Brooklyn Nets: in Marks we trust

The Brooklyn Nets are making all the right moves. Proof of that is Mike Batiste getting a top position in the New Orleans Pelicans’ front office. The Hawks have also spoken with and like Trajan Langdon.

Sure, the Nets won only twenty games. Yes, they had the worst record in the league. We know, they don’t have their number one pick to show for it. However, what you didn’t see was the progress that the rookies and even the older players made this year.

We witnessed Caris LeVert go from six points a game going to scoring 20,19,12 & 10 in his last four games after missing the first few months of the regular season. You didn’t see the little things like Isaiah Whitehead learning on the fly to evolve into a decent starting point guard in only his first season in the NBA.

That’s who Mike Batiste was to us. Yes, Kenny Atkinson was crucial to the development of these young guys; but the student can only be as good as his teacher. However, when news broke that the Nets were losing him it wasn’t a moment where I realized we were trading our franchise center for a washed up small forward. Nor was it a moment where Brooklyn’s All-NBA small forward signed elsewhere.

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It was more of me realizing that what Sean Marks was implementing, the players and staff he was bringing in. One he believed were the right people. Why else would an NBA franchise hire someone with only one year of NBA experience? Most teams in today’s NBA want to make the right hire and the right judgement on people. So they will do their homework on a potential hire and from there, like every other good business, they will determine whether or not that person fits what they believe in as well.

I was saddened, but also happy. Happy to know that some one who worked for my team, the team I gave my heart to six years ago, someone who meant a lot to the development of this team, was leaving.

I shook my head because I learned what he meant and saw how important he was by watching these Nets this past season, but I smiled because it gave me hope in the Nets’ management. That finally after all those years of bad contracts and questionable trades that, finally, Brooklyn is on the right path.

A few days after that, the Hawks wanted to interview Trajan Langdon. He was another guy whose name last year I would have shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. Langdon only briefly played in the NBA after a college career at Duke. However, Sean Marks brought him here, though. The Atlanta Hawks wanted someone from the Nets organization. That isn’t something that many people remember hearing about those who were apart of Billy King’s regime.

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This is a different era. This is a new beginning. The Nets have cap space, multiple draft picks and a young core they can watch grow into something. With Atkinson at the helm, the team has a coach it can trust.

This will be the summer that shapes Brooklyn for the future.

In Marks I trust.