1. Will Brook Lopez and Thaddeus Young be back in Brooklyn next season?

The Nets can only hope.

There really is no alternative scenario for them.

General manager Billy King has made no secret of the fact that retaining his frontcourt twosome is Brooklyn's No. 1 priority this summer, which is easily understood, given the Nets' financial predicament.

They simply lack the salary-cap flexibility to replace Lopez and/or Young, if they lose them. And they have to field the most competitive team they can in 2015-16 to try to avoid forfeiting a lottery pick to the Boston Celtics. Re-signing Lopez and Young is the surest path to repeating the sort of season we just saw, a season that made the Nets just good enough to snag the East's No. 8 seed and avoid seeing a lottery pick land in the hands of the 60-win Atlanta Hawks.

The safe assumption is the Nets will make strong offers to both Lopez and Young once they opt out of their current contracts and become free agents July 1. All signs point to Lopez, despite his worrisome injury history, declining his $16.74 million option for next season and heading to the open market after responding to a near-trade to Oklahoma City with a monster second half. Young, despite his status as a longtime King favorite, is likewise believed to be leaning toward bypassing the $10-ish million he is owed for 2015-16 to do the same.

The far greater source of uncertainty is the size and scope of the contracts they would command as free agents, given that Brooklyn risks cutting into its July 2016 spending money if it lavishes too much on the incumbents.

Yet that's just it with the Nets: They went all-in as far as any team we've ever seen over the past few years -- and we're typically all for boldness in this cyberspace -- only to wind up in a bigger ditch than we've ever seen when the big swings whiffed. There are simply no preferred scenarios for them to pursue in the short term. There are downsides even if things go as planned this offseason.

The happiest ending, of course, would be Lopez and/or Young deciding to play out next season on their current deals in the name of joining the free-agent bonanza that looms in a year, when the salary cap spikes massively. How, though, do the Nets even dare dream about things working out that well, given their recent string of bounces?

Marc Stein had this on the Nets:

Quote

1. Will Brook Lopez and Thaddeus Young be back in Brooklyn next season?

The Nets can only hope.

There really is no alternative scenario for them.

General manager Billy King has made no secret of the fact that retaining his frontcourt twosome is Brooklyn's No. 1 priority this summer, which is easily understood, given the Nets' financial predicament.

They simply lack the salary-cap flexibility to replace Lopez and/or Young, if they lose them. And they have to field the most competitive team they can in 2015-16 to try to avoid forfeiting a lottery pick to the Boston Celtics. Re-signing Lopez and Young is the surest path to repeating the sort of season we just saw, a season that made the Nets just good enough to snag the East's No. 8 seed and avoid seeing a lottery pick land in the hands of the 60-win Atlanta Hawks.

The safe assumption is the Nets will make strong offers to both Lopez and Young once they opt out of their current contracts and become free agents July 1. All signs point to Lopez, despite his worrisome injury history, declining his $16.74 million option for next season and heading to the open market after responding to a near-trade to Oklahoma City with a monster second half. Young, despite his status as a longtime King favorite, is likewise believed to be leaning toward bypassing the $10-ish million he is owed for 2015-16 to do the same.

The far greater source of uncertainty is the size and scope of the contracts they would command as free agents, given that Brooklyn risks cutting into its July 2016 spending money if it lavishes too much on the incumbents.

Yet that's just it with the Nets: They went all-in as far as any team we've ever seen over the past few years -- and we're typically all for boldness in this cyberspace -- only to wind up in a bigger ditch than we've ever seen when the big swings whiffed. There are simply no preferred scenarios for them to pursue in the short term. There are downsides even if things go as planned this offseason.

The happiest ending, of course, would be Lopez and/or Young deciding to play out next season on their current deals in the name of joining the free-agent bonanza that looms in a year, when the salary cap spikes massively. How, though, do the Nets even dare dream about things working out that well, given their recent string of bounces?