Brooklyn is going to be terrible- We really could get a top 5 pick this year...

[saltlover]

It's not at all obvious to me that Indiana and Detroit have improved significantly. The Pacers have a great 1-2 punch with George and Ellis, but they are going to be really terrible up front. Detroit let a max player walk and brought in Ilyasova, Meeks, and Marcus Morris--- all interesting players, but none will ever be an all-star. They are still building around Drummond, a fantastic rebounder and physical specimen who regressed on both sides of the ball last season.

I'm willing to say a year of Paul George will make the Pacers better than they were last year.  A different team, sure, but he's a game-changing player.  Detroit I'm also not sold on.  But if you look at point differential, Brookyln was outscored by 2.9 points per game, whereas Indiana had the same record and outscored opponents by 0.3 PPG.  Detroit was outscored by only 1.0 per game. 

Point differential isn't everything, but it shows the Nets had a lot of luck on their side to even finish 8th.  Their expected record based on it was 33-49, so they performed 5 games better than expected.  Only the Rockets did better in that department, finishing six games better than their scoring margin indicates.  Teams generally do not regularly outperform their scoring margin from year-to-year.   If they are luck neutral they're probably in the 10-11 range, and if luck goes against them, you're looking at 12-13.  And that's if they perform about the same as they did last year.  I really think the Nets need to take a big step forward to be in the 7th-8th discussion this season.  Relying on luck every year probably won't cut it.

[mef730]

Given rosters as they stand today and not accounting for injuries...

In a healthy Brook Lopez environment, I see us (them) at about the 5th pick. I've got them outdoing Denver, Portland, Philly and Detroit.

In an injured BL world, they're the second worst team. Philly pulls it out because they have every incentive to lose. Not only do they have their own pick but they also have the Lakers'. If Philly finishes in the bottom 3, that's one fewer chance for the Lakers to do so (Lakers' pick is top-3 protected.). Meanwhile, Brooklyn has every incentive to win.

Unfortunately, the only pick I want next year is the first one. I'm dying to get Ben Simmons.

Note: A reminder that my predictions are based solely on what we know and see now. Who knows where we'll be nine months from now.

Mike

[Quetzalcoatl]

A lot comes down to the end of the season and how many game you play againt teams that dont care anymore- either becasuee they are tanking or resting stars. Here is the nets last 2 months:


What do ya think?

I actually think it's more important that they start off bad than them having a hard end of the season.  I want them thoroughly demoralized by January.  Their first few games look like this and I'm putting a W if I think the Nets will win, a E if I think it's either way and a L if I think they'll lose.  So:

Bulls - L
Spurs - L
Griz - L
Bucks - L
Hawks - L
Lakers - E
Bucks - L
Rockets - L
Kings - E
Warriors - L
Hawks - L
Hornets - W

So I have them going 1-9 with two games that could go either way over their first dozen games.  They're going to have a long season.  Right after that they play us twice in a row, then the Thunder!  They could literally  be winless in their first 15 games.  I just love it.

[BDeCosta26]

Well, I wouldn't call it a "horrible" off season. I think the Nets have come to terms with the position they're really in and are trying to do what's best for them long term instead of continuing to hamstring themselves with mediocre veteran talent just for the sake of giving us a slightly worse pick.

All of their moves this season say their trying to get younger and re-establish flexibility. They're not gonna strip their teams to nothing for the sake of losing games, obviously. But they're surely going to be in "asset acquisition " mode. Personally, I think they'll be listening to any offers they get on any of their guys. If someone offers a decent pick for Joe Johnson, I think they'll take it. If someone gives them a good offer for Lopez or Thad Young, I think they'll pursue that too. They won't just continue to sell off what few assets they have to be as mediocre as they can be, IMO. In their view, they went for it with the Pierce/KG trade, now they have to pay the piper, but they're not gonna just waste 3 years on nothing. They'll try to set themselves up as best they can until what they owe us is paid.

That said, even if they just go with this roster all year does anyone really think they'll be a playoff team? If were gonna say the C's will have a hard time making it because of improvement in the East this Nets team certainly won't make it. I have a hard time seeing that pick be anything less than top 10. And that's assuming Lopez is healthy all year and plays as well as he did last year. One decent injury for him and that's a likely top 5 pick.

I don't think we could hope for much better at this point with the picks were getting. Both Brooklyn and Dallas look lottery bound, and Dallas looks good enough to be better than the 7th pick. There's a legit chance we end up with a pick in the top 5, another in the top 10-12 and our own in the 14-20 range. That's one heck of a trade package to offer if the right guy becomes available.

[Hemingway]

Good point, the nets are prime candidates to trade away talent for picks or prospects. I just don't know if anyone really wants what then have.

