EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Bostjan Nachbar was very much representative of the Nets play overall, in good times and in bad. When things were rolling, he was usually the guy hitting the long-range daggers and amassing double-digit scoring efforts; when things were not so great, his lot – and shot – tended to go right along with the team’s struggles.
Coming off of a career-year in 2006-07 and beginning the preseason with a 35-point effort in Philadelphia, the stage appeared to be set personally for bigger and better things, but the team’s overall troubles early in the season and his own back issues later on derailed much of Nachbar’s momentum.
“It was definitely a season full of surprises and ups-and-downs,” said the 27 year-old Slovenian, in an exclusive interview to NJNets.com.
“That’s what I would say. We definitely started with high hopes and high goals going into the season but very early the problems started with Nenad (Krstic) being out for longer than expected, Jason (Kidd) being traded, myself being injured for the last quarter of the season. So not a whole lot of positives if you look at it like that but on the other hand we did have some good wins and it was a good season and we were fairly close to making the playoffs, which was our goal. We battled a lot of problems throughout the whole season and at the end the problems won and we lost that battle. Hopefully this group is going to stay together for another season and correct that so we can come out stronger than this season.”
A free-agent this summer, he has made no secret of the fact that he likes it in New Jersey and hopes to be part of the group next year. Nets President Rod Thorn, in his post season media availability, said that the team would like to keep him but also did note that he thinks “the market will be active for him. I think that a lot of teams in the league like Boki, think he’s a good player, and I think there will be a marketplace for him.”
Nachbar had a slightly better scoring average (9.8 points) than last season (9.2 points) but his shooting percentages took a plunge: he shot 36 percent from three-point land this year – down from 42 percent last season – and shot 40 percent overall in contrast to 46 percent last season. Plus, many nights, he was New Jersey’s only tertiary long-distance threat. While he was able to really capitalize off of the cohesion of the squad last season, he found himself in more uncomfortable positions, and certainly not as wide-open, at many junctures this year.
“Last summer I worked extremely hard the whole summer,” said Nachbar.
“I took off from National Team just to get ready for the season. I think it showed early in the season that I was really ready. Unfortunately with Nenad being out and our team just struggling to click, it affected everybody’s play. Especially after the trade and so many changes, it was almost impossible to expect that anybody on this team was going to be consistent throughout the whole season. There were so many lineup changes, trades, injuries, and stuff like that it’s almost impossible to expect for somebody to play at a high level throughout the whole season…I definitely was disappointed that the last quarter of the season I had this back injury that in a normal circumstance I would take off. But just us being in the playoff run all the way to the end, I didn’t want to…It was definitely disappointing because I was looking forward to and planning on having a strong finish to the season, which due to an injury definitely didn’t happen for me so I was kind of disappointed in that aspect.”
The back – and ultimately hip - issues made it evident to him that one of his biggest focuses will be strengthening his core this off season. He is also contemplating hard whether or not to play for his National Team this summer. From a national pride standpoint, he is leaning towards it but knows a free-agent summer is a risky one to be playing ball without a guaranteed contract.
However it shakes out, he knows one thing is certain for the next couple of months.
“It’s definitely going to be an interesting summer.”
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