Off-Season Grades: Brooklyn Nets

This is the last of the five off-season grades we at Nets Take Over will do. The first was of the Boston Celtics, followed by the Toronto Raptors, New York Knicks, and Philadelphia 76ers. Today, finally, we examine the Brooklyn Nets. But first, a review of the grading system:

Grading System:

It goes on a scale of 1-100.

Above a 50 means the team is taking steps in the right direction, whether it be intentionally going towards rebuilding or powering up their team and becoming contenders. A 100 means the most epic off-season ever, so nobody gets a 100.

A 50 means the team had an average off-season. They may have improved, but they hurt their flexibility, or something similar where the result balances out.

Anything lower than a 50 means that the team took steps backwards and took the wrong moves. That's bad, so they get a bad score. Simple as that.

Here's where the semi-complex part comes in. We add three new "variables" to the grades so to speak. Potential, Flexibility, and Depth. These are three main components that a team should look at in the off-season and can affect the grade of a team. Potential meaning how well the team is expected to play during the season, depth meaning how the team did in terms of depth, and flexibility meaning how the team's future looks in terms of cap space. Depending on how the respective team did, it will get a positive or negative P, F or D, with a positive letter being a good thing and a negative letter being bad.

Example: 71 +P +D -F means they had a good off-season and increased their depth and potential, but lost flexibility along the way.

Let us begin.

Key Additions:

• Joe Johnson
• Mirza Teletovic
• C.J. Watson
• Reggie Evans
• Jerry Stackhouse
• Andray Blatche
• Josh Childress
• Tyshawn Taylor
• Toko Shengelia

Key Subtractions:

• Jordan Farmar
• Shelden Williams
• Anthony Morrow
• Gerald Green
• Damion James
• DeShawn Stevenson
• Sundiata Gaines
• Johan Petro

Where to start? The 2012 offseason has undoubtedly been the biggest the Nets have had since the 2001 franchise-changing acquisition of Jason Kidd, and probably surpasses even that move in terms of sheer visibility and, for lack of a better word, hype. Goodbye to the swamps and 6th boroughs of New Jersey, and, as has been repeated ad nauseam the last several months, "Hello Brooklyn!". The effect of the marketing and promotional push this summer has exceeded the hopes of even the most optimistic of future Brooklyn Net fans, but the formulation of the roster has been no small shake up itself. For the first time in what feels like ages, the Nets appear to have all the makings of a solid playoff team.

The first order of business this summer was surely to be the re-signing of Deron Williams, on whole the entirety of the "Brooklyn or bust" plan rest. If the Nets failed to re-sign Deron Williams, all would be a disaster, their shiny new billion dollar arena would be filled with mostly empty seats, and they would never recover, or so the popular hyperbolic thinking went. Luckily, we never had to wait to see if those doomsday prophecies would come true, as much to most of the national media's surprise, Williams decided to re-up with the Nets and not his hometown Dallas Mavericks. Though obviously the most important move of the offseason, Deron's re-signing was not even its first important one, having been preceded by the unexpected trade for All-Star Joe Johnson. Williams has since credited the acquisition of  Johnson with convincing him to re-sign long term, and on media day both Deron and Joe hinted that there may have been something going on behind the scenes between the two to facilitate the trade.

The acquisition of Joe Johnson was initially met with a fair amount of shock and repulsion, mostly at the thought of the mammoth contract Johnson's game comes attached with. Similar sentiments were shared when Gerald Wallace was quietly re-signed for a not-so-quiet $40 million over four years. Though there are certainly some concerns about cap flexibility and maneuverability going forward, the Nets' front office did a fantastic job putting together a high-paying roster within the confines of the CBA, even if the players themselves earn more than what they "should" make. It should not be taken for granted the advantage the Nets have in the deep pockets of Mikhail Prokhorov, where concerns about luxury taxes will never arise. The same can not be said of the Oklahoma City Thunder, whose on-going situation with James Harden's contract extension is developing into a mini-Melodrama of its own. Though the Nets' recent activity might limit the future moves they can make (the Lakers, however, are a great example of a capped out team still able to make franchise-changing moves), they will not have financial concerns so long as Mikhail Prokhorov remains owner. That financial edge was a huge key to what appears to be a franchise changing offseason.

