EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Nets President Rod Thorn addressed a modest assemblage of writers today to discuss the season that was and talk about the team’s plan of attack for the immediate future and into next season.

The Nets went 34-48 this season and did not secure a berth in the playoffs for the first time since 2001. Getting back into the playoffs and building a team – from within and without - to supplement the core with defensive-mindedness, outside-shooting, and more toughness will be a plan for the off season.

“We’ll look to obviously make some changes,” said Thorn.

“We had a major problem on the defensive end of the court this year, not being able to guard the basket and not being able to keep wing players in front of us as well as you need to. That combination is tough. It’s tough to be very good defensively if you don’t do either of those and we did not do either of those.”

“Offensively, Boki (Bostjan Nachbar) is a free agent. Our three free-agents (Nachbar, Nenad Krstic, DeSagana Diop) we would like to sign them if we can but they are free-agents and we’ll have to see what kind of offers they get, what they’re amenable to. I think even with Boki we need one other guy who can make a jump shot because we struggled a lot of nights when teams zoned us or loaded up on the strong side as the case may be with three guys…But I think we’ve got some pieces that can play winning basketball and some of our younger guys got better as the season wore on and hopefully they’ll continue to get better as we go along.”

Thorn said he would not be surprised if the core – most notably Vince Carter, Richard Jefferson, and Devin Harris – was in tact together when next season started. With that assumption, he noted that a key for his brain-trust – especially in looking towards free agency – will be identifying players who can contribute to the weak areas of the team at a value.

“You have to see what is available, who might like to play for you. There are always free-agents every year that come in – a la James Posey this year who did a wonderful job with the Celtics. If you talk to the Celtics they think he was a key ingredient on their team who isn’t a big money guy, so to speak - But there are those guys and we have to do a better job at identifying the guys who are certainly more than minimum but they’re not huge outlays of money who can help us. Because if you look at it: there are 25 teams who don’t want to be a luxury tax paying team – there are four or five that don’t care – but most everybody else that you’re competing with are competing under the same conditions that you are so we don’t want to be a luxury tax paying team unless we can sign somebody that you know is going to make a big significant difference. So what we have to do is identify around the edges some people that can come in and help us in spots that we need some help.”

Thorn praised Carter’s season, not just from a standpoint of statistics, but from the leadership he brought, especially following the trade of Captain Jason Kidd.

“If you look at his numbers from after the all-star break, there were two other players that had comparable or better numbers than he had – LeBron (James) and Kobe (Bryant)… Only Kobe and LeBron had better numbers than he had. His leadership was the best it has been since he’s been here; he always took a backseat to Jason when it came to those kinds of things. I think he considered it Jason’s team – which it was – and he took a backseat but his leadership qualities came to the fore. I can’t say enough about him; I think he played absolutely great from the time of the trade.”

As for the persistent questions that seemingly always arise about the compatibility of having Carter and Jefferson on the same team together, Thorn said that he would be comfortable heading into another season with them if it ended up that way.

“There’s a lot of talk about Richard and Vince,” he said. “Those guys are pretty good. If we were a little bit better at other spots, I don’t think those guys would be a big problem.”

If Harris – who averaged 15.4 points and 6.5 assists as a Net – can sustain his production and center Nenad Krstic – who the Nets hope to keep following this a summer of restricted free-agency – can return to his pre-ACL surgery days, Thorn believes that coupled with Jefferson and Carter the team is a formidable one.

“You’re already up to 75 points approximately (projected for those four players) so who is going to get the other 20 to 25 (points)?”

A hope is that the young players – namely Josh Boone, Sean Williams, and Marcus Williams - can continue to come along. Plus, the Nets will have two first-round picks in this year’s draft, as well as a second-rounder: unless they move up in the lottery (1st, 2nd, or 3rd pick), they are slotted for the 10th, 21st, and 40th picks. Outside of trades or free agency, these are two ways they will look to improve from within.

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