You only got to hear snippets of Evan Roberts’ full interviews with Nets voices Ian Eagle (YES) and Chris Carrino (WFAN) on Thursday’s Brooklyn Nets Season Preview Show – but you still heard a lot.
Bird told Evan that “your giddiness is rather overt at this point,” and Carrino said that “this is as much as I have looked forward to a season in years.” And, the two talked a lot about the players on the Nets’ roster, as well as one who isn’t but many seem to want.
In another ode to the Carton & Roberts Top 5 at Five, we’ll give you a five-piece quotebook from what you heard from the voices of the Nets – and after you get that quote fix, listen to their full segments in our on-demand audio below!
Eagle on reasonable expectations for Kevin Durant: “Things are very secluded and isolated, but I talked to someone in the know, and they told me that Durant doesn’t miss. It’s almost unfathomable, even in a practice format. What we forget about KD is that he is a lethal jump shooter in addition to his other skills. You’re going to see him line up at center and go small ball sometimes, and I think they’re going to use the regular season to figure out the best way to play come the postseason. Championship teams are talked about having that setup, and they’re viewing this through the prism that expectations are very high. They have a very versatile and deep lineup, and my gut feeling is they think they can probably play nine or ten comfortable, and yet their 11th through 15th players as I saw the other night was basically their bubble team.”
Eagle on the James Harden rumors: “Houston’s leverage is they have James Harden under contract, and no matter what, he’s still James Harden. Unless Houston is getting multiple legitimate first-round picks, they’re not just trading James Harden for a bunch of players. They need to make a move that will set them up as a franchise for the next three to five years. My feeling is that it’ll be out there, but Sean Marks is well aware of how that can affect things.”
Carrino on Jarret Allen: “If you were a coach and you looked at this roster, I don’t think you should be worried about how anyone feels about his role. When you have depth and multiple guys that can play multiple positions fighting for minutes, you have hand. The performances will speak for themselves. Allen will be on the floor and will be playing, and if he is fulfilling a role and playing well – he took a big step, a confidence-building step, in the bubble, but he needs to play more consistently with that kind of oomph. He needs to assert himself on the game consistently. If he does that and shows that development, it’s going to be hard to take him off the floor, and you have to make it hard for Steve Nash to take you off the floor. Whoever starts isn’t guaranteed to play more minutes – you may be coaching for all 72 games.”
Carrino on Caris LeVert as a bench option: “He showed in the bubble that he could be that main guy. The appeal with him coming off the bench is that he’ll be the main focal point when Kyrie and KD aren’t in. The opponents will never get a break, so you’ll always have to deal with an All-Star caliber player. The thing to remember is it’s going to be who finishes these games – and in the end, he may be with those guys, and will have benefitted from what he did last year.”
And finally, Bird’s answer when Evan asked if this was all real: “Yes, this is real life Evan. I don’t know if you think you’re in some weird dream, but it is real. The games will count, the numbers will go into a record book, and even in a unique season, the goal is to win a championship – and the Nets are very much in that conversation. KD and Kyrie decided to team up and they chose Brooklyn; clearly they had an idea that they could put a stamp on their legacy if they did it on a team that was searching for a new vibe, and that’s a strong statement from these guys.”
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