NBA Free Agency 2017: 5 offseason needs for the Brooklyn Nets
By John Buhler
The Brooklyn Nets had the worst record of any team in the NBA in 2016-17. Here are their five biggest needs to address heading into the offseason.
The Brooklyn Nets are almost through one of the worst seasons in franchise history. They’ve had worse regular season records before, but the miserable 20-62 campaign in 2016-17 will not yield the Nets a blue-chip draft prospect. Brooklyn has the best odds to win the 2017 NBA Draft Lottery and will promptly have to give that high-end pick to the Atlantic Division rival Boston Celtics. Pick swaps can be soul-crushing sometimes.
Despite having the worst record in the NBA, Brooklyn played hard for first-year head coach Kenny Atkinson. He is keen on player development and should be able to elevate some of Brooklyn’s young corps in the coming years. As long as he and general manager Sean Marks are in lock step, things may eventually look up for the Nets. Let’s just hope the absent owner Mikhail Prokohorov doesn’t do anything drastic in the coming months.
Brooklyn looks to be in great position with the 2017-18 NBA salary cap. Maybe Atkinson and Marks can pry a lucrative free agent to sign with the Nets? If not, they should still try to go with testing the waters in restricted free agency. This year’s Allen Crabbe and Tyler Johnson may end up being Nets instead of sticking with their current team.
Overall, the Nets have some major holes to fill on their roster this offseason. Here is a look at the five biggest needs for the Brooklyn professional basketball franchise heading into the 2017 offseason.
5. Rim protection
While center Brook Lopez is better known for his finesse offensive game, he’s slightly better than average in terms of rim protection. He averaged 1.7 blocks this past season with a 4.2 block percentage. Lopez lacks the lateral quickness to be an elite defensive big man, but he’s not as big of a liability down low as people tend to think he is.
That being said, Brooklyn desperately needs other players to aid in rim protection. Power forward Trevor Booker was the best defensive player in the frontcourt for the Nets with a Defensive Box Plus-Minus of 1.8, the problem is that he only averaged 0.4 blocks per game with a 1.2 block percentage.
Though it wasn’t entirely his fault, Brooklyn was atrocious in defending 2-point field goals. The Nets allowed the most two-point field goal attempts in the game at 5,217. It didn’t help that 2,598 of them went in, the second most 2-pointers allowed in the NBA.
Improving rim protection would certainly help in getting Brooklyn into the top-half in defensive rating. The Nets were 23rd in defensive rating last year at 110.7 points per 100 possessions, allowing the second most points per game at 112.5 points per contest.
Brooklyn has money to spend. If the Nets want to get out of this hole, maybe Marks should target guys like Taj Gibson, Blake Griffin or Serge Ibaka on the open market? Should they prove to be too expensive, it might be hard to find valuable rim protection at the four in free agency. If that’s the case, Brooklyn is better served drafting a rim-running power forward with the pick the Nets will be getting from the Celtics.