The Nets Lost without Carter ?

Before the last season started a lot of people of people thought that the New Jersey Nets had no chance to make the playoffs and would be a lottery team. Motivated to prove people wrong, Vince Carter carried the team and almost made the playoffs. After that it was very quiet during the begin of the summer in New Jersey but a major trade that sent Vince Carter and Ryan Anderson to the Orlando Magic for Rafer Alston, Courtney Lee and Tony Battie shocked the whole NBA. The trade was very surprising because Carter probably had his best season since he has arrived in New Jersey and always said that he was happy in New Jersey and doesn’t want to leave the team…

The new core of the team is very young and still has to prove that they can be a good NBA team. Here a look at their rotation :

PG : Devin Harris / Rafer Alston / Keyon Dooling
SG : Courtney Lee / Terrence Williams / Chris Douglas-Roberts
SF : Jarvis Hayes / Bobby Simmons / Trenton Hassel
PF : Yi Jianlian / Sean Williams / Eduardo Najera
C : Brook Lopez / Josh Boone / Tony Battie


Is Devin Harris the new leader in New Jersey ?

The first thing everybody will probably notice is their inexperience. The whole starting line-up only has 15 years of NBA experience which is not really a lot when you consider that almost half of that experience comes from Jarvis Hayes ( 6 years ), a guy who has been sitting on the bench for the most time of his career. This will probably cause some serious problems in the last quarters where experience is the key word and somebody will have to take important decisions during crucial moments of the game. Vince Carter used to be that guy who steps up during crunchtime because he was a true leader and had the experience and bball IQ to take good decisions at the end of important games. Now we will probably see Devin Harris being that guy who has to lead this team in the last twenty minutes of the game but is he really ready for it ? He better is because it seems like the Nets has no-one else who can step up and take the lead.


Sean Williams has to improve his offense if he wants to see more playing time

While Devin Harris and Brook Lopez already proved that they will probably have a bright future and can play on an all-star level, the rest of the team still has to prove that they can be quality starters who can contribute on a regulary basis.
Courtney Lee showed some nice defense during his first season in Orlando but in New Jersey he won’t have the luxury to have the defensive player of the year behind him who can help him when somebody wants to drive to the rim. On offense he looked ok, he knocked down some 3 pointers and had some nice drives but that’s it. At the moment he’s a guy who doesn’t have a lot of tools on offense and needs the point guard to create offense for him.
Jarvis Hayes and Bobby Simmons who will fight for the starting small forward position have been role players since they’ve been in the league and have to improve their game to become starting calibre players.
Yi Jianlian showed some good games but he seems too soft to play against the big guys in the NBA. At this point of his career he’s more a role player than anything else. He can give a team some quality minutes coming off the bench but on this team he’s a starter, so he has to keep it up and develop his game on both ends of the floor.
Sean Williams has the talent to become a great shotblocker and good defensive presence but he still has to improve his offensive game because at the moment he can only score of alley-oop passes or cuts to the basket. He would see a lot more minutes if he adds some post moves or even some fake moves to create offense for himself.


Will this team make Jay-Z laugh or cry this year ?

With all this being said there are a lot of question marks in New Jersey. What can this team do on the floor and who will lead the team ? Can the players improve their game and show that they are starting calibre ? A lot of questions and we’ll have to wait till the start of the season to see what type of team we’ll see next year.

Patty Mills; Hit Or Miss?.

Patrick Mills is an Indigenous Australian basketball player from Canberra. He grew up in Canberra and attended the AIS (Australian Institute Of Sport). Which then lead him to St Mary's College. Which he played two seasons there and then decided to enter the NBA draft. After his Rookie season he played for Australian National Team the Boomers. Which he stunned Basketball fans and stars including Chris Paul and Kobe Bryant when he lead the Bogut lead Boomers in scoring which made a name for himself. And untimely his draft stock rose. Predicted to be a Top 25 Round 1 pick. Patrick Mills ended up falling to pick No. 55 which he was saved from falling out of the Draft by the Portland Trailblazers. For a predicted first round pick to fall all the way to No. 55. Is quite amazing and disappointing.

