START ’EM UP: The starting lineup for the Nets in their new home in Brooklyn — Kris Humphries (left to right), Joe Johnson, Brook Lopez, Deron Williams and Gerald Wallace — are all smiles yesterday at the team’s Media Day at Barclays Center. (AP)
The Nets officially unveiled their new team yesterday at Barclays Center, their new home in Brooklyn.
The Nets wore their new uniforms and also came with new expectations for a franchise that has been among the worst in the NBA in recent years. After spending the last few seasons at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, the new-look Nets are expecting to be a factor deep into the spring this season.
“I think we’ve got everything that you could possibly want on a championship-caliber team,” new shooting guard Joe Johnson said during his press conference at the team’s season-opening media day. “Now we just have to put it together, come together as one and make it happen.
“I think the sky’s the limit for us, honestly. I’m excited.”
Johnson said that includes giving the NBA’s elite, such as the defending champion Heat, the Lakers and the Thunder, a run for their money
“You have to go through those teams to win, right?” Johnson said. “I’m not sugar-coating that, man. We know and understand that, right now, Miami is the favorite, and nobody’s picking us to win anything. We understand that.
“But I think hard work is gonna definitely pay off. We’ve got guys that have really been working. I can really just speak for myself, even since being traded [from the Hawks] it took my mind-set somewhere else where I really wanted to come out prepared and try and do something I’ve never done before.”
The fact Johnson can say that at all signals a change from the way things have been for the Nets in recent seasons. After missing the playoffs each of the last five seasons, they have improved enough this summer to the point at which simply making the playoffs won’t be enough.
It’s also a new feeling for coach Avery Johnson, who has spent his first two seasons with the organization dealing with a depleted roster that was a fringe playoff team at best.
“I’ve been waiting for this kind of pressure for two years, where there’s pressure on us to win,” Johnson said. “Expectations are a lot higher. This is what we want … this is what we sign up for. Where we really get criticized when we don’t win, and when we win, the players really get celebrated.
“That’s what it’s all about. We don’t want to continue to be in the situation where it’s a low payroll, low expectations. … I’d rather it the other way.”
A low payroll certainly won’t be an issue anytime soon, not after general manager Billy King and assistant GM Bobby Marks committed over $300 million in contracts to players through the draft, free agency and trades, completely transforming a once-moribund roster into what clearly should be a playoff-caliber one.
Now it’s up to Johnson and his coaching staff to get a group that has nine new players to gel together in time for Opening Night against the Knicks on Nov. 1.
“We have to get in and practice,” Deron Williams said. “We haven’t practiced together, we haven’t played together other than pickup games. I feel like we could be special. I feel like we could be a great group.
“I think we are gonna be a great team. We have the right mix of youth and veterans and like Coach said, guys aren’t really worried about contract situations … we can just go out there and play basketball. I think guys are at the point in their careers where they don’t care about what their statistics are. … They just want to win.”