Brooklyn Nets: 5 biggest offseason questions for club

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Brooklyn Nets Kevin Durant (Photo by Matteo Marchi/Getty Images) /

2. Can the Nets bag their quarry as big-game hunters?

The Brooklyn Nets have, organizationally speaking, turned a significant corner.

10 best Nets from 1st NBA decade (1976-86). light. More

Around the NBA, the Nets are viewed as an organization very much on the rise, with a bright general manager in Sean Marks and a terrific coach in Kenny Atkinson who have done more with less than most could have imagined.

Brooklyn made a playoff appearance this year, two years removed from a 20-62 season and coming off a 28-54 campaign in 2017-18.

They didn’t overwhelm anyone with big-ticket talent, but young players such as D’Angelo Russell, Caris LeVert and Jarrett Allen combined with role players like Joe Harris, Spencer Dinwiddie and veterans Ed Davis, DeMarre Carroll and Ed Davis made some things happen.

The Nets are now in the position of being able to hunt the big game in free agency and that is a pressure Marks welcomes.

"“I think the process that we went through this year — and again, there’s a lot of positives that have come out of this year — can only help. Again, it goes back to really establishing an identity and establishing that we’re going to go out there every night and our guys are going to compete. “Kenny and the staff have got them playing at a high level, competing, they’re never out of games. It’s going to attract free agents. People are going to want to play here. They’re going to want to play for Kenny. They’re going to want to play in Brooklyn. They’re going to play for this ownership group. And I think we have a lot of things going for us.”"

Dudley says players know what’s happening in Brooklyn, per Tom Dowd of NBA.com.

"“The word is out. People know about it. People know how good Kenny and Sean Marks are and what they’ve done to develop this culture.”"

Whether that will be enough — along with potential cap space to add one max player — to lure one of the big-ticket free agents to Brooklyn is another question.

But the Nets will be in the conversation with the top-tier free agents and that’s more than could have been said before.