Season-In-Review: Kris Humphries

The 72-day marriage of these two was maybe the only reason anyone talked about the Nets last season in a situation not regarding Benedict Howard..no, Dwight Arnold? Ok, I give up, Dwight Howard.

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 the ex-husband of Kim Kardashian, Kris Humphries. Marshon Brooks was covered last.

I can't believe it! OMG! Kris was soooo mean to Kim!!.....Whoops, forgot that Kris Humphries is a basketball player too and not just some caption in People Magazine.

Humphries' 2011-12 season was overshadowed--somewhat ridiculously--because of his failed marriage to a member of the least talented family in the US, the Kardashians! Hump was booed in the first half of the season at nearly every road arena the Nets played in last season and even sometimes at the Prudential Center too for his involvement and eventual divorce with the with reality TV star. No, seriously, that's something that actually happened. This isn't one of those absurd hypothetical situations that Bill Simmons dreamed up.

Pop culture aside, Kris (Humphries, not Jenner) had his best season during his NBA career in the 2011-12 year, putting up career-highs in points (13.8 per game), rebounds (11 per), assists (1.5 per), and blocks (1.2 per). Hump's career season is just yet another peak in his career with the Nets, which started in 2010 after being traded to New Jersey from Dallas with Shawne "Extra-E" Williams for Eduardo Najera. Prior to joining the team, Kris bounced around the Jazz, Raptors, and Mavs organizations, serving a limited role and not providing much value on the court and in the box score to those teams.

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.

Season-In-Review: Gerald Green

Gerald, we hope the Pacers and their fans like your dunking ability, because us Nets fans certainly miss it

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 the upstart Gerald Green. I covered Gerald Wallace last.

Gerald Green was rescued from the NBA D-League's Los Angeles D-Fenders by the Nets on February 27th, 2012, and the swing-man never looked back. Originally, the Nets, an injury-depleted mess of a team, were just looking for any small forward who could go into games and simply not be terrible. With a low-risk, 10-day contract, the Nets signed Green to fill that role and oh boy did the Nets get some return for their investment.

After his first 10-day contract with the team, Gerald signed another 10-day and then eventually signed on with New Jersey for the rest of the season after showing the coaching staff that he was one of, if not the best, healthy Nets players on the court at some points in the condensed 2011-12 campaign.Green is most notable around the NBA for winning the 2007 Slum Dunk Contest while a member of the Celtics, in his first go-around of the NBA.

Gerald has absurd athleticism and hops, which is what the Nets were assuredly lacking of last year and is what he brought to the team last season, capped off by a crazy, alley-hoop windmill jam he threw down against the Rockets in March. However, the former 1st-round pick of Boston brought much more to New Jersey after the All-Star break than just his dunking ability, he displayed an incredibly well-rounded repertoire in his game that simply wasn't present in the five seasons he was in the NBA before heading overseas and to the D-League.

Season-In-Review: Gerald Wallace

Crash

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 the team's mid-season acquisition, Gerald Wallace. Brook Lopez was covered last.

On March 16th of 2011, the Nets definitely mortgaged their short-term drafting future by trading away their 2012 1st-round pick, top-3 protected, Shawne Williams, and Mehmet Okur to the Portland Trail Blazers for small forward Gerald Wallace. I was walking home from school when I saw the trade on Twitter and I was blown away: The Nets just gave up their 1st-round pick for the 2012 Draft, a draft class widely considered to be deep by most standards, for a very good, but not superstar player?

Ok, I thought, as I reasoned with myself to stop flipping out and cursing at Billy King, there had to be some reason why the Nets gave up their most-likely high pick for Wallace. And certainly, to my surprise, there was a massive silver lining to the trade. The first aspect of this was that made me make a sigh of relief was that Gerald Wallace brings so much more to a basketball team than solid rebounding, a decent 3-point shot, and athleticism.

Wallace also brought intensity, emotion, recklessness, and just pure effort to a Nets team that has been lacking that for years. The second part was that the 2012 draft class seemed to clear like a cloud of smoke in the days leading up to June 28th.

Season-In-Review: Brook Lopez

Lopez may have missed (nearly) all of that season, but that doesn't he can't rebound in the 2012-13 campaign

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 Brook Lopez. Deron Williams was covered last.

Ah, Brook Lopez, the Nets' most endearing enigma.The 7'0" center was injured for the first time in his short career last season and boy did he miss games. Brook played in just five of the Nets' 66 games last year due to a broken right foot and the team certainly suffered without the talents of their true center who, in years prior, served as a menacing defensive stud down low and put up 20-point performances on the reg. However, Lopez has definitely had his share of problems, especially regarding rebounding, and he may not be the player he was pre-injury this season in Brooklyn.

From 2008-11, his first three years in the league, Brook played in all 246 of the Nets games in that span and played pretty well, increasing his points per game output from 13.0 in '08-'09, to 18.8 in '09-'10, to 20.4 in '10-'11. Even though Brook's scoring throughout his career has been consistently good, his rebounding has been far from and that was shown in the five games Brook did manage to play last season. In those games, he averaged 19.2 points per but just a mere 3.6 rebounds per, something that is unacceptable for a player of Lopez' size and importance to his team.

More after the jump on the Stanford grad:

Season-In-Review: Deron Williams

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 the (current and hopefully permanent) face of the Nets, Deron Williams. I covered DeShawn Stevenson first. 

Well, a (mostly) full (condensed) season with Deron Williams on the Nets the whole year was interesting, right? It's tough to give a fair analysis of D-Will's season right now because of the injury struggles, impeding free agency discussions, lack of teammate help, and even potential trades that undoubtedly affected his play on the court this past season. Deron came oh so close to being able to play with Dwight Howard in New Jersey but that deal with the Nets and Magic fell apart as fast as it was put together. However, even with all these distractions, Nets fans were able to see D-Will at his very best at some scattered points this season (the huge win against the Knicks at MSG where D-Will had 10 points in a minute and of course the 57-point effort in Charlotte), but were unable to see sustained superstar-like play.

Granted, Deron's short tenure with the Nets is a definite aberration as he is far better a basketball player than he has showed recently with awful supporting casts and teams decimated by injury. D-Will's stats also weren't helped out by his career-low shooting efforts in 67 games with the Nets which, according to him, are mainly due to the so-called terrible shooting background at the Prudential Center, a natural hockey arena. Even though he may have missed a lot of games due to injury, not tried 100% when on the floor, or just flat out didn't perform well, it is clear to Nets fans that Deron Williams, when healthy and on a good team, can be the top PG in the NBA and can easily lead a team far into the playoffs.

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.