Brooklyn Nets: 3 players that have failed to meet expectations

Don’t look now, but the Brooklyn Nets have been playing an inconsistent brand of basketball over the last month or so. After trading wins and losses for a three-week stretch last month, they responded in admirable fashion by rattling off four consecutive victories.

Since then, the Nets raised alarm bells by dropping two straight games to playoff-bound teams in Portland and Milwaukee. Perhaps the most concerning aspect of the two-game skid was that Brooklyn lost these games despite herculean efforts from some of their best players.

We’ve spent most of the season waxing poetic about the Nets and how they should be considered the prohibitive championship favorites. While we still believe that to be the case, this little slump, which has Brooklyn looking increasingly vulnerable, opens the door for some criticism.

While Nets fans pretty much know what they’re going to get from the likes of Durant, Kyrie Irving, James Harden (when healthy), Jeff Green and Joe Harris, the rest of the roster has been incredibly difficult to predict from a production standpoint.

Though the Nets’ role players aren’t expected to pad the stat sheet every game, we’d be remiss if we didn’t state our disappointment with some of them. With that in mind, let’s highlight a few players who have failed to meet expectations this season.

These three Nets players have failed to meet expectations in 2020-21.

3. Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot

Even after the Harden trade, the Nets had a reasonably deep bench, powered by the likes of Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot, Landry Shamet, Bruce Brown, Jeff Green and Nicolas Claxton once he returned from shoulder and knee injuries.

While most of that group has performed up to par, the same unfortunately cannot be said for Luwawu-Cabarrot, who cemented himself in the rotation after his strong showing in the bubble last year, when he logged 15.2 points, 4.3 rebounds and 0.8 assists in 12 games.

The former first-rounder was always going to be in for a reduced role once Durant and Irving returned from injury and that assessment was only amplified after the Harden blockbuster. However, we’d be lying if he we said we expected TLC’s production to fall off the proverbial cliff as a result.

Brooklyn Nets Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot has struggled to find the stroke this season.

In 55 games, he’s registered 6.6 points and 2.3 rebounds while shooting a lousy 36.4% from the floor and 31.5% from range. Keep in mind this came after the fifth-year pro shot 43.5% and 38.8% in those respective categories over a 47-game sample size last season.

Whether it’s a matter of lost confidence due to a lack of playing time — he’s actually playing more minutes per game this campaign than last year — or defenses figuring his game out, Luwawu-Cabarrot has easily been one of the Nets’ most disappointing players this season.

The France native has managed to stay afloat in the rotation up until this point, but if not for the countless injuries to Brooklyn’s backcourt, he might have found himself as a last-ditch option off the bench several weeks ago.