The Brooklyn Nets revamped their roster entirely this offseason. They added tons of talent. The veterans on the team have a year under their belts playing for head coach Kenny Atkinson. Making the playoffs is the next step.
The Brooklyn Nets turning from the worst team in the league to a playoff contender sounds like it’s too good to be true. It’s too fairytale for Cinderella.
But general manager Sean Marks just had one of the best offseasons in franchise history. He assembled a cast of talented, above-average players that work well in Atkinson’s game plan. Too many players, like floor general Jeremy Lin, are coming off some of the better seasons of their careers. The Eastern Conference is the weakest it has been in years.
Super broad, sweeping assertions, but the point is all the parts are there. The Nets just have to deliver.
Let’s take a closer look at the team’s roster, starting with the additions. Marks made the choice to truly get younger and traded franchise center Brook Lopez for D’Angelo Russell. Sure he has not proven much, but the potential for greatness is there. Pair him alongside Lin, who has five years of playoff experience, and you have one of the better backcourt tandems in the conference.
Russell can thrive both with, and without, the ball in his hands. He can focus on scoring as Lin runs the offense.
In that same trade, the Nets acquired Timofey Mozgov and his albatross of a contract. Fun fact about Mozgov: he was the second best player on the 2015 Cleveland Cavaliers Finals runner-up team. Sorry, not sorry Matthew Dellavedova. Although he has regressed mightily the past two seasons, if Atkinson can tap into what made Mozgov so successful (read: use the pick-and-roll effectively), the Nets weakness at the five suddenly becomes a strength.
Here’s a reminder, that was literally the first major move the Nets made in the offseason. Adding DeMarre Carroll, a legitimate LeBron James stopper (well regular season LeBron at least), and the three-point shooting machine Allen Crabbe gives the Nets a 40-win roster.
To quote the great, late Billy Mays, “but wait, there’s more!”
Remember how I mentioned Nets players coming off some of the best seasons of their career? Well, Lin is one of those players. Numbers-wise, he had the second best season of his NBA tenure. He also didn’t need to deal with media, hype or overblown expectations. Jeremy Lin is on pace to become the new silent assassin of the NBA.
Not only did Lin absolutely kill it when he was healthy, but Sean Kilpatrick also had the best season of his career. You know who else had the best season of their careers? Russell, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Trevor Booker, Crabbe, Joe Harris, Spencer Dinwiddie and Quincy Acy.
That’s over half the roster. Chalk it up to coincidence, but when you have over half the roster exceeding expectations, expect your team to be on an upswing.
So the team needs to out-perform its expectations again. That shouldn’t be too hard, especially in the weakest Eastern Conference in the last decade.
While Boston, Cleveland, Toronto and Washington will probably dominate the top four seeds, it’s anybody’s guess as to who the last four in are. Charlotte could easily underwhelm, Miami needs to figure out if its go-to scorer should be Dion Waiters or Hassan Whiteside, Milwaukee still needs a legitimate point guard and have a ton of three-point shooting concerns and Philadelphia needs to prove that Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons are healthy.
Want to know what the Nets have to prove? That can mesh together and survive on a pencil thin backcourt. Not awful compared to the teams above.
The playoffs are rarely handed on a silver platter. It’s not being handed to the Nets. But when it comes down to it, this is the team’s best chance to make it to the promise land since the move to Brooklyn.
Next: The Nets want Russell to step up as a leader
Brooklyn’s chances only get better from here on out.