With the Nets season officially in the books, it’s time to look back at the year that was. We’ll look back at a different player each weekday, before wrapping up with the coaching staff and front office. Next up: Kevin Garnett
Regular season stats:Â Averaged 6.5 points, 6.6 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 0.8 steals, 0.7 blocks per game. Shot 44.1 percent from the field, 0 percent from 3-point range, 80.9 percent from the foul line in 20.5 minutes per game over 54 games (54 starts).
Playoff stats:Â Averaged 6.9 points, 6.3 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 0.8 steals, 0.4 blocks per game. Shot 52.4 percent from the field, 0 percent from 3-point range and 73.9 percent from foul line in 20.8 minutes per game over 12 games (12 starts).
Contractual status: Owed $12,000,000 for the 2014-15 season, the final year of his contract.
Season recap
When the Nets traded for Garnett and Paul Pierce last summer, they were called complementary pieces to the Nets’ returning core of Deron Williams, Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez. But no one quite understood how complementary Garnett’s role would be until the beginning of training camp, when Nets coach Jason Kidd made it clear the team had a maintenance plan to get Garnett through the season.
Kidd said the plan was for Garnett to sit half of each of the Nets’ 20 back-to-backs – after Garnett had missed that many games just twice in his NBA career. The fiercely proud Garnett openly grumbled about the plan at first, before both sides tried to smooth things out publicly.
Once the season began, it became clear the maintenance plan went beyond holding Garnett out of playing back-to-back nights. Kidd kept Garnett’s minutes around 20 per game, and Garnett only exceeded the 30-minute mark once all season – in a triple-overtime game against the Heat in early January.
Along with Garnett’s limited minutes came a departure from his typical production. Garnett shot a dismal 36.4 percent through the first two months of the season – playing mostly at power forward – as the Nets struggled to a 10-21 record.
Though his minutes never really increased, his production jumped dramatically once the calendar flipped to 2014 and Garnett began playing virtually exclusively at center. He shot 55.6 percent from the floor over the final three-plus months of the regular season, and continued to produce offensively in his limited minutes during the playoffs. He also looked better defensively, as his incredible instincts and guile masked some of the agility and quickness age has sapped from him as he went up against bigger, slower centers.
Garnett looked his age at times during the Nets’ playoff run, but he performed extremely well in two of the team’s biggest games of the season – Games 6 and 7 against the Raptors, when he went for 13 points and 15 rebounds and 12 points and 11 rebounds, respectively, to help the Nets advance to face the Heat.
Outlook for next season
Garnett declined to talk to reporters both after the Nets’ final loss of the season to the Heat in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals and during the locker room cleanout the following afternoon.
Still, all indications have been — despite the drop in production this season — Garnett will be back in Brooklyn for what would be the 20th season of his stellar NBA career. The fact is $12 million is an awful lot of money – no matter how much you’ve made in the past – and after playing much, much better over the final few months of the season, it would be easy to see Garnett agreeing to rejoin Pierce for one final season in Brooklyn before riding off into the sunset next summer.
The bigger question is what role Garnett would play on next season’s squad. This season proved Garnett has outlived the ability to effectively play power forward in the NBA. Having had so much success after switching to a smallball lineup, the Nets are left with a decision to make about how to deploy Garnett – assuming he does come back.
If Brook Lopez returns healthy from his fractured right foot, as expected, he almost certainly will go back into the starting lineup. Does that mean Garnett comes off the bench for the first time since, ironically, against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 27, 1995? Or do the Nets try to force-feed the big lineup they began the season with in order to keep him in the starting five? Finding out whether or not he will return is the first step.
Tomorrow: Jorge Gutierrez