New Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov flashed his billion-dollar smile and team president Rod Thorn insisted he was happy the Nets are in position to draft “a player that can help us.”
But no matter how much they tried to emphasize the positives, the two leaders of the Nets organization couldn’t rid the air of the disappointment that engulfed them in Secaucus last night.
The Nets had a chance to steal Newark, Brooklyn and New York all at once. A chance to put their name on the back page and start to make people believe the franchise could be something special real soon.
They came to the NBA lottery hoping to land the top pick in the June 24 draft or the second at the very least. That would mean getting an instant ticket seller in Kentucky’s John Wall or Evan Turner of Ohio State. That’s what they were hoping.
The odds gave them a 25 percent chance of winning the lottery, and that sounded better than the 75 percent chance of not winning. But things have never come easy for the Nets, not since they sold Julius Erving’s contract to the Sixers. Apparently, the karma hasn’t changed; at least not yet.
Instead of getting the coveted first overall draft choice, the Nets settled for the third. It felt more like 33rd as the Wizards and Sixers celebrated drawing the top two choices, respectively. Two Eastern Conference teams that just got better.
“I’m sure we’re going to get a great player for our team,” Prokhorov said as his lanky 6-foot-8 frame towered over a group of reporters. “We don’t need to go back to square one. We need to focus on putting together the strongest team we can get.”
Prokhorov has been the Nets owner for just a week and he’s already good at spinning things. In his Russian accent, he called it “a great night for me,” and stuck by his prediction the Nets will be a playoff team next year and win a world championship within five. Somehow that would have sounded more realistic if they’d landed the first or second pick.
Not only would they have a gotten a potential superstar, but energized a fan base that has to follow the team to Newark’s Prudential Center for the next two years before their arena will be ready in Brooklyn.
Thorn insisted the Nets weren’t disappointed with the outcome of the lottery.
“It’s a lottery, so if you’re disappointed you’re setting yourself up for a fall,” he reasoned. “We did not have expectations. We were hopeful to go as high as we could because the higher you go the more control you have of the draft.”
What the Nets now control is who to select after Wall and Turner or gone. They could wind up with Kentucky center-forward DeMarcus Cousins or Syracuse forward Wesley Johnson. But the Nets are coming of the worst record in the NBA at 12-70 and were hoping for something better; a marquee name who might entice LeBron James into joining their team.
Selecting Wall or Turner would have been a no-brainer. Now the Nets will have to do their homework and hope whoever they draft doesn’t turn out to be another Yinka Dare.
The Wizards winning the top pick was a feel good story, considering all they went through with Gilbert Arenas and his guns and the death of long-time owner Abe Pollin in November. His widow Irene was in Secaucus last night wearing her late husband’s 1978 championship ring for luck.
But this was no feel-good ending for the Nets even if they tried to tell us otherwise.