The Brooklyn Nets won their sixth game in a row on Tuesday night and sit 1.5 games back of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. After missing the postseason the last three years, it’s a logical stepping point for a franchise that is working towards returning to contention.
And yet, the Nets really haven’t followed a natural rebuild at all. Those three season of missing the playoffs didn’t yield them any lottery picks, thanks to the infamous Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce trade in 2013, and they didn’t have any young talent on the roster before that because of a myriad of deals involving Deron Williams and Joe Johnson. This year will mark just the third time this decade Brooklyn has owned its own first-round pick since 2010.
The Nets have done well to stockpile talent in recent years by trading veterans to move into the bottom half of the first round, which is how they acquired Caris LeVert, Jarrett Allen, and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson. They have also been a partner in a number of salary dumps, yielding them D’Angelo Russell, Allen Crabbe, and a pick from Denver in the upcoming draft. Combine that with finding Spencer Dinwiddie and Joe Harris on the bargain bin, and Brooklyn has the makings of a decent supporting cast.
But NBA teams rely on superstar talent, and despite the progress LeVert had been making before an ankle injury derailed his season, that is still missing from the Nets roster.
This season seemed like the best opportunity for Brooklyn to acquire a star player through the draft. Again, the Nets own their first-round pick. This would be the time to tank and get a stellar prospect who could change the course of this franchise. However, Sean Marks, Trajan Langdon, and Kenny Atkinson don’t appear to see things that way, and as such, Brooklyn is making a playoff run.
Since LeVert went down on November 12, the Nets are 8-10, including wins over Toronto, Philadelphia, and the Lakers, essentially maintaining their offensive and defensive ratings from with LeVert in the lineup. Russell has taken over the lead guard responsibilities during this stretch and has a positive net rating (plus-0.8). He is assisting on 40 percent of Brooklyn’s baskets while he is on the floor, which helps compensate for his 50.5 true shooting percentage. He even has the team’s best defensive rating among regular rotation players during this stretch.
Russell has always sprinkled flashes of brilliance throughout his career, most notably the “ice in my veins” moment from his sophomore season that he reprised last night against the Lakers; this is the most consistently productive he has been as he attempts to be the latest Net to take his next step.
Dinwiddie has already earned his spot in the team’s guard rotation of the future, inking an extension to remain in Brooklyn for up to three more years. Harris is the poster child for how role players find success in the new NBA. Allen is overcoming the barriers on centers in modern offenses and exerting himself on the defensive end, regardless of who tries to dunk on him.
If Russell or some other Net makes that leap, a young team coming off a postseason appearance — think Chicago circa 2009 — would be a strong free agent destination. Star players would absolutely want to join a team with cost-controlled young talent, an ownership group that recently built a new practice facility, and a smart front office, especially when the Nets can point to real success in the form of a playoff berth. The cap mechanics of that are a little wonky, as Kristian Winfield of SB Nation wrote today, and Brooklyn may have to make a choice between Russell and a max-level free agent.
That makes it all the more confusing that the Nets have chosen this path to team-building instead of prioritizing the draft this season. There is a danger of falling in love with a group that plays hard and going all in on a team that has a mediocre ceiling, like Miami did in 2017 or Phoenix in 2014. Then again, with the smoothing out of lottery odds, even if Brooklyn misses out on the postseason, the team could still find itself in possession of a prime draft pick.
Teams throughout the league will always embrace different paths to contention, but the teams that find superstars in the draft tend to rise to the top of the standings. After years of being shut out of the lottery, the Nets finally have an opportunity to draft their own young star … only the franchise seems content to make a push for the playoffs instead.