Don't get me wrong, as a proud Aussie i am great full to even see him in the draft. But i am also questioning if he can be success full or if his pick was where it was meant to be. If you look in depth with Patrick Mills. You see his game resembles a poor mans Tony Parker. But i believe a better comparison would be to Jordan Farmer. He is one of the Quickest players with a deadly first step, who rather drives then taking a Jumpshot. Who can also play the Shooting Guard well. And is a great offball player. His defence can improve but if you watch him play you will notice how he contesting every pass ect. Mill's main flaw in his game is his Jumpshot and critics say he is far from a pure Point Guard and needs to learn how to pass better and take less shots. But he comes from the Gaels, a team that isnn't a dominant team that needs a scorer. And Patrick Mills takes what he gets. He was best described when a commentator mentioned this " Patrick Mills is like a Punt returner, he's going to fumble but he will also come up with some big plays".

The kid has alot to learn, but so does nearly every rookie. If he gets minutes i firmly believe he will be an efficient scorer and a definant steal in the draft. As for hit in miss. Hit if he gets minutes, miss if he does not. Simple as that.

DeMar DeRozan; the sky is the limit

Before the draft there were a lot of discussions about how good DeMar Deozan is and about how good he can become. Some people saw in him the next Gerald Green while some others believed that he could turn into the next Jason Richardson or even Vince Carter. It was also very unclear which team would pick him in the draft because nobody was sure about how good he already is and if he can help a team this upcoming season.

During the draft a lot of surprises happened before DeMar got picked. Hasheem Thabeet was picked with the second overall pick, the Timberwolves picked two point guards ( Rubio and Flynn ) and the Knicks had to take Jordan Hill because the Warriors already picked Stephen Curry with the seventh pick. A lot of experts were sure that the Raptors would take him if he was still available because he’s the shooting guard they needed, but it was thought that he would not be available with the ninth pick and the Raptors would have to take someone else. Well, that day god was a Raptors fan and DeMar was still available so the Raptors didn’t hesitate and picked DeMar DeRozan with the ninth pick in the 2009 NBA draft.

When DeRozan finally played his first games for the Toronto Raptors in the summer league, a lot of people were surprised. DeRozan looks ready to help the Raptors in the NBA and is already considered as a steal in the draft. Well, let’s check out his game a bit closer…

Strengths :

DeMar’s midrange game looks really nice. He comes off screens ready to catch the ball and also shoots it pretty well. He has good elevation on his jump shot and can adjust his shot when people get a hand on his face. In fact, he is considered as the best midrange player in this draft and already has proven that he can provide scoring from that area. He hasn’t shoot a lot of shots from downtown, that’s why it’s not fair to already judge his outside shot.

Demar is also really explosive and uses that gift on both ends of the court. He rebounds well when he’s on the boards but still needs to block out his opponent a bit better and develop that absolute will power to get every rebound possible. On offense he uses his amazing explosiveness to jump higher than his defender when he drives to the rim or simply create separation when he wants to hit a turnaround jumper.

His greatest weapon for now is probably his fastbreak game. He runs the floor really well and knows how to use the space in the open court to get the ball at the right time and place. He can finish in a lot of different ways; with a alley oop dunk, tip in or simply a catch and lay in. He has a nice touch around the rim and knows how to use it.

What he needs to improve :

At this stage of his career DeMar is an ok ballhandler. Some people said that he was a poor ballhandler but that’s not true. We already saw him dribbling the ball after a rebound or an inbound pass by one of his teammates. He doesn’t need to pass the ball to the point guard, he can simply do it by himself. When he catches the ball most of the time he goes to his right side, he rarely drives to his left side. He has to change that because in the NBA players will not allow him to use just one direction. He also looses the ball sometimes in complicated situations because he’s not that comfortable handling the ball.

