Here on Brooklyn Balling, I’ll try to recap the chaos that was the 2013-14 Nets season with a series of “Season Review” posts on the players, trades, and even coach that shaped how this year turned out. Mirza Teletovic was last, and Mason Plumlee is up next.
The 22nd overall pick in the 2013 Draft, Mason Plumlee was selected by a team in the Brooklyn Nets that made a much more intriguing and interesting transaction on June 27th, 2013 than just drafting a power forward out of Duke.
Of course, that night was when general manager Billy King pulled the trigger on the deal with the Celtics to bring Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and the now-forgotten Jason Terry to Brooklyn. To say Mason’s entrance to the Nets roster was overshadowed would be an understatement.
Not a whole ton was expected this year from Plumlee, whose older brother, Miles, had a solid 2013-14 season for the Phoenix Suns, who barely missed the postseason out of the Western Conference. A late first-rounder on a team with loads of veteran talent across the board probably, in most cases, wouldn’t get a whole lot of playing time in his rookie campaign.
However, the 2013-14 campaign was far from a normal one for the Nets, who saw their starting center Brook Lopez go down for the season early on with a broken foot and saw key reserve forward Reggie Evans traded, along with Terry, to the Sacramento Kings in exchange for some wing help in Marcus Thornton.
Even before the deal, Plumlee had worked himself into Jason Kidd’s rotation over Evans and demonstrated his defensive prowess along with some decent rebounding and great dunking skills.
The Lopez injury opened the door for Mason and the Evans trade blew it right off, as after that, Plumlee became a crucial member of the Brooklyn rotation. In 70 regular season games in his first NBA season, Mason played 18.2 minutes per game and shot a pretty remarkable 66% from the field. Granted, most of his shots were dunks and layups, but still, you get the point.
Per 36 minutes, Plumlee scored 14.7 points and grabbed 8.7 rebounds, which are both numbers that are solid for a player who was never even close to being the primary offensive option on the floor.
As I mentioned above, his defensive presence was also felt greatly by the Nets, and probably no more than in Brooklyn’s April 8th win over the Heat in Miami. Mason swatted away a LeBron shot attempt, that would have been a game-winner, at the last second to preserve the win for the Nets. Although Brooklyn wasn’t able to beat the Heat a month later in the playoffs, that victory was a defining moment of the season for the team.
Mason Plumlee is only going to get better in his sophomore season with the Nets, especially if Kevin Garnett and/or Andray Blatche leave either via retirement or free agency. Plumlee’s role on the team will undoubtedly increase and he’s going to get stronger both physically and mentally, which should translate to a significant on-court improvement.
After a rookie season that was a surprise on all fronts, the Duke product’s ceiling is incredibly high and it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to expect a double-double from him in the 2014-15 campaign. At least I know I wouldn’t be surprised.
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