The Nets spent the past two seasons preparing for their move to Brooklyn this fall. And, after a very busy summer, they’ll debut there with an overhauled roster that is considered easily good enough to make the playoffs.
But just how good is it? The man who put it together thinks it has the potential to be special.
“I think we have a lot of talent,” Nets general manager Billy King said Tuesday at his preseason press conference at the team’s practice facility in East Rutherford, N.J. “I think we’ve got a good team. … I think we have a team that’s a playoff team on paper. I think we have a team that can withstand injuries, because we have depth.
“But, as I’ve always said, can we win a championship? Yes. But it takes luck in an NBA season to do that. You have to be healthy, for the most part. You’ve gotta get some breaks… the ball has to bounce your way sometimes when it doesn’t.”
Having a roster King thinks is a potential title contender is a far cry from the team he put together the past two seasons. But after trying to land first Carmelo Anthony, then Dwight Howard, waiting to see what Deron Williams would decide, and revamping the entire roster this summer, King admitted it’s a different feeling entering this season.
“It feels like my first year with the Nets, because of the fact that each training camp there was that distraction of Carmelo Anthony or Dwight Howard,” King said. “I mention them because it’s not a factor anymore. I think that’s the greatest thing for our players and the organization.’’
“We’re going to go to training camp focused on preparing for Opening Night, not preparing for guys thinking, ‘Am I going to be here on Opening Night?’ And I think we’ve got a team now that’s preparing for Opening Night on national TV, and that’s a difference.”
It’s a fresh start for both King and the Nets, who arrive in Brooklyn with one of the most talked-about teams in the league, thanks in part to both the roster upgrades as well as the team’s makeover off the court as it prepares to begin its first season in Brooklyn.
King said he began to notice a difference in the perception of the franchise around the league as soon as the move became official.
“Once we launched the logo and changed the colors … the reality of Brooklyn came about, so then people were calling that their players had interest in playing here,” King said. “It became more of a selection process instead of a recruitment process, so it became a lot easier for us. Then it became which guys do we want, which guys that we don’t want.”