Brooklyn Nets grades: Injury slows Dzanan Musa’s development a bit

Future outlook

Dzanan Musa enters the offseason with a couple of very apparent areas for improvement. He needs to bulk up and gain strength and he needs to continue to refine his stroke from long range.

Beyond that, Musa needs to get the game to slow down a bit. That’s both in terms of his decision making when he penetrates, so he is more readily able to read kick-out opportunities and part of Brooklyn’s inside-out philosophy and is less prone to rushed turnovers.

His first year was expected to be all about development and from that aspect, it has to be considered a success.

Musa got a lot of minutes playing in the Nets system in the G League and that should translate well to him being able to move up the rotational pecking order in 2019-20.

Summer league will be important for Musa, who was held out of the Las Vegas session last year after logging career highs of 71 games and 1,642 minutes for Cedevita as an 18-year-old.

Those games in Vegas will provide a measuring stick for how much progress Musa makes over the early stages of the offseason and how far he still has to go.

Final Grade

Musa — despite a six-week absence with a shoulder injury — got a lot done in terms of learning the American style of play and gaining experience in the G League.

That earns him a straight B for the season, with some definite goals that need to be achieved in order to keep his arc ascending in his second NBA campaign.

This season was the free pass for Musa, a 19-year-old in a strange land playing against the highest level of competition he had seen to this point in his career.

He’s got potential as a slasher/shooter, but needs to be playing meaningful minutes rather than just mop-up duty in his second season, given his status as a late first-round pick.

Musa may not be ready to crack the starting five next season or the top of the rotation, but he needs to be ready to give the Nets a solid 15-16 minutes per game.