Who are the Nets' biggest "competition" going to be next season?
The Sixers, Pistons, Lakers, and Timberwolves should all be at the stage of their rebuilds where they are trying to win games, even if they aren't yet contending. Plus the Lakers don't have their pick. No tanking here.
The Hornets, Mavericks, and Magic are all in weird places where their rosters aren't good enough but they have too much talent to tank or don't want to for other reasons. They'll probably make win-now moves this summer and won't be good but won't be tanking, either.
The Suns still aren't going to be good. They might not be tanking per se but unless a bunch of young guys make huge leaps, they'll be real bad.
I think the Kings are the surest competition for the bottom. If they're smart, they're going to save money this summer and play a lot of rookies and young guys next year while they still have a pick to tank for.
The biggest question marks, as I see it, are the Knicks, Bulls, Pacers, and Clippers. None are in a position to tank as of today but all are on the precipice of full on tanking if the wind breaks a certain way this summer.
If 2 of the big question mark teams wind up tanking and Suns and Kings are where I think they'll be, I can see at least 4 teams as bottom dwellers and there's always one surprise team that starts poorly and never recovers. If that's all true, I see that Nets in competition with 5 other teams for the bottom.