After surviving Year Zero, what’s next for the Brooklyn Nets?
The 2016-17 season, for all intents and purposes, meant nothing for the Nets. Instead, it represented a total reset for the organization. The team won 21 games in 2015-16 under Lionel Hollins and last summer resulted in a total organizational shift. In came Sean Marks of the Spurs as general manager. Kenny Atkinson, a long-time Knicks and Hawks assistant, was brought in as head coach. The roster was completely flipped over — only five players (Brook Lopez, Sean Kilpatrick, Bojan Bogdanovic, Chris McCullough and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson) carried over in the regime change.
The Nets made some moves to try to improve in the summer, signing Jeremy Lin and throwing hefty restricted free agency offers to Tyler Johnson and Allen Crabbe. However, when those two deals came up short, Brooklyn’s fate was sealed with their lottery pick conveying to Boston no matter what they did. They won 20 games and there really weren’t any overarching narratives or lessons to take forward into their future. They showed up for 82 games, competed in some of them and won 20. That’s about as interesting as the narrative could get.
This type of total reset is rare in the NBA. In most scenarios where there is a massive paradigm shift for an organization, there is at least some new hope to attach to early on. Usually this comes in the form of a top-10 draft pick or a young player acquired in the export of players from the last regime’s heyday. Even the Hinkie Sixers had “The Process.” The Nets, instead, operated this year under the Year Zero concept. Originally a political theory, it’s been co-opted for college athletics, for when the state of an athletics program at time of a coaching hire is so far away from what the new coach wants to do that stripping things down to the studs is the only option. It takes two years to really gain traction in the form of schematic changes, roster improvements and community support, which means things are pretty bleak in the first year. Merely looking competitive for a stretch of games can be a realistic goal, and even that isn’t always achievable.
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That fits this year’s Nets team pretty well. The new regime came inf and they did the best with what they had, which isn’t much. Marks set in on attempting to recuperate the draft losses that the Nets took in the Billy King era, trading Thaddeus Young to the Pacers on draft night for a first-rounder (Caris LeVert), and dealing Bojan Bogdanovic and Chris McCullough away at the trade deadline for the Wizards’ 2017 first-rounder. Atkinson, meanwhile, tried to play around with making his limited roster competitive. That manifested in the league’s fastest pace and the 3-point shot as a focus — everyone from Kilpatrick to Lopez to Justin Hamilton took at least one 3-point attempt per game.
Are those signs of what type of system Atkinson wants to run? Or was it merely a product of trying to experiment with a flawed roster? Those are the big questions moving forward for Atkinson, who did the best job he could considering the limitations. But realistically, it’s very difficult to make any meaningful projections about Atkinson’s worth as a head coach. The talent level was low outside of Lopez, who played decently but was overwhelmed trying to carry the squad as a No. 1 option. This was also a Year Zero because of injuries — Lin played in just 36 games, Joe Harris was limited to 52 and LeVert played 57. Losing Lin crippled their offensive creation, and while the other two weren’t making or breaking the season, this team was playing on the margins of competition. Without two of their top three wings, things fell apart late in the year.
So where does that leave Brooklyn? After a year like this, what’s the plan? The nice thing about a Year Zero teardown is that there are a number of ways to go. After years of having no cap space or draft picks to work with, the Nets will have some of both. Salary projections have the Nets about $29 million under the projected cap with everyone coming back, meaning the Nets could have room to make runs at a quality starter or two. They could again be a player in restricted free agency and should make at least one team like the Wizards (Otto Porter) or the Mavericks (Nerlens Noel) sweat. Adding just one player of that caliber could drastically improve their outlook long-term.
The Nets are also trying to make their mark in the international scouting game, using Marks’s Spurs connections and owner Mikhail Prokhorov’s influence to draw over top European talent. Players like Milos Teodosic of CSKA Moscow and Brad Wanamaker of Darussafaka — top European talents looking for their shots at the NBA — could be drawn over and could help the Nets by adding a veteran presence for relatively cheap in a competitive free agent market.
They also will have multiple first-round picks for the first time since 2010, adding the Wizards’ 22nd pick to the 27th pick due to the Celtics pick swap. These picks aren’t great, but they’re something considering the Nets have made five total draft picks since that 2010 draft. Marks has already shown that he may have a knack for finding quality players deep in the draft, as LeVert and Isaiah Whitehead were both useful players at times in their rookie seasons. This draft is deep with players who could be diamonds in the rough, meaning Marks could find value plays at positions of need. Players like Luke Kennard of Duke or Caleb Swanigan of Purdue could offer interesting wrinkles on this roster, and raw guys like Bam Adebayo may benefit from developing here, as the minutes needed to learn and reach their ceilings will be available in Brooklyn and Long Island, the Nets’ well-used D-League squad.
Brooklyn heads into 2017-18 with options, which is a new proposition for the formerly cap-strapped club. They bring everyone of consequence from this season back. Lopez is headed into a contract year. Lin should be back and hopefully healthy. Team Leader Trevor Booker returns. Hollis-Jefferson, LeVert and Kilpatrick return after another year of development. This will allow the Nets to weave some continuity in with whatever new additions they obtain in the offseason, allowing them to build on Year Zero in Year One. They don’t have any big decisions to make this summer in terms of personnel, which allows them to purely focus on improving on the roster in terms of top-end talent and adding youth.
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The Nets started pretty far back in the rebuilding process this past season. Lacking one young high-level prospect, much less a core to build around, the Nets didn’t have a direction to go. But moving forward, they have things they didn’t have before — a stable front office, a promising and resourceful coach and the flexibility to improve the team in any number of ways. For a team that looked headed for a decade of terrible basketball at the end of 2015-16, the Nets did a pretty good job of fixing their outlook while floating through limbo on the court.