http://www.nba.com/nets/news/rod_thorn_pre...nce_071604.html Rod Thorn Press Conference East Rutherford, NJ (July 16, 2004) - Opening Statement: As you can imagine the past couple of weeks have been hectic to say the least as we grappled with what we were going to do if in fact we got an offer sheet for Kenyon. Myself and Bruce (Ratner) have talked about the different scenarios what we would do or not do. The conclusion that we reached was that we would go the way we went yesterday by making a trade with Denver. I?ll give you as much as I can regarding the thinking. If you look at our position. If you look at our team. Basically what we decided, our team from the standpoint of where we were as a championship contender had peaked. If we weren?t able to get the other pieces to put around our big three, we were going to be a good team no doubt about it but we wouldn?t be a championship contender. When you put that with the offer sheet we were getting ready to get from Denver, which in effect would have cost us over the course of the first year, somewhere between 45 and 50 million dollars. When you look at 25 percent of the total package you can pay in a bonus and luxury tax implications it was going to be a very huge sum of money. We talked about it, discussed it back and forth and the mutual conclusion we came to, was that we should go in a another direction. I?m not going to sit up here and insult anyone?s intelligence by saying that losing a player with the magnitude of Kenyon Martin is going to be a plus for your team in the short term, obviously it isn?t. Kenyon is a great player and the intangibles he brought to this team along with his great abilities are going to be sorely missed. But when you look at it from the terms of a long range for this team it was something that we felt was a correct decision. We are taking a step backwards, there is no doubt about it, but sometimes you have to take a step backwards to take a step forward. Let's see what we end up on our roster. Obviously we have some things that we have to do before the season starts next year. We are going to do everything we can to try and stay as competitive as we can and at the end of this year as we go forward we are going to work diligently to become an elite team again. On if you feel that Kenyon is not a max out player It?s not saying that he is or isn?t. You are what you can get. Let's give Kenyon some credit here. Last year we made Kenyon a very lucrative offer that many would have said why would you not take this? Kenyon's feeling was that he was a max out player and I want to prove it to you this year and obviously he did. If you look at max out players in this league there are approximately 37 players who get max out money. Of those 37 there would be a differing range of who is a max out player. Of those 37, in my mind, 10 or 11 are max out players. The elite should be the max out players. The fact remains if you get a max out contract you are max out player. It is a moot point to say whether he is or he isn?t. He obviously is because he went out and he proved it. He had two offers; he had an offer from Atlanta and from Denver that made him a max out player. I think as the process unfolds and as we got into after July 1, around the 7-10 of July it became very evident that he was going to get max out offers. I think that at that particular time, Kenyon wanted to go to Denver. Not that he had anything against New Jersey because I think he obviously loved it here and everyone obviously loved him. But I think in his mind, his mind was more set on Denver at that time. It was a peculiar set of circumstances that developed around the entire situation. On your dealing with his agent. I had several conversations with him between the 1st and the 14th and we were never able to come to any conclusion. Finally it came down that he was going to take the offer from Denver and you?ll be getting the offer sheet. As I said publicly we?ll get it, we?ll analyze it and decide what we are going to do. People were wondering why you couldn?t give six years 83 million right now? He wouldn?t have taken it. On if the Nets could offer Kidd, Martin and Jefferson the max? That was obviously part of the series of thoughts that we had concerning whether we could do that or not. Richard obviously is still on his rookie contract. But as you look at your team as you go forward what is your salary situation going to look like. Most teams and I say most because it is not all but most teams in the NBA have a fiscal plan. Most team have fiscal constraints about what you can and cannot do. When you look at that sometimes you have make really tough decisions. In this case it is an incredibly tough decision. Our decision was that if you look at our team going forward, if you look at where you are going to be from a financial position, if you look at where we are going to be from a team position that we need to make this decision and that is what we did. On his value to the Nets franchise and compared to Kidd? I think Martin is a terrific player. I?ve always said that. I think Jason Kidd makes everybody realize their potential but I don?t have any qualms at all stating that Kenyon Martin is a great player and I think you?ll just see how good he is when you see what he does for Denver. That is part of the issue but that really wasn?t the issue to what we thought of Kenyon. Everybody thought very highly of Kenyon. It was looking at our situation and where we are going to be. We are like 30 other teams; we want to be a championship contender. We?ve been a championship contender for three years and how can we stay there. If we sign this contract, when you look at what we?ve got coming are we going to be able to remain as a championship contender. Our considered opinion