Avery Johnson opened Tuesday's press conference by promising, as did his boss, to win the NBA championship. "I'm going to work morning, noon and night to get the Big Trophy," said Johnson.

"The sky's the limit," said Johnson in front of dozens of reporters and cameramen at the PNY Center. "We can go from worst to first."

Among the other highlights of the the press conference:

--"Brook Lopez is a really terrifically talented center who I am looking forward to working with...I see a lot of potential in Brook. He should be a perennial All-Star and we are trying to help him get there."

--"We're going to get Devin Harris back to playing the type of basketball we know he's capable of playing..."Devin is a little older, he knows my system, and I can give him the reigns now."

--"We're in a great situation here with the Nets. We've got plenty of draft picks, quite a bit of money to spend. We have an owner who is all in, and he wants to win and he wants to win now...just a great basketball mind in Rod Thorn that's heading up this whole deal and I'm just happy to be part of the team."

--"I'm all about dreaming. I have a big dream in my mind right now in terms of where this franchise can go and where we can take it. I see all of the possibilities, but that's going to require a lot of discipline and details and determination."

--"You look at what we already have with Devin and Brook Lopez and Courtney Lee and some of the other guys we already have on our team, Yi (Jianlian), if we add the right free agents, three really good draft prospects to our existing roster...we feel that team can have an opportunity to be really good."

At one member of last year's 12-70 team was impressed with the day's events. "It's good to see the culture change around here," said Lopez.