First place, baby!

In discussing the Nets’ season so far, that pretty much gets the good news out of the way. Despite its 11–14 start, New Jersey somehow woke up this morning atop the Titanic Division. Moreover, all its so-called competition has been significantly weakened within the past week — the Knicks by suspensions, the Sixers by Allen Iverson’s trade, and the Celtics and Raptors by injuries to Paul Pierce and Chris Bosh, respectively. The Nets may end up as division champs in spite of themselves.

Though the Nets’ lofty perch would earn them the no. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference if the playoffs started today, it’s safe to say things have not gone according to plan in the Swamp.

(Except the part about leaving the Swamp, that is — Bruce Ratner’s bid to move the team to Brooklyn took a major step forward this week, which I’m sure will thrill the far-off folks in Syracuse, Buffalo, and Rochester whose tax dollars are going toward the Nets’ new arena. But I digress).

Not only is New Jersey 11–14, but the Nets’ record is worse than it looks. They’ve played 16 home games and only nine on the road, a disparity that will be evened during a mid-January slog that sends the Nets traveling for nine out of 11 contests.

Moreover, they’ve played mostly bad teams. New Jersey’s strength of schedule thus far ranks 28th in the NBA out of 30 teams, according to USA Today computer guru Jeff Sagarin, which means most of the easy games are out of the way. Not that the Nets took advantage of them — already they’ve lost in their own building to Charlotte, Portland, Seattle, and Boston.

From Friday to the end of January, the slate gets much, much tougher. Twelve of the next 22 games are against teams at .500 or better, and most of the others are against “losing” teams like Golden State, Minnesota, and Sacramento that have played far, far better than the Nets thus far. Speaking of which, nine of the 22 games are against the West, which has pretty much been an automatic loss for most Eastern teams this year (the Nets, for instance, are 3–8 against the grown-ups’ conference).

So the time for fun and games is over. In each of the past three seasons, this has been the point where Lawrence Frank rallied the troops and got the Nets back on track. However, that’s hardly a guarantee that the same thing will happen this year.

For one, as I’ve written ad nauseum, the Nets were never as good as they thought a year ago. That they were a bit fortunate in close games and only lost two games to injury from their four best players were the main reasons the Nets stayed above .500 last year, and neither trend should have been expected to continue.

In fact, the second one has turned on them with a vengeance. With Jason Collins seemingly a shadow of his former self thanks to recurrent knee problems, Eddie House missing the first month of the season with his own knee injury, and Richard Jefferson’s right ankle having more floating objects than the Berry Creek Canal, Jersey’s health has been a major factor in its early-season struggles.

It’s the latter problem that has hit New Jersey the hardest. They can handle RJ missing six games, as he did with a sprain earlier this season. What they can’t handle is his being so limited when he takes the court … but it’s something they may have to get used to.

Jefferson originally hurt his right ankle in last year’s playoff series against Miami, but came back quickly and was able to play competently in the final three games of the series despite the Nets’ defeat — even scoring 33 points in a Game 5 defeat. However, rushing back from the injury may have been a poor long-term move.

Despite a summer of rest, Jefferson’s ankle continued to give him trouble in training camp and in the early part of the season. Even when an injury to his other ankle gave him some down time to heal, his right ankle never got better. He came back and has tried to play on it since, but it’s still not right and reportedly will require surgery after the season — if not sooner.

It’s fortunate for New Jersey that RJ is such a gamer and that he’s been willing to sacrifice his stats, and perhaps a chunk of his future, to stay in the lineup and get the Nets a few more Ws in the present. Even in his diminished state, the Nets are a better team with Jefferson playing.

Unfortunately, the trade-off is that the Nets aren’t getting the real RJ — they’re just getting some guy named Richard. Jefferson’s numbers are way down across the board this season, particularly in the two areas where his athleticism and explosiveness made the most difference — rebounding and free-throw attempts. Jefferson’s 5.3 rebounds per 40 minutes pale next to the 7.0 and 7.1 he put up the past two years, while he’s averaging 1.5 free-throw attempts less per game than a year ago.

As a result, his contributions have been middling rather than exceptional. Jefferson’s Player Efficiency Rating (PER, my per-minute rating of a player’s per-minute statistical effectiveness) has plummeted to 13.37 this year from 19.02 a year ago, dropping him from one of the game’s top small forwards into the midst of the mediocre masses.

Defensively, his lost zip is hurting even worse. With Jason Kidd a year older and rookie Marcus Williams struggling mightily to contain opposing guards, the Nets have a glaring lack of quickness that helps account for their uncharacteristically mediocre defense so far this year. Jefferson was the guy who could make up for it, but he can’t with his ankle in this condition.

It’s hard to envision the Nets making the kind of U-turn they managed to pull off the past three seasons. New Jersey’s recipe for success is built on having three good-to-excellent perimeter players who can make up for a vanilla frontcourt and a weak bench.

The bench isn’t quite as weak these days, and Nenad Krstic gets a little less vanilla with each game. But having a productive Jefferson was one of the key ingredients. If he can’t overcome his ankle woes and play like the Jefferson of the past two years, the final product will leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth – even if they do end up “winning” their division.

jhollinger@nysun.com