A former Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year at Duke, Mike Gminski was drafted 7^th overall in 1980 by the New Jersey Nets.  The “Big G” was used off the bench in the first four seasons, but would take over the starting Center role for the team in the 1984/85 campaign.  Gminski would be in the top 20 in Offensive Rebounds (if we count the season he was traded midway to Philadelphia) as a Net, and he was not a bad scorer.  In his last three seasons with the Nets, he averaged over 16 Points per Game, and as a good free-throw shooter, with three seasons of a free-throw percentage over .840.

Nicknamed the “Whopper” (which is enough for us to rank him alone), Billy Paultz was a 7th Round Draft Pick in the NBA, and he opted instead to go to the ABA, where he was a welcome surprise.

Drafted 8^th Overall in 1996, Kerry Kittles had a good rookie season, averaging 16.4 Points per Game, which he improved to 17.2 as an NBA sophomore.  He regressed the seasons after, and he would have to sit out the 2000/01 season due to a knee injury.  Upon his return, the Nets were an improved team with the addition of Jason Kidd, and he would help them reach two straight NBA Finals, proving himself a fine fit for the new Nets.  Kittles was capable of explosive runs, and he was an underappreciated defensive player who was in the Top 20 in Steals five times.  Overall, he averaged 14.3 Points per Game in 496 Games as a Net.

The starting Power Forward for the New Jersey Nets for the first five years of the 1990s, Derrick Coleman got off to about as good a start as you would hope for when you draft a player number one overall, like the Nets did in 1990.  As a rookie, Coleman won the Rookie of the Year Award with a double-double average of 18.4 Points and 10.3 Rebounds per Game.  In Coleman’s third season, he reached the 20 Points per Game mark, which would be the level he would stay at for the duration of his stay in New Jersey while maintaining a double-digit board average.  He was named an All-Star in 1994 and was a two-time Third Team All-NBA member as a Net.