Even though he shoots the ball pretty well from the midrange, he has to perfect his shooting technique becaue we often saw him kicking out his right leg when he made a jump shot. Kicking out your leg will create a bad balance and it also increases the possibility to get injured in the case that you land bad after some contact with the defender.

DeMar didn’t had a lot of assists during the summer league games. Sure, that was just the summer league but he rarely tried to create a shot for someone else or kicked out the ball when he drived. To become a complete player he has to improve his passing ability and try to get his teammates involved.

The last couple of games, we saw him driving more often to the rim but he has to do that more often. His athletic ability and amazing explosiveness is very unique and he has to use that to draw more fouls and make his game even better. To become a complete player he has to have the ability to do all three things from the triple threat position; driving, passing and shooting.


DeMar DeRozan has already showed that he has a lot of potential and coaches say that he is willing to learn every day and shows great effort during practice. The summer league was a good indication of what we can expect from DeMar next season and to be honest : The sky is the limit for this young kid !

NBA stars on Twitter

"Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers"


It has gained more and more poularity, the system of Twitter. As a die hard basketball fan on the internet, you have probably already recognized a lot of NBA stars use it on their own, to tell their fans about what they are doing all day long, to give them a further and more detailed look into their lifes actually. Shaquille O'Neal ([url]http://twitter.com/THE_REAL_SHAQ[/url]) uses it, being one of the most followed stars on the web service. On a side note: Barack Obama ([url]http://twitter.com/BarackObama[/url]), U.S. president, is also a member of the Twitter service. So do other NBA players and stars like Chris Bosh, Charlie Villanueva, Mark Madsen, DeMar DeRozan, Baron Davis and Kevin Durant, just to name a few. In addition there are also coaches and owners of clubs who use Twitter, for example Marc Cuban or Alvin Gentry.

Mark Madsen, who posts a lot there, describes Twitter as "a big chance for celebrities or sportstars to communicate with their fan-base".

Charlie Villanueva, Detroit's new Power Forward, twittered in hafltime of a game of Milwaukee against Boston, having played for Milwaukee in the first half. Kevin Durant posted his five favourite women having Beyonce on the first place and Baron Davis tweeted about bad memories on a chai latte and orange juice.


Are the NBA stars taking it too far? Do they really need to twitter all day long, do they have to share everything with the world?

As always there are two sides of the medale: Of course, if there wasn't Twitter, fans never had such a great access to the private lifes of NBA players or stars in general. The other way around is pretty much the same: They can be in near as possible contact with their fans, communicate with them and tell them about their lifes, if they really need to. Actually, this is kind of a show-off, it doesn't have to be though. A good example for the positive side about Twitter is Shaquille O'Neal. Two guys were reading a message on his twitter page and thought it wasn't the real Shaq. He posted he's out for dinner in a restaurant, the guys knew and drove to. Shaq was sitting inside, the guys were unsure if they should talk to him, but Shaq screamed over to them telling them they should. After he got back a new tweet was online saying "To all: If you see me, just say hi. We're not like others, we're from Twitterania. We have a special connection". Shaq's popularity on his account grew a lot though that happening. Talking about the positive sides of Twitter, it also has it's negative: Charlie Villanueva really took it too far by twittering in halftime. You just can't do that if you are a NBA player and you're supposed to do something else. It's okay to do it before or after, but not during a game and not in the arena at all. Bad news for people, who think like that. Charlie V. will be allowed to tweet during games in Detroit! Forbidden in Milwaukee after he did it in the locker room, what is known as the "Twitter-gate", he will be allowed to do it in Detroit. Nothing you're looking too serious with, actually that is not professional, although that's what they are supposed to be, if their are athletes at this high level. The NBA, who also has it's own twitter account, shouldn't allow twittering at all during games. The topic can lead into a big discussion of pro and contra or vica verse people, who either really want to know what happens with their stars or who think they aren't professional by twittering during games.



We will see what the NBA comes up with in the future, there probably won't be any changes though, but for me Twitter gives you a good chance to get a view into life of stars, though it really isn't nessacary to use it during games or something else, that really is important and you get payed for.