Brooklyn Nets Season Preview, Win Total Prediction and Playoff Odds

The Brooklyn Nets' 2020-2021 season was a choppy one to say the least. After acquiring James Harden early in the season in a trade with the Houston Rockets to join forces with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, the Nets struggled staying healthy. 

The Big 3 only played eight regular season games together before the postseason, which was cut short due in part to more injuries. 

Harden suffered a strained hamstring in Game 1 of the Nets seven game series with the Milwaukee Bucks, and Irving had a nasty ankle injury in Game 4. Harden would return in the series, clearly compromised, and the Nets still nearly knocked off the eventual champions, coming a toe away from winning in Game 7.

This season, everyone is healthy, and the team now gets full training camp to gel together.

While it’s a small sample, Brooklyn was devastating in the short time the trio played together. The Nets were plus-34 in the 202 minutes in the regular season when Durant, Harden, and Irving shared the floor, and that number jumped to plus-64 in the 130 postseason minutes they played together. 

Even though there was essentially zero practice time for any team in the league last season and the Nets had to integrate another superstar on the fly, Steve Nash's group still managed to put together the most efficient offense ever. The Nets posted a 61% true shooting percentage last season, the best mark in league history.

Again, this was a team that was in a constant state of flux. By the time the season was over, the Nets used 41 different starting lineups.

Brooklyn Nets Win Total Prediction | 56.5 (Over -108/Under -112)

Good health pending, the Nets may be set for a historic season. The team plugged roster holes that were exposed last season, including front court depth, by bringing in veterans such as Paul Millsap, LaMarcus Aldridge and James Johnson. 

Durant proved that he can still play at all-time great levels in his first season off of a ruptured Achilles, scoring 26.9 points, grabbing 7.1 rebounds and dishing out 5.6 assists per game.

Harden acclimated nicely into the Brooklyn system, averaging nearly 11 assists per game, while Irving floats in-and-out of games as one of the most devastating one-on-one scorers against shifted defenses. He was third in the league amongst guards that play more than 30 minutes per game last season in pull up shooting, per NBA.com, posting an effective field goal percentage of 54.5%.

Brooklyn will never thrive on the defensive end, but they are impossible to stop on offense. For what it's worth, the Nets did have a top-five defensive rating in the postseason.

Brooklyn knows that the championship is the goal, so I do expect to see some load managing throughout the season, but with a deeper bench, there’s no reason this team can’t break their own offensive records and crack 60 wins. Brooklyn drafted one of the best scorers in the 2021 NBA Draft in LSU's Cam Thomas and signed Patty Mills to bolster the second unit as well. Overall, the 2021-22 Nets are better than last season.

Also keep an eye on Nash, who had his ups and downs as a first year head coach in a chaotic season. With more time to prepare for this season, he may thrive.

The over 56.5 is selling the league's most talented roster short.

Brooklyn Nets NBA Championship Odds

I’ll be on the over win total, but the value isn’t in the Nets title odds. While the team can cruise to a Finals win, the season is too long and volatile to say this is a valuable bet. I see more interest in trying to peg the Western Conference winner and play it with the Nets to raise the odds.

I’m going to wait to see how several teams look early in the season that are hopefully getting stars back such as the Golden State Warriors and Denver Nuggets, to try and nail the exact Finals matchup. For reference, I won't be playing the Lakers at all to meet the Nets in the Finals, but that's for another day.

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