July 22, 2009

Kiki on the Couch: 18 Months In (Part I)

On December 31, 2007, Kiki Vandeweghe joined the Nets as a special assistant to President Rod Thorn. Fewer than five months later, on May 8, 2008, he was elevated to General Manager. Another year after that, the team has shifted from a core of Jason Kidd, Richard Jefferson and Vince Carter to one centered around Devin Harris, Brook Lopez and other young, talented players (like the recently acquired Courtney Lee or first-round pick Terrence Williams) who are surrounded by a cadre of capable veterans on short-term, cost-effective contracts.

A year-and-a-half into his tenure, we sat down with Vandeweghe to discuss the direction of the team and why "the real work begins now." Part one of our Q&A follows.

Check out Part II of our Q&A, and also the moves he's helped make.

NJNets.com: Looking back at the past 18 months, how do you feel about where the team is now -- and where it could go -- relative to its position when you joined back in December 2007?

Kiki Vandeweghe: When Rod -- Mr. Thorn -- brought me in, it was a time when we were a team that had been good in the past, but was probably in transition and had to make a decision: were we going to try and stay with the old team, which was fairly expensive, or were we going to try and change things up? We had decided we weren’t going to get where we wanted to go with the old team, so we changed it up.

And those are difficult decisions because we had a lot of great players: you had Jason Kidd, you had Richard Jefferson and you had Vince Carter. But unfortunately you weren’t a playoff-bound team and you weren’t going where you wanted and you had big contracts, so we made the decision to change directions and give ourselves hope and a chance to improve the team.

We made the first big deal, the Jason Kidd deal, and we got Devin Harris, cap flexibility and two first-round picks. That set things in motion and next we traded Richard Jefferson, increased our cap flexibility and got a promising young player in Yi Jianlian. And then with the addition of some of our draft picks – Brook Lopez, Chris Douglas-Roberts – and then someone like Jarvis Hayes, we continued to increase our young base, our foundation of good players. Recently, we traded Vince Carter, got additional cap flexibility to improve and added Courtney Lee, who started for the Orlando Magic in the Finals at two-guard.

It’s difficult to replace great players, but our players were getting older. And in 18 months, we’ve gone from a sort of older team that did not have any cap flexibility and no real good way to improve to a team that has four or five really good young players who can play together for a long time, great cap flexibility – probably as much or more than anybody in the league – some extra draft picks. We also lowered the cost of the team and moved all the real big long-term contracts. We’ve got shorter term contracts at lower numbers, which is where you need to be if you want to improve, so I would say we’re as well-positioned as anybody in the league to improve in a very short time.

I like our young players very much: Devin Harris, Courtney Lee, Jarvis Hayes, Yi Jianlian, Brook Lopez, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Terrence Williams and Josh Boone, who are all young and all have big upside; they’re good players now, but they can continue to improve. I like our veteran group: Rafer Alston, Eduardo Najera, Keyon Dooling, Bobby Simmons, the addition of Tony Battie, Trenton Hassell. I like our group, we’ve got a nice mix of players.

Improving in these challenging economic times, it’s about flexibility, and I would say we’ve got as much flexibility as anybody. We’ve done a 180 and we’ve done it about as quick as I’ve seen it done. And it’s been great working with Rod -- I’ve learned a ton already. It’s a tremendous opportunity for me to be a part of this. To me, the way I personally look at it, the real work begins now because you’ve created the opportunities to improve. Now you’ve got to take advantage of those opportunities: you’ve got to use your extra draft picks wisely, you’ve got to use your cap space wisely. That doesn’t come around all the time. But these are opportunities and I think that if history is any indicator, with rod and myself, we’ll be able to do some good things.

NJNets.com: After previously serving as the Nuggets GM (2001-06) what have you gained from working alongside Rod during your stint with the Nets?

Kiki Vandeweghe: Well, obviously Dallas and Denver were both rebuilding situations and we did it differently in both. Denver was more like here in that we kind of tore it down and built it back up with younger players. We got lucky on a few deals in Denver, and you have to. But the way Rod thinks and goes about things -- he’s been around the league a long time -- you learn a lot from him and I’m just very appreciative of the opportunity. It’s been a lot of fun.

NJNets.com: The discussion keeps coming back to flexibility. Everyone’s long been focused on next summer's free-agent class, but does the changing economic landscape mean free agency might not be the main focus?

Kiki Vandeweghe: That’s right. Going back to the beginning, we weren’t players in the game 18 months ago. But we’ve created the opportunities so that even in these challenging economic times, we’ll still have tons of cap room at that time. And for keeping our team together -- you’ve got to have a foundation, so free agents look at your team and say, ‘Okay, I see a great foundation I can come to.’ Having cap space is great, but if you don’t have a foundation for free agents to come to, they’re not going to come. You can’t strip down your team completely and expect one good free agent or even two good free agents to come and build your team up from that, because they want to come to a winning situation.

So that’s one side of it, but the other side of it, is cap space – we’ll have, depending on where the cap ends up, $25-30 million – can be used in a variety of different ways. you have to look at it know as a ‘team asset,’ along with your draft picks and your good young players under good contracts. that’s what you try to do, you try to accumulate as many assets as you can. and then you want to use them wisely, whether it’s to sign free agents or in trades or however you choose to use it. That’s the trick of it, to use it wisely.

NJNets.com: So an example of that would be Jarvis Hayes’ deal? You've mentioned him as part of the young core, and it feels like people forget he was only drafted in 2003 ...

Kiki Vandeweghe: He’s a young player; he’s 27-years-old and he was hurt for basically a year-and-a-half of his tenure, so he’s basically a fourth-year player at the moment. He’s still young and can still improve. Tremendously talented, and I thought he started to really make strides last year and pick up where he left off his rookie season. I thought we were very lucky to get him, especially at the price we got him. He’s been a great addition. Picking up the second-year option, that was a no-brainer with him.