The “5” Kidd Never Had in Jersey

Ersan Ilyasova.

Does that name ring a bell? Well it should. After all, he was the only player Jason Kidd seemed to mention by name during his introductory press conference as head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks. He was also the player that Kidd apparently wanted Billy King to deal for along with Larry Sanders for Brook Lopez and Mirza Teletovic during this past season.

Despite the fact that Ilyasova averaged 11.2 points and 6.2 rebounds with a 40.9 field goal percentage, Kidd felt that he and Sanders would be upgrades to the Brooklyn Nets roster and would fit better in his system. Lopez, on the other hand, was deemed incompatible for the type of scheme the former Nets coach wished to run.

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A very “poor man’s” Keith Van Horn complete with the socks.[/caption]

Lopez is certainly not a finished product and there are glaring weaknesses in his game, but there’s no denying the offensive ability he currently possesses. How many other seven foot centers in the league can score as efficiently both in the paint and from the perimeter? Yes, his health is a big question mark, but to think that Ilyasova and Sanders don’t come without risk or baggage is foolish.

What’s ironic to me is that the same player who was headed to consecutive All-Star Games before his broken foot is the type of player Kidd never had as a teammate in New Jersey. Perhaps if Brook Lopez arrived on the scene a decade earlier, the history books would read differently.

If you recall, the Nets during the early 2000s excelled in the open court as Kidd’s ability to rebound enabled them to push the pace. With athletes such as Kenyon Martin, Kerry Kittles, and Richard Jefferson, the Nets thrived in transition and took advantage of their many fast break opportunities during each game.

New Jersey was clearly amongst the better teams in the league during that time period; however, they clearly lacked a reliable, efficient scorer in the half-court game. As we have seen over the years, the pace slows down in the postseason, and teams that can score consistently in these types of games are usually the ones that come out victorious.

The two year window in which the Nets seemed positioned to really challenge for an NBA title was from 2003–2004. They had just come off of a transformational season in which Kidd led an improbable group to the NBA Finals, where they were ultimately swept away by the two-time defending champions, the Los Angeles Lakers. Even with an effective, scoring center, the Nets or any other team seemed highly unlikely to dethrone a Laker team featuring both Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant.

Following that valuable experience, the Nets retuned to The Finals in 2003 against the San Antonio Spurs. This was truly one of the first times that their offensive flaws were exposed. Against the weaker competition of the East in the earlier rounds their offense remained intact; however, there was a significant dip in their output once they ran into the duo of Tim Duncan and David Robinson, also known as the “Twin Towers”.

Consider the following for the 2002–03 regular and postseasons:

It’s also worth noting that the New Jersey shot 44.1% from the field during the regular season and only 37% against the Spurs. Yes, it was a much smaller sample size, but you can’t discount the fact that the Nets scored in the 70s in three of the six games, and never once reached the 90 point mark during that series.

Obviously it’s a team effort, but when focusing on the Nets’ frontcourt it’s pretty clear that this group greatly factored into the offensive ineptitude.

The following season saw the Nets win the Atlantic Division once again and breeze by the Knicks with a first round sweep. In the semifinals, they met the Detroit Pistons, a team they had swept in the Eastern Conference Finals the previous postseason.

Just like the Spurs series, the Nets struggled mightily on the offensive end against a bigger Detroit opponent featuring a frontline of Ben Wallace, Rasheed Wallace, and Tayshaun Prince. New Jersey averaged slightly over 90 points per game during the regular season, but against the Pistons, that figure decreased to 83.3 with a 39.4 field goal percentage. The 127 points scored in Game 5’s triple overtime thriller was clearly an outlier as the Nets had scores of 56, 69, 75, 80, 82, and 94 points in the other six games of the series — a 76 point per game average.

Consider the following production, or lack thereof, by the Nets’ “bigs” during that series:

Would a player with Brook Lopez’s skill set been useful back then? Although his playoff resume has been limited to just seven games, he did demonstrate the ability to produce against a defensive minded opponent in the Chicago Bulls during the 2013 Playoffs.

Here’s how Lopez fared against the likes of Joakim Noah, Taj Gibson, and Nazr Mohammed:

There’s no guarantee that the end results would have been different a decade ago, but you would have to assume that an offensive talent at center would have been a welcomed addition. Wasn’t that the case this past year when the Nets struggled to score against Miami during the second round?

Those who don’t study the past are doomed to repeat it. Kidd should know first hand that it wasn’t until he played with Dirk Nowitzki and Tyson Chandler that he won that elusive title. Those Phoenix teams were fun to watch, but they were never a serious contender in the West. Looking back now, the same could be said about those teams playing in the Meadowlands swamps.

Maybe Kidd did learn his lesson and it was his diabolical intentions all along to have an All-Star caliber center waiting for him upon his appointment as Bucks head coach. That’s what the conspiracy theorists like to believe. In any event, Lopez remains in Brooklyn and Kidd gets to keep his guy in Milwaukee. You know, the same guy the Bucks are now shopping “hard”.