The Brooklyn Nets have been in the cellar of the NBA for a couple seasons. After Mikhail Prokhorov’s attempt to make the franchise relevant by chasing aging stars in lieu of developing youthful talent failed, the Nets were the clown prince of basketball. They routinely sat back and watched their dreadful seasons turn into high lottery picks for the Boston Celtics.
However, last season they revamped their front office by bringing in Sean Marks to run things, and Marks immediately handed the team over to former Atlanta Hawks assistant coach Kenny Atkinson. Atkinson was known as one of the best player development coaches in the NBA — he worked with Jeremy Lin in New York before “Linsanity” was born.
In his first season, there was a noticeable change in Brooklyn’s style of play: Every player had the green light to fire from deep. Brook Lopez, for example, became a stretch-five in one summer going from attempting 31 3-pointers in his first eight seasons with the Nets to 387 3-point attempts in 2016-17 alone. The Nets as a team shot the third most 3-pointers in the NBA (33.4 per game) and connected on 35.9 percent of their attempts.
They lacked talent, but they were steadily bringing almost 36 points per game from beyond the arc, which is nothing to roll your eyes about. Based on the moves they made this offseason — Marks brought in three pieces that are comfortable shooting 3-pointers in D’Angelo Russell, DeMarre Carroll and Allen Crabbe — expect the Nets to be in the 30s again this season in terms of 3-point attempts per game. We could even see that number reach the 40s like last year’s Houston Rockets depending on how quickly they all adjust.
Atkinson has crafted most of Brooklyn’s offensive system to emulate what Mike Budenholzer was doing in Atlanta, which is a version of what Gregg Popovich has been doing in San Antonio. Atlanta ranked top 10 in 3-point attempts from 2014 to 2016 and the Spurs led the league in three point percentage (39.1 percent) last season.
While replacing Lopez with Timofey Mozgov means we’ll see less five-out lineups on the floor in Brooklyn, the Nets still have a deep stable of shooters at their disposal. They now have nine players on their roster who shot above 32.0 percent on 3-pointers during the 2016-17 season. This team is going to shoot their shot and they are going to do it in a multitude of ways.
Both Russell and Lin are comfortable shooting out of the pick-and-roll if the defense stays back, and they can also knock down catch-and-shoot looks (37.2 and 39.0 percent, respectively, in catch-and-shoot situations). Joe Harris is being morphed into a broke man’s Kyle Korver, and he is working his way into being a reliable threat off screens with an average of 0.91 points per possession last season.
With more shooters in the rotation, Atkinson can expect to see his basketball equivalent of the “Air-Raid” offense bring him more success in year two. Not only do the Nets have more elite shooters on the roster, but they have a gaggle of versatile wings and guards who can play multiple positions. The lineups that Brooklyn could possibly trot out are seemingly endless. And just like the taxi cabs making their way through New York City, their crew of shooters only see green lights.
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Not much is projected out of Brooklyn this season, but a noticeable increase in the amount of 3-pointers they attempt could make them an intriguing team to follow all year. The Cleveland Cavaliers will certainly keep an eye on them since they own the last of the first round picks they shipped to Boston for Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce.
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