicly claimed his relationships weren’t that ugly but his “people” were calling around. Oh yeah, it was ugly.
Then we heard Mikal Bridges, the anti-superstar, everyone’s favorite teammate and good all-around good-guy, wanted out too and under similar circumstances to the “Big Three.” Ian Begley and Brian Lewis wrote in so many words that Bridges, like his predecessors, demanded it, with Begley initially reporting “Bridges side was prepared to force the issue by telling teams he wanted to be with the Knicks.” The As our Anthony Puccio wrote of Mikal’s turnaround...
He’s a hard worker and someone the Nets and much of the fanbase truly felt was a centerpiece towards building forward. He embodied the culture Sean Marks has sought since firing Kenny Atkinson in 2020. And he was always ‘untouchable’ in their eyes.
Until he wasn’t.
We don’t know if or when Bridges told the authorities he wanted out of this facility, or, to give him his due, said he was no longer happy and wanted to play his buddies or whatever.
Marks denied that Bridges had asked out. “It’s against his nature.”
“That could not be further from the truth. I think that’s just not in Mikal’s character. It’s not who he is. And that definitely did not happen. But he was told by me when I called him up and let them know that we’re at the 2-yard line.”
It seems to have happened “quickly” as Begley and Lewis reported and Marks confirmed, maybe as little as two or three days. We don’t know specifically what specifically changed his mind ... or if that the Nets narrative is correct, that he didn’t ask out at all. In a bit of a humble brag about his patience and fortitude by saying it was his counterpart that won the day, calling the Knicks offer the best of the lot since he Bridges joined them 15 months ago, a steady stream that included from the Grizzlies, the Rockets, the Knicks at the last deadline.
Certainly, any narrative that builds out from that rollicking band of Nova Knicks or a desperate Knick GM believing he the missing link sounds a lot better than he wanted out. Bridge will hold his press conference tomorrow morning. So we’ll hear from him. What sounds nice but our feeling is based on the preponderance of evidence he was wowed by the Garden. We willingly note we know nothing but our spiny tingles say something. It had to be something else that happened ... had.to.be.
Indeed, his performance on the court suffered as the season drew to a close, averaging less than 14 points in his last 10 games. Was he tired from playing all those games starting a year ago with Team USA? Was it Donovan Mitchell’s decision to stay in Cleveland? That, however, was easy to predict, Mitchell would have left $7 million on table. Nobody hates Cleveland that much. We doubt it was that. Was their cumulative effect? We don’t know.
At some point, according to the Nets narrative, it was the shock of the new Knicks offer that flashed before them. Make me offer I can’t refuse, Marks had said before and now.
Presumably, just judging by their history and common sense, the Nets had a good enough sense from Bridges at the trade deadline that he wanted to stay, wanted to be the face of the franchise until he was joined by the next KD, Kyrie or James, aka a superstar. Otherwise, why would Marks keep rejecting one offer after another? And even in recent weeks, there was Bridges at Liberty games, with Sabrina Ionescu.
Maybe there were other issues we have no clue about. Or sure, it is possible that the Nets finally did a complete turn without Bridges input, going straight from building around him to unceremoniously dumping him. But there is that pattern of other departures that just can’t be ignored.
No relationship is perfect even when everyone is making seven or eight figures, but a 180 degree turn in a space of days, with no explanation other than to reconnect with college pals? accept an offer they couldn’t refuse? Please!! So, just like James, KD and Kyrie, the deal got done and to his preferred destination.
It’s happened more that once or twice. Durant, Harden, Irving, and Dinwiddie, asked out, if not demanding an outright exit in less two years. That simply can’t be written off as individual decisions. none connected.
What’s the goal in this seemingly endless retelling other than asking why certain things keep happening? We want peace, not a steady stream of chaos! As Zach Lowe put it a week ago when news of the trade first broke, enough already.
Can we pause for a second and admire the glorious wreckage of one of the craziest decades any franchise has experienced in the history of American pro sports? In 12 years, the Nets: relocated; chased contention by trading their future (Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum!) for Pierce and Garnett; flopped and got very bad; rebuilt slowly, culminating in a 42-win season and a first-round loss in 2018-19; formed a superstar trio the next two calendar years; hired Steve Nash as head coach out of nowhere; traded all three over the next two years; and now have gone all the way back to traditional tanking. They even killed their own mascot — Brooklyn Knight. My god. It’s no wonder whatever Brooklyn fans actually exist just walk around in a constant state of confusion. (Emphasis added.)
This can’t continue.
We know Sean Marks can work wonders when he has time (and his owner’s patience, which he certainly has.) He’s shown it. He is very, very smart, clever, and loves the game within the game, which he is quite good at. Sure, you can argue that he’s done well in this recent crisis under great pressure, but again — “Well, that was awful, but, hey. nice recovery!”
