Nets have busy summer league agenda
LAS VEGAS — Nets general manager Sean Marks can spend the next few days sweating out whether the Wizards match his offer sheet to Otto Porter Jr. But head coach Kenny Atkinson will spend it sweating in Las Vegas, working out the summer league team he already has.
The Wizards have until midnight Saturday to match Brooklyn’s four-year, $106 million offer to Porter. But there are several other factors playing out in Sin City, with the Nets tipping off at 8 p.m. Friday vs. Atlanta.
There were times last season when the Nets couldn’t put a serviceable point guard on the floor— with Jeremy Lin hurt, Greivis Vasquez bought out, rookie Isaiah Whitehead learning the NBA and the position, and Spencer Dinwiddie still in the developmental league. But now with Lin and D’Angelo Russell entrenched as starters, the battle for the rest of the minutes may start here this week.
Five of the 15 players on the summer-league roster were with the Nets last season, and all but one of that quintet should see some time running the point. Dinwiddie and Whitehead will vie for the early leg up as the primary backup, but have to show they can handle it. Expect wing Caris LeVert and Archie Goodwin — natural two-guards — to try their hands at the point as well.
Fans anxious to see firstround pick Jarrett Allen are going to be disappointed. The 19-year-old big man already has been ruled out with a hip flexor. But with the Nets desperately thin in the frontcourt, it will be interesting to see if anybody can take advantage of these minutes and earn a spot on the bench, or even the developmental league.
The franchise’s all-time leading scorer Brook Lopez is gone, replaced by nominal starter Timofey Mozgov. Justin Hamilton is the only other Net over 6-foot-9, so there is opportunity there if any of the summer league invites can step up.
Prince Ibeh has the inside track after playing last year with the developmental league Long Island Nets, and intriguing the team enough that they kept him around to work out at HSS Training Center. The 6-10, 260-pounder preceded Allen at Texas, and is the lobs-and-blocks type Atkinson and Marks covet.
The Nets also brought in a pair of Europeans in 6-11 center Vincent Poirier from Paris Lavellois and 6-10 stretch four Nathan Boothe from the Flexx Pistoia in Italy. Miami power forward Kamari Murphy is a 6-8 Brooklyn native.
Golden State has shown shooting never has been more important. It is easy to see why the Nets , who had the fifth-worst percentage, scoured the globe looking for every shooter they could find.
Though second-round pick Aleksandar Vezenkov hit 48 percent from behind the arc in the Euroleague, the 21-year-old stash pick isn’t here. Boothe (45.5 percent from 3) is, as are Georgetown shooting guard Rodney Pryor and Weber State shooting guard Jeremy Senglin.
Senglin and Jake Wiley are the only partial guarantees, with Wiley on a two-way contract with Brooklyn and Long Island.