Avery Johnson took advantage of his chance to be commissioner for a day.
No, Johnson didn’t take over for NBA commissioner David Stern. But on a day the Nets treated like a simulated game day, Johnson worked around his own rules to set up the teams the way he wanted them.
The Nets held a shootaround in the morning, followed by a full-blown intrasquad scrimmage last night. But instead of just letting his two assistant coaches — Popeye Jone and Mario Elie — be in charge of the teams and conduct a draft without interference, Johnson made sure that his starting backcourt of Deron Williams and Joe Johnson wound up on the same squad.
“Even though Popeye and Mario are the coaches,” the Nets coach said with a smile, “I started off the draft by making sure that Deron and Joe Johnson were on the same team.”
Johnson said he wanted to make sure his two star guards, who still are trying to get used to playing together, were on the same team. After both were assigned to play for Jones, Elie wound up with the Nets’ starting frontcourt of Gerald Wallace, Kris Humphries and Brook Lopez, with the rest of the roster split up from there.
Johnson said the goal was for the Nets to get through three true, NBA quarters played under normal game conditions and rules.
“I don’t know if we could get through a normal NBA game with the amount of guys that we have,” he said. “We’ll see where we are.
“If we play three NBA quarters, the guys that are going to be my heavy-minute guys, if they can play 28 minutes of that game, I think we’ll be in good shape. That will be a good simulation.”
* A pair of Nets draft picks got a taste of the NBA when their Turkish club team, Fenerbahce Ulker, took on the Celtics yesterday in Istanbul in the first preseason game of the season. Fenerbahce won, 97-91.
Ilkan Karaman, who the Nets took with the 57th pick in June’s draft, started at power forward for Fenerbahce and jumped center against Kevin Garnett, while Bojan Bogdanovic, the first pick of the second round at 31st overall in 2011, was the first player off the bench.
Karaman finished the game with four points and seven rebounds, and Bogdanovic finished with 11 points on 4-for-11 shooting (including 3-for-9 from 3-point range), two rebounds, two assists and a steal. Both potentially could join the Nets as soon as the 2013-14 season.