Getty Head coach Jacque Vaughn of the Brooklyn Nets.
New Brooklyn Nets big man Moses Brown stands out in a game of giants.
“He’s looking over the top of Day’Ron [Sharpe],” said head coach Jacque Vaughn,” per Brian Lewis of the New York Post on March 19. “I’m going to see how the games present themselves, but we do want to see him get some quality minutes at some point. I did that pretty early with Nerlens [Noel] to give us some answers quickly.”
Sharpe, also a former first-round pick, has appeared in just three of the Nets’ last 10 games. Brooklyn was using Ben Simmons as a third center but he has been out since the trade deadline with knee soreness and now back inflammation.
The Nets are 29th in rebounding and 30th in second-chance points this season leading them to try out the likes of former first-round pick-turned-journeyman Nerlens Noel behind starter Nic Claxton. Brooklyn decided to let Noel’s 10-day contract expire after three mostly non-descript appearances. That is where Brown, they hope, can come in using his 7-foot-2 frame to snag a few extra possessions.
Jacque Vaughn on the 7-foot-2 Moses Brown: “He’s kinda looking over the top of Day’Ron a little bit.” Vaughn says he’s unsure how soon Brown will be on the floor but that he wants to find him quality minutes.
“He’s just big. He’s a big body at the rim for us. But an agile guy.”
Brown, 23, averaged 4.6 points and 4.1 rebounds in 8.5 minutes per game across 34 appearances with one start for the Los Angeles Clippers before being waived after the deadline. He signed a two-way contract with the New York Knicks on March 8 only to be waived four days later signing with Brooklyn five days after that on March 17.
Happy Homecoming for Moses Brown
“I’ve been on a lot of teams all over the country, and it’s just cool to be home,” Brown told Lewis after practicing with the team on March 17. “Every time we would drive throughout Brooklyn, I would watch the Barclays Center’s progress every year. That was the new team. I remember, growing up, just liking the colors, the uniforms, everything.”
Brown is a South Jamaica Queens native who went to Archbishop Molloy High School in Briarwood, New York – just 22 minutes from the Barclays Center – where he played with Orlando Magic guard Cole Anthony.
The Nets moved from New Jersey to Brooklyn in 2012 giving him a front-row seat.
With a role behind Claxton seemingly up for the taking, perhaps Brown can make this his permanent NBA home.
He was not able to get into the Nets’ loss to the Denver Nuggets on March 19.
That game got close down the stretch and, as we have seen from the players who have been with the team at least since the deadline, it can be tough assimilating mid-season. That is Vaughn’s challenge with the intriguing big man.
Nic Claxton Asking For Help
The Nets’ rebounding issues are not lost on Claxton who has had to adjust to a new reality without the gravity of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving opening up things for everybody else.
“I just think all five guys just need to do a better job participating,” Claxton said via a video clip posted to Twitter by SportsNet New York after the Nets’ 101-96 loss to the Sacramento Kings on March 16. We all gotta make sure we’re hitting somebody. It can’t just be 2 guys. it needs to be a five-guy effort.”
“The scouting report says to try to go offensive rebound versus the Nets,” Vaughn said via the YES Network’s channel on YouTube after the loss to Denver. “We have to understand that and really do a diligent job of trying to do it together. We can’t do it with two people or three people. We show clips at halftime where literally we need all five people to come back and get a piece of somebody.”
Perhaps Brown can take some of the pressure off of Vaughn to keep Claxton on the floor.