Though it's no secret that the Nets had their sights set on Dwight Howard for the greater part of the last year, re-signing Brook Lopez should not be viewed as merely a consolation prize but rather a crucial component for the team going forward. Lopez will provide the offensive anchor down low, which should in turn open up the perimeter for the 3-point shooters the Nets focused on attaining. When Lopez was out of the lineup last year, the team's perimeter shooting suffered, as players like Anthony Morrow were unable to find adequate space to get shots off. The arrival of Joe Johnson and his constant threat from the outside will benefit Lopez inside, as he will not be able to so easily double-teamed, and having Lopez inside will benefit Johnson and the rest of the team's jump shooters. So long as all the key parts of the team remain healthy, a fair concern for any team, the offensive potential of the team should be the most assured.

Where bigger questions lie will be on the defensive end, where both Brook Lopez and the returning Kris Humphries have never proven to establish themselves. While Lopez can be an offensive juggernaut, he can just as often be a liability inside defensively. His slow-footedness and patience helps him on offense when he's calculating his next post-move, but hurts him when trying to make defensive switches on time. As far as centers go, Brook Lopez is of the old guard; not many have the array of offensive moves that he does, but most marquee starting centers are much quicker and stronger defensively even if they lack post skills. This is all to say nothing of Lopez's well-noted history of anemic rebounding as well. I do believe "The Big Disney" has the tools and height to be a decent rebounder and passable defender, but his ability to improve on that end is by far one of the biggest questions about the Nets' roster going into the season.

Though Kris Humphries will undoubtedly pick up some of the slack on the boards, as will Gerald Wallace, the same questions can also be asked about Humphries' defensive commitment. Though he is great at nailing the kind of chase-down block that gets the crowd excited, Humphries is also too quick to buy a pump fake or to get beat in the low block. His help defense is great when he is bailing out the defense with those last second pins to the backboard, but help defense is also about un-flashy, on-time rotations. Though a team can get by with less than stellar defense at the point guard position, a presence inside is one of the keys to any good defense, and the Nets will have to be average at worst on that side of the court if they want to compete with the best.

Where the Nets have almost undoubtedly improved is in their bench depth. With the arrival of Joe Johnson, the once greatly hyped Marshon Brooks has sort of been forgotten as a potentially great scorer. The few games Brook Lopez did play last year, Marshon was virtually invisible, not well-suited to share the court with another offensive weapon that also demands so much time with the ball. Where Brooks should shine, however, is in the sixth man role, asked to do little else but bring in scoring off the bench. Brooks at times last year was asked to carry a majority of the scoring load, even as a rookie in a training camp-less lockout-condensed season, and he did not respond well when the heavy minutes and nagging injuries built up. Leading the second unit should take some of the pressure off of Brooks, and though he will have to improve his defense, I expect the New Jersey product to have a strong sophomore season.

Outside of Marshon Brooks and the brief-stint last year by Keith Bogans, the rest of the Nets' bench is comprised entirely of newcomers. Gone is the head-down barreling to the rim of Sundiata Gaines, the free throw line clunkers of Johan Petro, and the dropped passes of Shelden Williams and Damion James. Also gone, though regrettably, are the three point bombs of Anthony Morrow, the acrobatics of Gerald Green, and the neck tattoos of DeShawn Stevenson. Joining the team in Brooklyn will be the free agent signings of C.J. Watson, Reggie Evans, and Jerry Stackhouse; the amnesty pick-ups of Andray Blatche and Josh Childress; and the rookies Mirza Teletovic, Toko Shengelia, and Tyshawn Taylor. Each obviously come with their own set of expectations, which we'll dive into more individually in our forthcoming player profiles, but on the whole, the depth of the bench has improved at nearly every position. Bench 3-point shooting and frontcourt depth will probably be the biggest questions, but even then, the Nets are sure not to be any worse in those areas than they have been the last couple of years in Newark.

The Nets had long planned to make a splash in their move into Brooklyn, but there were many, including yours truly, that expected them to fail to live up the ballooned expectations. Well, the promotional push has definitely been there, but just as importantly, the roster construction appears to back it up. The Nets' marketing scheme could not have succeeded if it were working with Brook Lopez and MarShon Brooks as the new team's best players; thankfully, Deron Williams and Joe Johnson were there to fulfill the "superstar" quota. There are still many critics, even including myself, who remain skeptical that this team can compete for a championship, but after a half decade of irrelevance, a highly competitive team is nothing to get disappointed over. Short of bottoming out to draft the next LeBron James or Kevin Durant, a process that would take precious years Brooklyn couldn't wait for, the Nets had no better options than to fill the roster with the best pieces Russian money can buy. In that, they entirely exceeded; the Brooklyn Nets' first year should be a fun one.

Grade: 86 +P +D -F

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