Season-In-Review: Marshon Brooks

Marshon certainly hads swagger that goes through the roof, but will his potential and on-court performance do the same this season?

This post, along with the other posts I will do in the Season-In-Review series, will take a deeper look at how all the Nets did last season on the court and possibly off of it. We continue with Marshon Brooks. I covered Gerald Green last.

Ah, Marshon Brooks, the most swagged-out Net remaining on the squad, holding the sole title since DeShawn Stevenson was traded to the Hawks. The 25th overall pick in the 2011 Draft, acquired by the Nets during the draft from Boston for the 27th overall pick (JaJuan Johnson) and a future 2nd-rounder, turned out to be one of the few bright spots for the team last season and showed an inane ability to score the ball. Whether that be from beyond the 3-point arc, via the mid-range jumper, or even an acrobatic scoop-to-the-hoop down low, it didn't matter. The simple truth is that Marshon can score points in the NBA, a talent that he certainly showed during his college years at Providence, most notably in a 52-point performance against Notre Dame.

Ok, I may be fawning a little too much over a guy that doesn't play a whole bunch of defense and might have the worst shot selection in the NBA after Johan Petro of course. However, I don't care because the most important aspect of Brooks' rookie year wasn't that he scored 12 points per or showed he can make shots from anywhere on the court, it was that, as a rookie, he had the confidence heading into his inaugural season in the NBA that he could score from anywhere on the floor.

In basketball, confidence is ridiculously important in order for a player to realize their true potential. If a 6-8, 250-pound tank of a power forward has no confidence in his ability to make a free throw, then they're is a very little chance that he will drive to the paint a lot, greatly decreasing his value as a big-man with no regard to his solid build or even out-of-this-world athletic talents. Without confidence, a NBA player is only as good as his limitations allow him to be, not as good as his true skills or athleticism would suggest.

Netlinked 8/28/12: Former Nets Edition And More

Oh boy do I miss that guy. Remember when we called him Veal Scalapini? No? Ok, maybe that was just my dad and I

Former Net, and current league-wide, fan favorite Brian Scalabrine is close to joining the Chicago Bulls' coaching staff as an assistant. I knew he was a good bench cheerleader but assistant coach? Kinda surprising.

Ex-Net point guard Jacque Vaughn, who played with the Nets from 2004-06, has been hired by the Orlando Magic to succeed Stan Van Gundy as their head coach.

Yet another former Net, forward Eduardo Najera, has officially retired from the NBA to serve as the head coach of the Dallas Mavericks' D-League affiliate, the Texas Legends. He will also hold an ownership stake in the Legends and will serve in some capacity in the Mavs' front office.

Shelden Williams has signed with Elan Chalon, a French team. In 58 games with the Nets last year, the Duke product averaged 4.6 points per game and 6.0 rebounds per game.

More links after the jump:

Season-In-Review: DeShawn Stevenson

This post, along with the other posts I will do in the Season-In-Review series, will take a deeper look at how all the Nets did last season on the court and possibly off of it. We start off with the enigma that is DeShawn Stevenson.


The Nets signed Stevenson to a 1-year, $2.5 million contract on December 23rd, 2011, just three days before the Nets played their first game of the season. Of course, Stevenson was a key part of the 2011 NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks but had to look for work elsewhere after the season due to Dallas' cap-cutting measures. The Nets were excited to sneak in and sign the guy who shut down LeBron in the Finals for only the veteran's minimum. However, the Nets didn't get the Stevenson that seemed to want to play defense, they got the Stevenson that played it when he felt like it.

I guess we shouldn't really have expected much from the 31 year-old coming into the season but what we got from him was a significant drop-off from anything anyone thought he would produce. Stevenson shot a dreadful 28.5% from the field, 28% from three, and just 56% from the free-throw line. All of the these numbers were near the worst of his career and that could probably be blamed on motivation alone. When a less-than-stable player like Stevenson goes from the NBA Champion Mavericks to the lottery-bound Nets, there is bound to be disappointment and possibly a reduction in level of play. Actually, just reduction in performance wouldn't do Stevenson's season justice; it would be best characterized as the performance falling off of a cliff.