Sports

Chris Chiozza is giving Nets a boost no one saw coming

Part 3 of a series analyzing the Brooklyn Nets

In January, Chris Chiozza was a flier plucked out of the G-League and tested out in Long Island, undersized, undrafted and unheralded.

When the NBA season was suspended just over two months later, he was the first name off interim coach Jacque Vaughn’s lips when he talked about an up-tempo second unit. And maybe the Nets’ next development success story.

That’s the kind of impression Chiozza has made in Brooklyn, with the season suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic just as the hungry young point guard was trying to scratch out a place for himself in the NBA.

“I’ve [been here] a couple of months now. They know how I like to play, they know my strengths and I know theirs as well,” Chiozza said after the Nets’ March 10 win in Los Angeles. “Play hard just go out there be a leader, just go out there and give it my all. Wherever the chips fall, they fall.”





Chiozza, 24, has been chopping away at building an NBA career and had found his first big break before the coronavirus interruption.

On Jan. 3, Chiozza had been toiling with the G-League Capital City Go-Go before signing a two-way deal with Brooklyn. He flew to New York and reported straight to a Long Island Nets game against Wisconsin, suitcase in tow.

Chiozza impressed in Long Island with his ball-handling, jumper and pure point-guard leadership, averaging 13.3 points and 5.9 assists. And after being little-used by the Nets — just six short cameos through his first 25 games, none more than 8:37 in playing time — he finally got his chance for the parent club on March 3 in Boston.





With the Nets down 78-59 and 3:45 left in the third quarter, Kenny Atkinson subbed Chiozza for Spencer Dinwiddie. Atkinson doesn’t like small guards, but he loved what he got from the 5-foot-11 Chiozza that night. And the Nets like what they have gotten since.

Chiozza didn’t come off the TD Garden floor the rest of that game, finishing a plus-29 as the Nets stormed back to win in Boston.

“That’s my mindset is to try to stay ready because you never know what’s going to happen,” said Chiozza.

He spent the next four games getting a toehold on a rotation spot, first with Atkinson and then with Vaughn.

“Offensively, can we increase our pace? I talked about it with that second unit: Chiozza, Jarrett Allen, Taurean Prince, Caris LeVert,” Vaughn said. “Can they increase the pace? We have to get up the floor.”





Chiozza has injected pace like a hard-throwing closer coming on to relieve a knuckleballer. And it’s fitting, since he was a former high school pitcher.

Through the first two dozen appearances of Chiozza’s NBA career — dating back to last season, split among the Rockets, Wizards and Nets — he had averaged just two points on 31.0 percent shooting. But in the last four? Try 10.5 points on 55.2 percent shooting — and 8 of 16 from deep.

Nets fans’ comparisons to Toronto’s undrafted gem Fred VanVleet are premature, but Chiozza earning a standard deal isn’t.

However, the Nets developed Dinwiddie and Joe Harris, and gave former two-way player Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot a standard deal this season. With Chiozza ineligible for the postseason as a two-way, it isn’t farfetched to picture them waiving somebody in order to use him in the playoffs — if and when that happens.





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