So instead, got to stop beginning with the “awful,” then finding a “nice recovery.” The franchise needs to rethink why things keep going like this — and why so many key staffers have left as well. A little transparency and humility wouldn’t hurt either.
Joe and Clara Wu Tsai have made their decision about the franchise direction. We wish everyone well (except of course for Knick fans.) We only hope that lessons have been learned, and in the future there are fewer crises on the seventh and eighth floors of 168 39th Street ... or at least smarter ways to cope with them. To put it another way: We are owed!
The fan base, surprisingly to a number of us, has been extremely loyal. As we’ve noted, despite a 50-loss season and everything else catalogued above, 99.0% of all the seats at Barclays Center were filled last season. Barclays and the Nets are an established brands in New York now.
Finally, the recovery this time and in the past has been “nice.” When you compare what the Nets got for Bridges to what the Bulls got for DeMar DeRozan, yikes. It is not that much of an apples-to-oranges comparison to justify getting six first round picks and swap for Bridges to one second and a couple of players. It’s the kind of move that Marks will have to keep making if the Nets are to succeed ... that of course and an end to chaos.
Mikal Bridges finally offers his farewell
After first expressing his thanks to the Knicks organization, then his glee at playing at the “mf Mecca,” Bridges put out a statement on Instagram Sunday night.
“And once again,” he said he had nothing to do with it. “I got traded, i was not a free agent. IDK what yall want me to do?”
It is as if there is in every agent’s digital file cabinet a standard form for farewell letters where you just change the names of the player and the team. No need to go through it, line by line. Not to be too cruel, but blah, blah, blah. Its perfunctory tone only makes us more certain that Bridges wanted out. And no, those standard forms don’t have a place where the player opens up and reveals more about his reasons for departure.
The legend of Juan Pablo Vaulet
When the final details of the Mikal Bridges trade finally emerged Saturday afternoon, there was one last twist. The Nets were giving up their draft rights to Nets long-time stash Juan Pablo Vaulet, a minor legend in Nets history. For some yet unexplained reason, the two teams needed Vaulet to be included.
But for those of us nerds who have kept the faith since the Jersey days, those draft rights have a bit of a talisman quality for a certain, forgettable era of Nets basketball. Their inclusion in the Knicks deal marks the fourth time since 2015 they’ve been moved back and forth four times. The legend of Juan Pablo Vaulet grows.
JPV, as the cognoscenti know him, is 28 year old Argentine basketball player, a 6’7” wing who currently plays for Baxi Manresa in the Spanish Liga ACB. He is certainly a competent basketball player and a one-time member of the Argentine Olympic team but not an NBA prospect. And therein lies the story, one that can help you chart how far the Nets have come — despite everything reported above.
In the second round of the 2015 Draft, the Nets didn’t seem to have a play. They had traded their first round pick which became Pat Connaughton, along with Mason Plumlee, to Portland for Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and the veteran Steve Blake, but Billy King thought he had a hand yet to play in draft poker.
The Nets were high on the then 19-year-old Argentine. Vaulet had created a little stir in South America as an athletic youngster (but one who could not shoot). He also had connections to Manu Ginobili, a secular saint in his native Argentina. JPV played for a team in the Ginobilis’ home town of Bahia Blanca, that was owned by Pepe Sanchez, Manu’s good friend and Spurs teammate. He was coached by Manu’s brother Sebastian both in the Argentine league and on the country’s U19 (19 and younger) national team. Manu even tweeted him good luck before the Draft.
There was also some more mystery associated with his decision to declare — and stay in the Draft. Vaulet was the youngest international prospect to keep his name in the Draft. The buzz was that he wanted to go undrafted in 2015 so down the road he could sign as a free agent ... with San Antonio. There was also a report from Jonathan Givony that a mystery NBA team had interest.
Enter Frank Zanin who had replaced Bobby Marks as Nets assistant GM under King. He traveled to Argentina to scout him. JPV wasn’t exactly burning up the draft wires at that point. He had averaged 8.5 points per game, 4.0 rebounds, and 0.5 assists in the FIBA U17 tournament in the Czech Republic two years earlier. He shot 46.9% from two-point range, and only 44.4% from the free-throw line. He did not have 3-point range and no one had him in either rounds of their mock drafts, nor breaking the top 100 list.
Still Zanin liked what he saw in Vaulet no doubt aware of his nickname, “the next Manu,” which was based purely on his size and his connections to the Ginobili family, not his skillset. Then again, the future Hall of Famer had been drafted with the next to last pick in the 1997 Draft.
Zanin’s enthusiasm for Vaulet became a running joke at the Nets old training facility in the Meadowlands (where the parking lot had in recent years been paved using part of the money Philadelphia had paid for the rights to Kyle Korver. The rest had been famously used to buy a fax machine, but that’s a different embarrassing story.)
