Nets Aren't Making Gains

Veteran center Alonzo Mourning is the latest Nets player to question the direction of the franchise. (Bill Kostroun - AP)

Alonzo Mourning beat back a deadly disease for a chance to chase NBA championships as a member of the New Jersey Nets.

But as the veteran center sat slumped in the locker room in Philadelphia fuming over the Nets' loss to the 76ers last week, he lamented the club's waning prospects. As Mourning sees it, new management began trading away some of New Jersey's best players over the summer, and the once high-octane, high-flying Nets, Eastern Conference champions two of the past three seasons, were stripped for parts and junked. They come into tonight's home game against the Wizards at 2-6, making fans remember all too vividly their struggles in the mid-1990s or earlier, when they were a perennial NBA afterthought to the Knicks in the New York metropolitan area.

"We're missing K-Mart [Kenyon Martin]," growled Mourning as he cut away the bandages that swaddled his toes and pitched them to the ground following a 108-100 loss to the 76ers. "We're missing Kerry Kittles. We're missing a whole lot."

Under the ownership of Bruce Ratner, the New York real estate mogul who paid $300 million for the Nets in August, the club traded all-star forward Martin to Denver, shooting guard Kittles to the Los Angeles Clippers and bid farewell to key reserves Lucious Harris and Rodney Rodgers.

The aftermath has the team in last place in the Atlantic Division. Management has yet to replace Martin, the Nets' top defender and rebounder, with a comparable athlete. Rumors continue to flutter that all-star guard Jason Kidd, who is recovering from knee surgery and has yet to play, could be traded as soon as he is healthy.

And Mourning and Kidd have joined in the growing chorus of Nets' bashers.

"We know we're not going to win a championship this year or next year," said Kidd, airing the Nets' problems during a preseason news conference. "Not with the caliber of guys we have now."

Opponents once feared the Nets' offense, as it stormed downcourt with Kidd leading the break and feeding ally-oop passes for Martin or forward Richard Jefferson to stuff. The club is last in the league in scoring (80.9), second to last in field goal percentage (38.9) and leads in turnovers with slightly more than 20 per game.

To many New Jersey fans and NBA observers, the Nets are on the brink of revisiting their woeful past, a time when the club routinely missed the playoffs and blindly groped for answers -- such as when it forked over millions to hire wiz-kid college coach John Calipari, who went 72-112 before being fired after just two years.

Ratner and Rod Thorn, the Nets' general manager, have appealed to the public for patience. They say that the new management is committed to winning.

Dubbed "bottom-line Bruce" by New York media, Ratner has dismissed skeptics who say that trading Martin is a sign he intends to slash the club's payroll, effectively mothballing the franchise, until he can move it out of Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, N.J., and into a proposed 19,000-seat facility in Brooklyn.

The arena, which would be completed under Ratner's plan sometime in 2007 or 2008, will be the centerpiece of a $2.5 billion commercial and residential complex.

Ratner and Thorn have insisted that most of the personnel moves were made to improve the club but acknowledge that they traded Martin for financial reasons.

Following a season when the 6-foot-9 Martin averaged 16.7 points and 9.5 rebounds, the Nuggets offered the power forward $83 million over six years, including a significant signing bonus. Matching the offer would have cost the Nets $50 million this year in salary and luxury tax penalties.