is that we would be a very good team but we wouldn?t be a championship contender so we?ll go in a different direction. On if he would have turned down the Nets offer? I?m not sure if he would or wouldn?t. I think he was committed to Denver and he was going to do whatever he could do to get to Denver. Denver had done a very good selling job. It is a very good young team that has potential to be a terrific team. I think Kenyon became enamored with that. Are you a rebuilding franchise now? I wouldn?t way we are a rebuilding franchise now. I think we still have some quality players. I think that we have some things to do before the start of the next season if we want to be in contention this coming year. I think with the draft picks we got, I think our future is much more defined now than it would have been had we signed Kenyon. Understanding that in the short term we are obviously not going to be as good as we would be with Kenyon. Now we are going to be in a much better financial position to give us the opportunity to do things to make our team better. On Jason Kidd?s future. His future is that he is part of the Nets. He is recuperating and doing all that he can in order to get back healthy again next year. We fully expect him to be Jason Kidd. How much does this have to do with change of ownership? No matter who was the owner we would have had to make the same decision. As to whether the decision that we ultimately made would have been the same decision that, you would have to talk to them. I don?t know what their feelings would have been but the same decision would have to been made. I?m sure we would have spent the same time, looking at all the different scenarios regarding whether we should or shouldn?t. Did you talk to Jason Kidd? I did. I had a conversation with Jason yesterday. Jason, as you know, is an extremely competitive person. His concern to me was in his mind this lessened our chance to be competitive and therefore what are you going to do to make sure that we?re still competitive. I reiterated to him exactly what I said today; I?ll certainly do everything that I can to try to put some pieces here for the short term as well as the long term to keep this team competitive. What are your immediate priorities personnel wise between now and training camp? I think to assess where we are. Obviously we?ve had different discussions with different agents over the course of the 1st up through today to see what we?ll have a chance to do and what we can do in order to help us. What do need in particular specifically? Obviously we need a power forward. To replace Kenyon is going to be impossible for us in the short term. We will have Krstic to play the four and five. Jason Collins has played the four for us. He obviously can play the four or five. Scalabrine has played the four and three for us and Aaron Williams has played the four and five. We have some potential replacements on our roster and as we look around we?ll look to shore up whatever areas that we can and other areas that we need to. What would you say to the fans? What I would say is stick with us and see what we do. We definitely expect to remain competitive. In any business that you are in, you are faced with very tough decisions from time to time. This was a monumental decision for this franchise, no doubt about it. On the emphasis of not spending money this year. We are open from the this point on to try and make our team competitive. We may do a lot of different things between now and the first game of the season. We have a lot of different options and don?t be surprised if we make more moves. Can you avoid the situation you had with Kenyon, next year with Richard Jefferson? We are allowed to talk with Richard as well as Jason Collins after August 1st, so we will have discussions to see what can or cannot be done. I?m not going to say that we definitely will sign anybody but we will have discussions and see if we can come to an agreement. On staying competitive. When you lose this kind of piece, unless we are very fortunate we are not going to be a championship contender but we fully expect to be a playoff contender. I?m not going to insult anybody?s intelligence by saying we are going to be a championship contender without Kenyon. Are there other prospects around the league? You are not going to replace him per se, at least I don?t think this year. We do have a very good nucleus of players and do have a very good coach. We have a style of ball that is fun to play and style of ball that is tough to adjust to for other teams. Those things aren?t going to change. We?ll bring some other players in and we?ll play hard and try to have a very pleasing product here that the fans will like. We?re still going to be competitive. On being a big player in the free agent market next summer. Very possibly because we do have approximately $30 million in expiring contracts after this year so that is another reason. Who knows when these draft picks are going to come in but have some assets on whether you trade them or whether you use them. Exactly what they are going to be?Those are assets to build on. At the end of this year as you point out we will be in much better position than we are presently. Excited about a high draft pick? I was hoping to never get another high draft pick to tell you the truth but in this case I?m excited about it because when you really look at it and what I try to emphasize, the worst thing for us would have been to get an offer sheet from Denver front-loaded the way it was and we go through the 15 days and we decide that we are not going to match this. Then we would have gotten nothing. This way at least we added to our assets and to me if there is a possibility that it is not going to be matched then you have to try