Krstic – Russia or New Jersey?

July 28, 2008   ·   Paul Raymond   ·   Jump to comments

Lots of stories today about the possible European defection of New Jersey Nets forward Nenad Krstic. Krstic has an offer on the table of 2 years and $5+ million (euros) per, from a Dynamo Moscow Regional team. With that being said Krstic has given the Nets a deadline of midnight tonight, to complete a sign and trade with another club. That deal is most likely not going to happen as the Nets are still high on Krstic and have options when it comes to him.

“Considering we’re losing a starting-quality player, it’s not necessarily bad, put it that way,” one high-level Nets official said. “He’s an awfully good player, but he has to get his confidence back, so maybe it’s a good thing.”

It’s not a bad thing?? Well there are plenty of reasons why this could actually he’s right this could be a good thing for the New Jersey Nets. First off, the Nets have way to many big men at the time. They have Yi Jianlian, Brook Lopez, Josh Boone, Sean Williams, Ryan Anderson and Stromile Swift, even without Krstic they way to many guys competing for a limited amount of minutes. Krstic would actually start the year in the middle of the depth chart as the team feels he’s not fully rebounded from his ACL injury from the 2006-2007 season.

Their reasoning for that I’m not sure of as I didn’t watch to many Nets games down the stretch. Looking at pure stats thou I would have to say his numbers aren’t to far off of what they were before the injury. When it comes to confidence the biggest concern I could think of is his shooting. Prior to his injury he had been averaging 18.1 points and 7.5 rebounds per 36 minutes before his injury, afterwards? He averaged 13.2 points and 8.9 rebounds per 36. The biggest problem was the actual field goal percentage drop, as he was only shooting 41% while in 2006-07 he was about 52%.

There are also monetary pluses for the Nets. Krstic is currently a restricted free agent and the team really doesn’t want to lose him, but also don’t want to give him a raise. Center is always a position of need in the NBA so you can easily expect a team to over pay for him, and force the Nets hand on either matching the offer or letting him walk. With their concerns over his prior injuries a move to Europe would let them wait on that decision. When he decides to return the NBA, he’ll still be considered a restricted free agent and the property of the Nets. Then they could easily say he sucked in Europe and not match any offer, or say wow you’re back in form welcome back.

The fans of the team or fans of him may not like that but hey the NBA is a business. Krstic thou knows its a business and would clearly welcome a change of scenery.

“(The) NBA is not my priority,” he told Serbian website Mondo. “Actually, recently (the) NBA was really unfair with players who have one year till the end of the contract. Those players’ rights are seriously in danger.”

His new contract is technically a 2-year deal, but rumor has it that he’d have an opt-out clause after 1 season if he’d like to come back stateside. That clause has been pretty standard for most NBA players who have defected this off-season. Actually, can we even say he’s defecting? He’s Serbian born and raised on their playgrounds is where he spent most of his days. Wait, do they even have playgrounds there? Regardless, he’s Serbian, even playing for their national team at the Olympics. When you have a player like that if they decide to play closer to home can we really call them defectors?

Unfortunately this sounds like a pretty ugly situation, but in reality it could wind up being the best scenario for all parties involved. Krstic goes to Europe has a big season he comes back to the states and gets his due money wise. For the Nets, they let him get back into shape on someone else’s dime and at the same time figure out which of their big guys can be productive.

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