Sean Marks is showing that slow progress is the right process

A little less than a year ago, Sean Marks released Yogi Ferrell and signed Spencer Dinwiddie. Brooklyn Nets fans were up in arms about it. However, Marks is showing it’s not about the quick fix.

About a year ago, Brooklyn Nets fans were getting their hopes up about Yogi Ferrell as he was killing it in the then-D-league. He showed signs of adapting well to the NBA game. Their high hopes however turned into anger, a lot of name calling and snap judgments when the team let him go and Sean Marks signed Spencer Dinwiddie.

More from Nothin' But Nets

It’s not hard to understand why. Ferrell was picked up right after the draft as he had gone undrafted in the 2016 NBA Draft. He played in four Brooklyn Nets Summer League games. Ferrell had averaged 8.8 PPG, 1.8 APG to go along with 1.5 boards per game.

Marks and Kenny Atkinson saw a little something in him and immediately signed him to non-guaranteed contract in August. But the team waived him in October after playing in only three preseason games in his first year. He bounced back-and-forth between the Nets’ Long Island D-league team and the big league club for the next two months showing his heart and passion that fans were falling in love with.

Brooklyn fans have an eye for heart. They know when a player is giving 100 percent or 10. Just ask Deron Williams. They can see through all the fancy names on the jersey and the words that are said at the podium. It is why Nets fan had such a hard time when Brooklyn released Ferrell and Dallas picked him up.

Upon his debut as a Maverick, he put up nine points and dished out seven assists. The next day he put up 19 in a win against Cleveland. Two days later, Ferrell put up a career-best 32 points, helping his new squad beat the Trailblazers 108-104.

Ferrell became only the third undrafted rookie in NBA history to score 30 points within his first 15 games and tied a record for most three pointers made with nine that night. Nets fans took to Twitter to voice their displeasure with Brooklyn releasing him. They knew he had the potential to do what he did in Dallas. Fans felt they missed on a sure thing, that they found something no other general manager in the league saw. They were partly right.

Enter Spencer Dinwiddie. He was a 6’6” guard who the Windy City Bulls, the Chicago Bulls D-league team, just released. A relative unknown and until this point, a soon to be journeyman. That’s not a tag that a player with two years of experience wants. Especially since he did not do much with the team that drafted him 38th overall in the 2014 Draft, the Detroit Pistons.

Before the Pistons drafted him, Dinwiddie played collegiate basketball for the Colorado Buffaloes. where as a freshman he scored a school record of 250 points and helped his team grab an NCAA tournament birth, the first one since the 2002-03 season.

The Los Angeles native was on his way to being a first round pick whenever he decided to declare. Draft experts even considered the second best returning NBA prospect in the PAC 12 in his junior year, until disaster struck.

On January 12, 2014, during his junior season, he tore his ACL in a game against Washington. That year, the Buffaloes finished the season 23-12. Colorado could have topped those 23 wins with no problem if Dinwiddie had been healthy. After all, Colorado went 14-2 when Dinwiddie was healthy.

At this moment, Dinwiddie’s production stands at 13.5 PPG, 6.5 APG and .360 3P%, while playing 28.0 MPG. Ferrell’s is 9.8 PPG, 2.2 APG and .401 3P %, also playing 28 MPG.

Brooklyn got the man it needed. Not just from a statistical point of view but also from a leadership point of view also. “The Spencation” has quite literally put this team on his back and led them to their 15 wins after Jeremy Lin and D’Angelo Russell went down with injuries.

Fans should not trust all executives to make the right decisions regarding players and contracts (i.e Billy King). However; One thing is for certain, Marks has earned his trust. He knew that Dinwiddie was the long term answer to his conundrum and not a short-term flash in the pan like Ferrell.

Patch work doesn’t work. Not anymore, not in Brooklyn.