Nets GM Sean Marks and head coach Steve Nash will address the media on Wednesday. Nash has spoken for the first time since the Celtics’ nets first-round exit in April, and Mark hasn’t spoken to reporters shortly after the team’s acquisition of Ben Simmons at the February 10 trade deadline.
The Nets are entering their fourth year of the Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving era, but they have no championships to show and just one playoff series win thanks to two early, disappointing exits. Durant called this summer a “very, very important off-season”, and he will have to answer a number of questions as he enters the most important summer in the history of the franchise.
How does the fashion that the Nets have lost affect their off-season?
Nets don’t just lose. Hell, they just didn’t flow. He was bullied – and it was the worst way to lose for a team with two all-world scorers.
The first round was a nightmare: Durant and Irving were mere mortals and succumbed to the pressure, physicality and consistency of the Celtics’ defense.
Boston, however, is only a pit stop in the road to a championship, provided the franchise still holds firm in its belief, such a goal is attainable. Formerly, the championship road has also included the Sixers, Heat, and Bucks, and each of those teams, the Celtics included, have an edge in size and strength.
Clearly, the net needs to grow bigger, and that should be a clear priority for the front office this summer. Not only in terms of adding shape to the center, but also in terms of adding shape to the wings.
It is also very clear that the team needs a true point guard. Durant and Irving better look for someone else than they work for every shot. Also, is Ben Simmons your point guard or your point forward?
Durant, Irving and Simmons head a roster that also includes guaranteed deals with Joe Harris, Seth Curry and rookies Cam Thomas and De’Ron Sharpe. Patty Mills has a player option, and both Bruce Brown and Nick Claxton are banned free agents.
How much will the luxury tax affect your off-season moves?
If money is nothing but a number, the Nets can put together a formidable roster on top of the stars they already have. But as I discussed in Office Chronicle No. 1, nets are now a repeat tax delinquent, meaning an additional $4 for every dollar spent on a new player’s contract on new contracts following Irving’s impending expansion. will start spending.
The Nets have to decide on both Claxton and Brown, who can earn upwards of $8M each year. He also has three trade exceptions worth $11.6, $6.3 and $3.3 million, and mid-level exceptions worth $6 million.
They’re all available to add to the roster—if Joe Tsai is willing to pay the tax.
That tax could be the difference between a roster full of championship-caliber role players, or a bare-bones roster built around Starpower and minimal contracts.
Are you going to run the alien offensive set?
Grand questions await head coach Steve Nash, whose offense at times resembled a game of pick-up in the park more than an organized, professional basketball team.
With Durant and Irving, it’s easy to fall into the pick-up trap. They are the two most influential isolation scorers in NBA history. Some of this team’s best offense has come from Durant and Irving slamming a defense beyond breaking point.
But how much separation is too much separation? And more importantly, at what point does it become predictable?
I always wonder what Ime Udoka said before the March 6 game against the Nets. “I know his game,” said Udoka, an assistant to Nash’s staff before taking the job for the Celtics. “It’s not about their set, aggressively. It’s about who they are [Durant and Irving] Huh. They are not driving anything complicated. It gives them the ball and lets them do what they do. ,
The Nets have significant room to grow in their aggressive creativity, and I think Nash wants to go down that road. When you start the season with 10 new players, lose 13 players at a time to health and safety protocols, lose Durant a month and a half to an MCL sprain, and deal with a James Harden. If so, it is difficult to construct a complex crime. business, while Irving is in and out of rotation due to his vaccination status.
What really happened to Ben Simmons?
There just doesn’t seem to be a lot of trust among fans, the media, and the net front office when it comes to Ben Simmons. Simmons never played a game in the second half of the season, and the Nets held his position until the very end, when they dropped him for the fourth and final game of their playoffs after climbing the ramp to play with contact. Granted, only to wake up one morning with back pain.
This is an issue as the Nets traded James Harden in exchange for Simmons, who had a history of past issues in Philadelphia and eventually required surgery this off-season. It’s a bad look if the Nets already knew he had significant back problems before he was traded to Harden, and it’s even worse if he didn’t do his due diligence in the first place.
Trading Harden nil any chance the Nets have of winning the championship this season.
And if Simmons’ back problems persist, the Nets may say goodbye to the idea of getting another Harden-caliber player. It’s a big bet on a star who isn’t on the floor for both mental and physical reasons, and the nets aren’t straightforward about it.
Is this what you mean by championship culture?
Everyone knew things would change once KD and Kyrie arrived in Brooklyn. First it was D’Angelo Russell. Then that was Kenny Atkinson. Caris Levert, Jarrett Allen and Spencer Dinwiddie left shortly after.
So is that good ole’ Nets culture.
Clearly the nets don’t have the same aura they had before the stars align. Drama has happened at almost every turn. The Nets have a more soap-opera feel than the Knicks, only they don’t have the ratings or crowd to back it up.
Some of it is beyond the team’s control: Everyone dealt with COVID-19, and injuries are an unfortunate part of the game. But when you shoot for the stars, the lights are bright. What has come to light is an organization – or to use Irving’s term, “managed” – by their star players.
It’s the Nets’ biggest bet when they agreed to a future with Durant and Irving—one that, to be clear, is brighter than most other franchises.
However, the Nets don’t want to be the best. They want to be the best of the best, NBA champions and champions to put their affairs in order.
,
