Krstic On the Rebound

By Matthew McQueeny, NJNets.com
November 24, 2007

It has been a struggle for Nenad Krstic. As the 24 year-old Nets Center has returned from a torn ACL that finished his season last year in December, he has been beset by the at times up-and-down nature of the comeback from such a taxing injury.

In his first game back, in the preseason on October 18th, the seven-footer scored 11 points on 5-of-5 from the field. It brought memories and with it automatic expectations, perhaps unfairly, of the old Krstic. For since that game he has scored in double-figures just two times and has had double-digit rebounds once, when he had 10 against the Hornets on November 12th. And over the subsequent five-games, Nenad had in total scored just eight points on 3-of-21 from the field and grabbed five rebounds in a combined 48 minutes of play.

In Seattle against the SuperSonics, Krstic did not play. Next up will be a match up in Los Angeles against the team – the Lakers - that Krstic was playing when he sustained his torn ACL.

He has had trouble keeping getting his game conditioning and has had a lot of difficulty in moving laterally with the quickness that an NBA player needs to.

For right now, the Nets have altered how they are going to have him train for the immediate future. Instead of hold him back in practice and shoot around and let him get his wind during the games, they will switch it. Krstic will be worked very hard during practice time and will get his chance – coming off the bench – in games, but if it is not going well, he will be pulled. This way he can build up the conditioning he needs to and it won’t be to the detriment of the team on those nights he doesn’t have it going.

“It’s going to take time,” said Coach Frank.

“I think people underestimate that the guy is coming back from a major surgery. Now what happens is people just assume that he’s back on the court so he will be back to being where he was when he left. But it doesn’t work like that. Curly works extremely hard, it’s going to take time, and over the course of time because of his work ethic, he’ll get back to playing at a high level.”

“We’re going to go back to really working him, build him up, get him in there during the games, and just gradually get in there. It’s uncharted territory so it’s kind of a hard thing; I don’t know if there’s a right or wrong answer but the intent is that we are really trying to get him going in off-days and shoot arounds and what ever minutes he can give us in the games, great. And then the more productive he is, the more minutes he will play.”

“I think I was better in the beginning because I was fresher,” says Krstic.

“Right now I get tired and I really can’t get better but it’s going to take some time and maybe in a month, two months it’s going to be much better. But right now I’m going through some really tough times for me because I’m really tired and my body can’t really respond really good because my knee is still not ready to play every second night, between practice and everything. That’s why I didn’t get really better but in time it’s going to come, I know. I was good in the beginning and in training camp, now I’m going down and slowly going up in maybe a couple of weeks, maybe a month, two months, who knows.”

“I just need to continue to work and now I’m going to try a different way where I work out really hard, and if I play in a game good and if I don’t play it doesn’t matter. I’m just going to work out hard because before that I was not practicing at all. I would just play 10-15 minutes a game. That’s not going to help me to get back quicker; it takes more time. I’m trying to work out really hard right now and get my conditioning better.”

Nenad will be getting back in the weight room and is staying an hour later at shoot arounds to get his extra work and to build game-conditioning. He is working with strength-and-conditioning coach Rich Dalatri and athletic trainer Tim Walsh to figure out how to get back to the court and “be 100%.” Krstic said that at this time he’s “maybe 70%, maybe less.”

“I need to do that because for me right now the best thing is just to work out really hard and that’s how I’m going to get conditioning. Obviously you can’t really compare anything with the game but I think I skipped practicing really hard to just get in the game. I really didn’t have too much time to work out on my conditioning.”

“I’m going to be alright; it’s just that like always it’s going to take some time. For me right now, I don’t think like it’s going to happen in one month I’m just thinking about what I should do right now to get better.”

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