to get what you can get. Do you think there is something wrong with the system if you can?t keep your guys? The NBA has a lot of very smart lawyers and have a system in place that works for the whole. The problem I personally have here is that a team is able to defeat another team by front-loading the contract to the degree that Denver was able to do. If you are signing somebody you can?t put things in that are specifically to defeat another team from matching. In this case to me I think that is a terrific asset to have if you can do that. Denver did it last year with Miller who they ended up getting from the Clippers. They did it this year. To me that is a tremendous advantage to be able to do that. But you don?t get defeated if you are willing to pay the luxury tax. But how many people are willing to make that sort of financial commitment. That is an incredible financial commitment when you are talking about up to 50 million dollars over the course of one year. That is an incredible monetary outlay. I don?t think there are a whole bunch of people that want to do that, nor should they be forced to do that. Is it difficult for you since you drafted K-Mart and put this team together? I?m very competitive. I?ve very much enjoyed being part of a team that was going to the finals and gave Detroit the toughest series they had this year and a team that was a top flight team. I?m not going to minimize that from a personal standpoint but this is more than rod Thorn. This is a franchise that is in transition right now from a standpoint of going from one set of ownership to another. There are a whole bunch of ramification surrounding the team. There is an imminent move. It?s what is best for the organization going forward. I want to emphasize this because it happens to be true. Bruce and I talked and I?ve lost my voice from all the conversations trying to concoct some plan to save Kenyon. At the end of the day we mutually decided that it was in the best interest of our franchise, going forward, to make this move. It?s not simple but at the end of it, it?s very simple. If there weren?t a change in ownership would K-mart still be here? I can?t answer that. We would have been having the same conversations that Bruce and I had. I can?t speak for the outgoing ownership. How did the other players take it? I talked to several and they aren?t happy. Kenyon was not only their favorite player but he was a leader and he was respected in the clubhouse. I don?t know any player that is happy about it except somebody who might get more playing time. Otherwise everybody in the clubhouse understands what Kenyon meant to the team.
That was a actual good move you look at teams that have gotten rid opf there big name players over the last couple of years. The bucks got rid of the big three. Cut down cap and are still a team in the playoffs. The griz never got rid of a superstar, but dont have any and are a good team. If you cant win it all with the team you have now you have to rebuild or put something new in its place. It was obvious they couldnt win a title with the improvement of all the other teams in the east and them not making even a small signing to help the team out. They could not bust the cap room they had to keep the same team they had for 3 years that didnt win a title at several opertunities. Yes K-mart is a great talent and is a hard blow to suffer losing him you have to understand your financise and you have to obey them. New Jersey despite there success the past couple of years still have very low attendence at the medow lands arena. With there move to new york soon coming up they will be recieveing a great amount of new fans I mean its new york. The last thing they need after getting for cash for the fracnhise is to lose it all on one player. It would be like that huge contract that jumwan howard got a couple years back and if he failed to perform he would be almost imposssible to move from there. The last thing a team in the NBA needs right now is to be stuck with a huge contract without progression. It is like the texas rangers they couldnt get any were with a-rod despite his talent because they couldnt get peaces around him do to his contract. He is traded and now they have a great young guy playing a-rods old psoition and a ton of room to sign players. Not only that , but the horrible signings and players aquired new jersey has made over the last two seasons with zo and mutombo didnt help there cap situation zo is still getting paid by the team. Anyway they did get three future first rounders who knows what does picks could be when memphis got all those picks from houston to get francis. They used them to make a very very deep and talented team the nets can do the same. Though next season will be hard for them and there fans.
I think Rod explained the situation a lot better than before. I Think, I'll go alot easier on him and Ratner. To think about it, Martin was not going to end up too good for the Nets in the future. Hes almost 27 years old. In three, four years, he be 30...ALSO keep in mind that he had knee troubles last season. That is not a good sign for any players, and I wont be surprized to see the pain recur. A man with his verticle, certainly get lots of wear and tear on the knees .
that is exactly why my views have changed in the past week while teams are making immediate moves to be better. It was past our time we needed to make some moves with kittles, harris, rogers, zo, and motumbos contract it will work out in the long run fresh legs will do this team some good. since we were stacked with a bunch of old players the fresh legs would compliment kidd and jefferson since they will be the veterans of the team. lets see what the future holds. Stay faithful and represent the team no matter what.
