Dooling, Humphries Happy Playing in Jersey

[Teletopez]

The Dooling article is a couple weeks old, but I thought I'd dig up these two articles at a point where you'd figure most guys are more frustrated than they've ever been in their playing careers.

 

Dooling

You’d never think this 29-year-old Floridian has bad days, but after “the worst road trip of my life,” he knew it was time to snap himself back into leadership mode Wednesday night — sore hip and all.

 

With Devin Harris and Courtney Lee both missing from the Nets’ lineup, there was no better time to do it.

 

Besides, Harris himself noted, Dooling was the only one who could pull it off:

 

“He’s uplifting. The sarcasm keeps guys loose, the enthusiasm keeps guys pumped up,” Harris said. “He’s a veteran who’s been through things, and he knows the game a little bit more. But he encourages guys.”

Dooling makes $3.56 million, and the team has an option for $3.8 million next year. Given that price – lower than the league average — you’d think the Nets would be wise to bring him back, since his hip will be fully recovered from that May 2009 surgery. And Dooling makes it clear that he wants that to happen.

 

“I hope I’m around for the turnaround,” he said. “Because I think next year is going to be a lot brighter than this year. I hope they don’t clean house entirely.”

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Humphries

During his postgame interview he made a comment that definitely got my attention and should’ve gotten the attention of anyone that heard it. “People think they’re going to come in here and not take us seriously. From here on out, my goal and the whole teams’ goal is you better come with your ‘A’ game. We’re competing and we’re capable of beating people when we do what we’re supposed to do.”

SLAM: Being that you were on a team in Dallas that was heading towards the NBA Playoffs, when you heard that you were being traded to the New Jersey Nets, a team with only three wins all season, what was that like?

Kris Humphries: It was kind of strange at first, but then when I got a chance to talk to Kiki he said that he’s liked me for a while and he thought that I could do more on the court than I’ve had a chance to do and he said that he looked forward to working with me. For me, that was nice knowing that he sees me as a player who can do a lot of things out there and he believes in me. But then also, you’re looking at the record and you’re like, ‘This is going to be tough.’ Ultimately I think we have some pieces that can translate into a team of the future when you look at Brook Lopez, Devin Harris, Yi; you’ve got Courtney Lee on the team now and he’s still trying to find his way out here in terms of coming from a Finals team to this situation. So I think we’ve got a lot of people that are kind of trying to figure it out and mixed with some of the moves that I know [the Nets] are going to make in the offseason, it’ll be a totally different team and hopefully a successful one.

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