With training camp just days away, we’re going to ask a question per day about the upcoming Nets season.
Who will become the Nets’ backup power forward?
After their second straight busy summer, the Nets will enter training camp with all 15 of their roster spots filled by players on guaranteed contracts and with most of their rotation settled.
Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Brook Lopez will be the team’s starting five, barring injury, when the season opens in Cleveland on Oct. 30, while Shaun Livingston is expected to back up Williams, Jason Terry will be behind Johnson, Andrei Kirilenko will play after Pierce and Andray Blatche will play behind Brook Lopez after finding success in that role last season.
The one spot that is up for grabs, then, is the backup power forward spot. And the battle will come down to two players with virtually opposite skill sets — Reggie Evans and Mirza Teletovic.
Last season, Evans wound up supplanting Kris Humphries as the starting power forward for much of the season, finishing with 56 starts — his most since the 2007-08 season — and averaging more than 24 minutes per game for just the second time in his career.
Evans was a lock to grab plenty of rebounds — he finished the season sixth in the NBA with 11.1 boards per game — and he was a tenacious pest to opposing big men. However, offense never has been Evans’ strong suit, and he finished with an average of 4.5 points per game while shooting just under 48 percent from the field and just under 51 percent from the free-throw line.
In Teletovic, the Nets get a completely different player. Teletovic knows how to score, as he showed while averaging 21.0 points per game starring for Bosnia-Herzegovina in the Eurobasket tournament  the past few weeks. With range out beyond the 3-point arc and some ball-handling skills, he features a unique skill set at power forward offensively. But, like Evans, Teletovic has a weak side to his game. He struggled as an NBA rookie last season with his defense and rebounding against opposing power forwards.
In a Nets training camp that will be without the usual battles for either starting or at least rotation spots, the battle for playing time between Evans and Teletovic is one of the few things up in the air.