The state of New York basketball at the moment is atrocious.
The New York Knicks are 1-3, but given their recent championship win, a hangover of sorts is expected.
What wasn’t expected was the 0-4 Brooklyn Nets start.
They sit at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, and without control of their draft pick this season, it is not looking good for Brooklyn, writes Rant Sport’s Wanga Charma.
The pre-season paradox
Broader NBA fans predicted the Brooklyn Nets to be quite bad this season and may somewhat feel vindicated by this start.
However, actual Nets fans were teeming with optimism heading into this season, especially after their offseason.
They added to their roster and acquired former All-Star Julius Randle via trade, and in the Summer League they went 3-2.
Convincing wins and narrow losses, where many of the sophomores and rookies showed out.
That momentum continued during the preseason as they won their opening three games, only losing their last game against the Miami Heat.
It looked as though Brooklyn might finally turn that corner and turn into a competitive team, but alas, it’s more of the same as the last two seasons.
The disastrous start
The most glaring issue that has plagued the Nets so far is effort.
For whatever reason, the squad have come out lackadaisical on both ends of the court, and it has resulted in them being completely overrun, especially in the paint.
The Nets traded their long-time starting centre, Nicolas Claxton, to the Chicago Bulls, and as a result, Dayron Sharpe has stepped into the starting five.
While he has been one of the few bright spots in the team, his 6’9″ stature severely hurts the Nets in the paint.
The team as a whole averages four blocks a game, which is only 26th in the league, and the squad is in the bottom third for rebounds per game.
Moe Wagner was one of the free agency additions to help strengthen the frontcourt, and while his offensive ability is apparent, he is unfortunately also a defensive liability.
The bigman weakness needs addressing quickly.
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Shooting struggles
Secondly, Brooklyn has also had a lot of struggles shooting from within the arc.
They have demonstrated an affinity for a 3-point style of play, and the statistics reflect that, but being 13th in field-goal attempts in the league while being 26th in makes is truly, truly disturbing.
They need to flesh out and execute an offensive scheme that still allows them to be a danger from deep but still generates easy looks and buckets in the paint.
Lacking structure
Lastly, it is incredibly difficult for a team to find success and pick up momentum when there is a lack of structure, particularly amongst rotations.
The Brooklyn Nets’ coaching and development staff have taken a slow approach to their player development over the last two seasons.
They would very often assign the rookies of last season to the G-League to get reps and build confidence, and if they were ready, give them short runs of NBA action.
It worked quite well as we saw the best of Egor Demin and Nolan Traore mainly but also saw glimpses and flashes from Drake Powell, Danny Wolf and Ben Saraf.
They’ve taken a similar approach this season, as they have already assigned Powell, Saraf and new rookie Joshua Jefferson to their G-League affiliate, the Long Island Nets.
Sixth overall pick Mikel Brown’s minutes have also been staggered and managed to start the season. Mainly for precautionary reasons but also to help ease the young guard into NBA action.
These moves are great for long-term development, but when there aren’t solid, established rotations and roles in a team, it can be very difficult for players to gel and gain momentum – which is what this Nets squad is currently struggling with.
The hope is that all players in the squad can carve out their roles, build chemistry and finally play as a cohesive unit on the court and give the borough of Brooklyn a competitive team to root for.
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The silver lining
Despite the results, it has not been all doom and gloom for the Nets thus far and they’ve had a few bright spots in the team.
The first is Nolan Traore.
Last season, coach Jordi Fernandez was reluctant to start the young guard, despite the team’s backcourt deficiency.
Instead, he opted to bring him off the bench and build his confidence up slowly, and this season he is beginning to make a leap.
In just 17 minutes of play a night, he averages just over 9 points per game, but his speed is electric.
His ability to beat his man and drive into the paint, along with the vision and passing ability, makes him a dangerous scoring and playmaking threat on every possession.
We saw his best game against Indiana where in 25 minutes he scored 17 points and 5 assists on elite efficiency.
Whether he starts alongside Egor in the backcourt or backs up Mikel off the bench, Nolan looks to be a good offensive orchestrator for years to come.
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Free agents bring highlights
The next bright spots are recent free agent acquisitions in Josh Minott and Keon Ellis.
Both players aren’t meant to be stars on the court but were signed to be blue-collar glue guys who act as connectors within the team.
Ellis has been incredible defensively, as was to be expected, and has solidified himself as the team’s point-of-attack defender.
Minott, in just over 10 minutes a night, scores 6 points and grabs 3 rebounds while averaging almost a steal on the defensive end. Incredible productivity in limited minutes.
Last, but certainly not least, Mikel Brown Jr has announced himself to the NBA.
While Kel had been on a minutes restriction the past week, he finally got an extended run-out against the Boston Celtics in the TD Garden.
Boy, did he show up.
Although he was quiet for most of the game, he exploded in the fourth quarter and was showing the shotmaking ability we saw at Louisville.
He hit 3 huge 3-pointers in the fourth, the last of which sent the game into overtime. It was a great display of clutch and moxie from the rook and maybe showed to Coach Fernandez he deserves to start.
His inexperience shone through, however, as he missed a layup in the final five seconds of play that left enough time on the clock for Jayson Tatum to make a shot and sink the Nets.
Despite the error, Brown ended the night with 17 total points, with 16 of those coming in his final 14 minutes of play.
He took accountability after the game in a press conference and online on X as the guard posted, “THAT ONE IS ON ME BROOKLYN! IMMA SHAKE BACK I PROMISE YALL DAT”
All things considered, we are only four games into an 82-game NBA season.
It has been an abysmal start, no doubt, but it is a marathon, not a sprint and it will be interesting to see how Brooklyn can weather this early storm and have a successful season.
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