NBA Free Agency 2017: 5 offseason needs for the Brooklyn Nets
By John Buhler
3. Sharp-shooters
With the way that Atkinson would want his team to play, he will emphasize 3-and-D in the Nets’ lengthy rebuild. Getting the right body type to win out on the wing at small forward is something the Nets will have to look at in the draft. Maybe they’ll be fortunate to draft a Taurean Prince in the back-end of round one and hope to develop him into a Paul George or Kawhi Leonard?
Wing defense was not the bane of Brooklyn’s existence, but the Nets need to put up points to give themselves an honest chance at winning regularly. While they were 12th in points per game at 105.8, Brooklyn wasn’t terribly efficient at scoring the basketball. The Nets were 28th in offensive rating at 104.1 points per 100 possessions.
It’s not like they didn’t try to put up points though. Atkinson had his team firing at will from distance. While Brooklyn attempted the fourth-most 3-pointers in the league at 2,592, only 33.8 percent of them went in. That was the 26th best clip from long-range this past season.
Brooklyn traded away its best jump shooter in Bojan Bogdanovic to the Washington Wizards at the trade deadline. They will have to replace him in the offseason, probably in free agency. This is because the NBA Draft gives teams players that are too raw for the NBA game and significantly unrefined with their shooting strokes.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Kyle Korver and J.J. Redick will all be free agents. Caldwell-Pope would be a steal for anybody should Detroit be unwilling to bring him back in restricted free agency. Korver and Redick are past their primes, but are great system players and their professionalism would be huge in the Nets locker room. Atkinson worked with Korver in Atlanta for three years.