FanHouse KikiVandeweghe

PHILADELPHIA -- They just made a stop in Philadelphia, so why not be the first to throw it out. Can the New Jersey Nets make a run at the 1972-73 76ers' all-time futility mark of 9-73?

The Nets are the NBA's only winless team at 0-6 after Friday night's 97-94 loss to the 76ers and every day another player seems to get hurt. Call them the New Jersey Gnats the way they're dropping like flies.

OK, so it's way too early to think these Nets are going to make history for basketball badness. And, besides, Nets guard Rafer Alston gets upset when somebody calls his team the NBA's worse.

"That does (hurt) because you know you have a lot of pride,'' Alston said. "It hurts to be considered the worst ... when you know you have a lot of basketball and life in your game and there's a lot of pride in each man.''

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Sunday, there are 51 days remaining.

On Dec. 13, 1983, the San Diego Chicken showed up at Denver's McNichols Arena, a gimmick needed to try to get some fans to out for what looked to be a mundane Tuesday game between the Nuggets and Detroit Pistons.

That didn't work as a mere 9,655 fans showed up.

Of course, now there might be a few hundred thousand claiming to have been on hand that night.

Denver forward Kiki Vandeweghe scored a career-high 51 points to lead all scorers. But even that wasn't enough as his Nuggets lost 186-184 to Detroit in three overtimes in the highest-scoring game in NBA history.

ClipsNation seems to be ecstatic (shock!) over the Marcus Camby coup. One of the fans there pulls out this quote from Camby's agent Rick Kaplan, as recorded by the Rocky Mountain News.

[T]he Nets, without room under the salary cap, were not able to bid low enough to get him in a salary-cap dump.

"Kiki really wanted Marcus," said Camby's agent, Rick Kaplan, referring to New Jersey general manager Kiki Vandeweghe, the general manager in Denver when the Nuggets traded for Camby in June 2002. "But he didn't have enough of nothing to give."

When we joke about all these teams angling for cap space in 2010, even though they have no shot at LeBron, Wade, Bosh or Amare, keep in mind how valuable nothing can be. Nothing can allow to get something for nothing, while something just prevents you from easily getting something else.

It's the new NBA, people, where cap space has tremendous upside potential and on-court performance is a deep, deep second to fiscal impact in importance. (And let not this fine occasion pass without noting the Wizards got more for the rights to pay Juan Carlos Navarro last summer than Denver got for Marcus Flippin' Camby.)

The New York Daily News' Frank Isola reported this morning that the Knicks are preparing to remove Isiah Thomas from his executive role to make space for new Net GM Kiki Vandeweghe. Perhaps owing the sheer numbers of times Isiah's demise has been hotly mouthed, there appears to be some skepticism (in the form of yawns) abroad.

For his part, Isola is selling it. He followed up on the arrangement he reported -- Isiah would stick around as coach, Kiki would make future personnel decisions -- a few hours ago.

That arrangement simply won't work. For starters, Vandeweghe deserves the right to hire his coach and by giving up that power he will set a bad precedent. (Who doesn't doubt that, come April 2009, following a 27-55 season, Dolan's fires Kiki and gives Isiah both titles again?) But more importantly, who but Dolan believes that Isiah is the right coach? Really, who has improved as a player?

Even when Isiah's demise as shotcaller is complete, expect a lack of cheers. As old friend Shoals notes at The Sporting Blog, the guillotine would have been too late to matter last week. Nothing in MSG will excite until Kiki selects Derrick Rose with the #2 pick in the draft.