Season-In-Review: Jordan Farmar

Ugh, I miss this guy already. What I don't miss? The empty seats behind him in this picture.

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 Jordan Farmar. I covered Kris Humphries last.

March 7th, 2012. The game was just another run-of-the-mill Nets-Clippers game at the Prudential Center on a Wednesday night, except that it was one the Nets won. The game had the feel of many the Nets have played in recent years against playoff teams: They race ahead to a quick lead, but watch their lead slowly deteriorate as the game progresses. In this one, two Chris Paul free throws gave the Clips their first lead of the game with 8.9 seconds, putting them ahead 100-98. Then, magic happened.

Deron Williams sent a beautiful cross-court skip pass to Jordan Farmar who sunk a rainbow three-pointer with 0.2 seconds left to give the Nets their 13th win on the season and a signature win over one of the West's better teams. Farmar scored 16 points in 19 minutes of play in that game, something not completely out of the ordinary for the former Laker to do in his two seasons in Jersey.

Nets' Jersey Unveiled at Jay-Z Concert, Same As Leaked Ones

The stars, like new Dodgers co-owner and NBA legend, came out on Friday night for the official debut of the Barclays Center with Jay-Z show.

As was announced awhile ago, the Brooklyn Nets' jerseys for the 2012-13 season were unveiled during the official opening of the Barclays Center, by minority owner and rap star Jay-Z wearing a black Nets road uniform on stage.

The very jersey that Jay-Z wore last night was leaked a week ago by someone on the Internet and the simple, black-and-white design of the jersey, which is echoed in the look of the Barclays Center itself, sent ripples throughout the sports world. In today's modern world, a plain uniform design was deemed as unusual but granted, not much about the inception and development of the Brooklyn Nets franchise was usual. A Russian majority owner, a rap mogul minority owner, a groundbreaking case of eminent domain in New York City? Not all things that other franchises face, but things necessary for the Brooklyn Nets to become a thing.

Also, as noted in the first link above, last night's concert signaled the 1st time Brooklyn Nets jerseys were to be sold on NBAStore.com and BrooklynNets.com, as the new uni's became available soon after the concert was over. Last night marked a true milestone in the Nets' history as a franchise, as more milestones are soon to come in the upcoming weeks, with the team's 1st regular season game scheduled for just over a month from now.

My Tour of the Barclays Center

As a season-ticket holder of the Nets (shared with my dad, as equally die-hard Nets fan as myself), my dad and I were able to participate in the 1st public tour of the Barclays Center on Monday. The arena's much-hyped ribbon-cutting event was on Friday, and not being able to attend that day, we figured that a tour would suffice. During my tour, which was awesome, I took a lot of pictures, ate a lot of food, and awed at the wondrous arena that was in the making for nine years before coming to fruition.

When I walked into the Barclays Center and saw the Nets new logo plastered everywhere, I knew that it had finally come true. This team was in Brooklyn and was to be relevant yet again. Below is my diary of sorts as to how my first visit to the Nets' state-of-the-art home went:

I took the train from Long Island with my dad to Brooklyn and it was a relatively pleasant ride, round-trip of about one hour and 20 minutes give or take a few. One of the first references I saw to the Barclays Center that I saw in the Atlantic Terminal after my train ride was this sign, and even though plain and in stock NYC mass transit font, it hit home for me that I wasn't going to the Meadowlands or Newark to see the Nets, I was going to Brooklyn and the Barclays Center.

Netlinked 9/21/12: Former Net and NBPA Vice President Keyon Dooling Retires

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that is indeed a Jarvis Hayes sighting. Oh boy was that Nets team filled with veteran back-ups as starters.

A sad day in the NBA yesterday as veteran point guard and former Net Keyon Dooling retired from the league at the age of 32. Dooling, who was most recently with the Celtics, played 12 seasons in the league with six different teams after being drafted 10th overall in the 2010 NBA Draft by the Magic. Also, Dooling served as the secondhand man to NBA Players' Association President up until his retirement and the NBPA will certainly be scrambling to find a quick replacement that was as good a Vice President as Keyon was.

He only spent two years with the Nets, but in those two years, I grew fond of Dooling as a player and as the solid veteran presence he was on a team that wasn't too good at the time. I wish him well with his post-NBA life and hope he is as successful as his long career was.

For All Intensive Purposes, Here Are Your New (Leaked) Brooklyn Nets Jerseys

I don't love the new threads, I really would like some gray on both the home and away uni's, but I really shouldn't complain. The black and white look is dominant and kinda intimidating, as if Reggie Evans on the glass wasn't enough.

I know they officially are supposed to be released to the public on September 28th, but this latest leak of the Brooklyn Nets' first jerseys, found by the great guys at NetsDaily, seems to be legit. We obviously won't know for sure if these are the real deal until the 28th, but work on the assumption that they are, considering a bunch of major basketball outlets and Nets sites ran the same leak earlier today. Welcome to your new franchise, Brooklyn Nets fans, these are our jerseys for the future and hopefully they bring us some winning luck. No more red alternates ever again.

Netlinked 9/18/12: Nets Fill Out Training Camp Roster, Jordan Williams Waived by Hawks

In order to fill up their training camp roster at 18 players, the Nets have signed three players to non-guaranteed contracts. Guard Stephen Dennis and forwards James Mays and Carleton Scott were signed by the team yesterday. Dennis went to Kutztown University, Mays went to Clemson, and Scott, a member of the Nets' 2012 Summer League team, is a Notre Dame grad. None of these guys are expected to play a significant role and/or even make the roster coming out of training camp but they do add some sort of depth if needed to perform in some capacity for the Nets this year. I've never personally seen Dennis play but from what I've seen of Mays and Scott, they are both guys who have decent scoring skill and can perform the intangibles needed to be valuable to a NBA team.

And finally, in sad news relating to former Nets, the Atlanta Hawks have requested waivers on Jordan Williams, the power forward from the University of Maryland who was sent to Atlanta from the Nets as part of the Joe Johnson deal. As someone who personally roots for Maryland sports, I'm very upset with the Hawks and frankly, don't understand the move from a basketball perspective for Atlanta. J-Will isn't making much money and showed at the end of last season that he's a serviceable big-man back-up who a depth-starved team like the Hawks could probably use.

Shot Analysis: Deron Williams

Deron's performance has been kinda uneven with the Nets, but he certainly had his bright spots this season.

This is the 1st series I'm doing analyzing shot charts of the more important Nets (sans Brook Lopez because of his limited play last year) and how they fared from the field last season. We start off with the player at the helm of the Nets, Deron Williams.

For these 'Shot Analysis' posts that I'll do, I'll be using statistical support from a new (at least to me) site called VORPed.com that has shot charts from the last two seasons for every NBA player. Pretty cool, huh? The chart below is Deron's from last season, his first one with a significant amount of games being played with the Nets.

As you can see, Deron took most of his non-layup shots behind the 3-point line along the wing. 31% from the left and nearly 40% from the right sides of the wing are each pretty good percentages for a passing-first point guard. However, D-Will's shooting accuracy faded significantly on threes taken in either corner and from right at the top-center of the arc.