At one point, some of the younger basketball operations staffers having watched tape of JPV and being horrified, went to Zanin and provided him with their thoughts. Zanin essentially replied, “Well you guys are wrong. That’s who we’re taking.”
At one point, Zanin and King even considered using a first rounder on him! That’s how much they liked him. After the Spurs passed on him at No. 26, Brooklyn called Charlotte and pried the 39th pick away from the Hornets with an offer of two future second rounders, in 2018 and 2020, plus $880,000 in cash considerations. The Nets draft room feared that the Spurs who had the 55th pick might go for him then. Ya never know.
So, at No. 39, the Nets grabbed him and the draft room congratulated each other on drafting “the next Manu,” a description some even used when talking to reporters in the days after the Draft. (One of the picks the Nets sent out got passed a round a few times before it became Talen Horton-Tucker.)
Twice once under King, then a second time under Sean Marks, the Nets had hoped to give JPV a shot, naming him to a Summer League roster. At one point, he suited up in Vegas, but couldn’t play. COVID interfered with another opportunity. They invited him to instructional camps for their draft slashes and young international players, scouted him as a member of the Argentine Olympic team at the Tokyo Olympics where he barely played scoring 10 points and grabbing a single rebound in four games.
By October 2021, the Nets ultimately dispatched JPV’s draft rights to Indiana in an Edmund Sumner salary dump. Then in yet another paper transaction, got them back again in February 2023 as part of the four-team Kevin Durant trade. By that point, he had become a running joke as his draft rights got passed around like the near-worthless Argentine peso.
On Saturday, his rights were unceremoniously sent to the Knicks. He remains with Baxi Manresa in Spain with no real chance of making an NBA roster, let alone be considered anywhere near Manu’s level. Now 28, he averaged 6.0 points on 49/29/78 shooting along with 3.7 rebounds in 17.1 minutes per. He’s a defensive specialist.
So what happened to Zanin? After Marks took over, he was dumped by the Nets but landed on his feed. He is now the vice-president of scouting for ... the New York Knicks! Maybe he still has hope.
Bits and pieces from the Knicks trade.
There’s always “stuff” that doesn’t come out immediately after a big trade that doesn’t get a lot of attention like the inclusion of Juan Pablo Valuet, detailed above. Here are a couple of others, ICMYI:
Fun cap nerdery:The Nets slid Bogdanovic into the Dinwiddie trade exception, which means they created a $23.3M trade exception with the Bridges trade. Second biggest TPE in the NBA behind the ~$25M one ATL just created in the Dejounte Murray deal.— Fred Katz (@FredKatz) July 7, 2024
As part of the Mikal Bridges trade, the Brooklyn Nets guaranteed $1.39 million of Mamadi Diakite’s $2.27 million contract, league sources told @hoopshype.— Michael Scotto (@MikeAScotto) July 8, 2024
Mamadi Diakite, the newest Net, has won an NCAA championship with Virginia, a G League championship with Lakeland and NBA championship with Milwaukee.— NetsDaily (@NetsDaily) July 7, 2024
When Sean Marks speaks with beat writers Monday morning at 11:30 a.m., no doubt we will hear of others. The press conference won’t be streamed live and to be clear, don’t expect any big news, any shocking revelation. The availability has been tentatively scheduled for several days, but not made official till this morning. The Nets GM normally speaks to the media this time of year.
Not so friendly
Olympic “friendlies” have begun, those exhibition games between national teams in preparation for the quadrennial event, this summer in Paris. The first was Friday night between Germany, led by Dennis Schroder, and France, whose roster includes former Knick Evan Fournier. We didn’t know they have a grudge, a serious grudge.
FOURNIER CHOKES SCHRODER! Dennis Schroder put his hands on Evan Fournier’s shoulder/neck area, then Fournier doubled down & choked him back! The veteran players hugged & talked it out, after, but Fournier was ejected! Via. @statline pic.twitter.com/YH1bWummHg— Courtside Buzz (@CourtsideBuzzX) July 6, 2024
More important if less entertaining for Nets fans is that Team Canada, led by head coach Jordi Fernandez, will play Team USA Wednesday night at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas. Game time is 10:30 p.m. ET. FS1 will have live coverage.
Final Note
The off-season is now almost half done for the Nets whose season ended the second week of April. It’s already been, um, noteworthy. We are certain there will be news today. There always is when Sean Marks speaks. You can read it before he speaks at 11:30 a.m. ET And you can be sure that the only GM take on the Mikal Bridges trade will come from Marks. Leon Rose is Sphinx-like. In his four-year tenure at the Garden, he’s spoken once and that was to MSG TV.
So best wishes to everyone. Hang on.
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