[loco_91]

There's a lot of uncertainty. For example Indy could be in the playoffs if George gets back to 100%, or they could be picking tenth. The Magic have plenty of young talent and it's easy to imagine them getting out of the bottom ten, but if they don't gel it'll be deep lotto again. The Lakers: does Kobe have enough left to keep them out of the bottom tier? And then for the Nets, the big question is health. If everything goes right for them, they could cling to a playoff birth, but they could just as easily end up bottom-5 with a couple injuries.

[sofutomygaha]

Good point, the nets are prime candidates to trade away talent for picks or prospects. I just don't know if anyone really wants what then have.

What if they had cap space to trade? Suppose the Nets were offered a 1st rounder for Joe Johnson or Brook Lopez, but they'd have to eat a bad contract. Should the Celtics be ready to facilitate such a deal by taking on the bad contract (using David Lee, probably) in order to help the Nets get worse in the short term?

[Moranis]

I said it before and I will say it again, I think Brooklyn is a 35-40 win team this year, which might just back door them back into the playoffs with a couple of bounces going their way.

[KGs Knee]

The most likely outcome for the Nets pick is probably late lottery, somewhere in the 10-14 range. It could be slightly better or worse, but I doubt Brooklyn is bad enough to end up giving us a top 5 pick, outside of some extremely good lottery fortune.

It certainly would be funny of Boston ended up with 4 such picks (Brooklyn, Dallas, Minnesota, and their own). Wonder if Ainge would be able, or willing, to package them in order to move up in the draft.

[ImShakHeIsShaq]

Because we want the opposite to happen, Nets will sneak into the playoffs. That's just our luck. Even if they miss, we will get the worst possible pick we can.

[Smartacus]

Just don't see it. Think people are underestimating how good the Thaddeus Young Brook Lopez front court is and they're playing for a coach who built his success on a dominant 4/5 combo.

Ok Joe Johnson is another year older but he's a work horse who's game isn't predicated on athleticism. He's played in at least 70 games in 8 of the last 10 years and averaged 16, 7 and 5 in the playoffs last year. Hardly sounds like a player that's slowing down.

IMO losing Deron will be addition by subtraction since handing the keys to Jarret Jack will at least provide stability and knock the Bargnani signing all you like but he will most likely outperform his contract (Bargain-nani?). They have All rookie second team Bojan Bogdanovic and at least 1 of Rondae Hollis Jefferson, Thomas Robinson, Shane Larkin, Sergei Karasev, Chris McCullough or Quincy Miller should turn into a viable rotation player. Finally they have very solid role players in Wayne Ellington, Jerome Jordan, Willie Reed and Corey Jefferson.

This team has no incentive to tank, is backed by the owner with some of the deepest pockets in the league, and have a roster that's not built too lose. I see the pick falling in the 11-14 range and 7-10 if Lopez misses significant time. IMO should be pretty similar to the Mavs pick when all is said and done.

[celticsclay]

I said it before and I will say it again, I think Brooklyn is a 35-40 win team this year, which might just back door them back into the playoffs with a couple of bounces going their way.

a

I've said it before and I will say it again, this is a prediction not grounded on any statistics, history, or in line with any statistical predictive models. They lose their starting point guard and multiple rotation players and replace them with nobody that was above replacement level play last season, but don't regress. This is on top of the fact that one of their top two players is 35 and has been declining for years.

[celticsclay]

Just don't see it. Think people are underestimating how good the Thaddeus Young Brook Lopez front court is and they're playing for a coach who built his success on a dominant 4/5 combo.

Ok Joe Johnson is another year older but he's a work horse who's game isn't predicated on athleticism. He's played in at least 70 games in 8 of the last 10 years and averaged 16, 7 and 5 in the playoffs last year. Hardly sounds like a player that's slowing down.

IMO losing Deron will be addition by subtraction since handing the keys to Jarret Jack will at least provide stability and knock the Bargnani signing all you like but he will most likely outperform his contract (Bargain-nani?). They have All rookie second team Bojan Bogdanovic and at least 1 of Rondae Hollis Jefferson, Thomas Robinson, Shane Larkin, Sergei Karasev, Chris McCullough or Quincy Miller should turn into a viable rotation player. Finally they have very solid role players in Wayne Ellington, Jerome Jordan, Willie Reed and Corey Jefferson.

This team has no incentive to tank, is backed by the owner with some of the deepest pockets in the league, and have a roster that's not built too lose. I see the pick falling in the 11-14 range and 7-10 if Lopez misses significant time. IMO should be pretty similar to the Mavs pick when all is said and done.

Trolling or serious?

Edit: You realize they had the opportunity to do this addition by subtraction last year and went like 2-13? They also already had Jack. So it is now Larkin and Jack instead of Williams and Jack.

[mahonedog88]

I really hope you're right...specifically, Danny Ainge really hopes you're right because I think he's put ALOT of his eggs in the Brooklyn being bad basket.  Unfortunately, I'm not quite as optimistic they'll be as bad as people think.  Count me in the group that thinks that losing Deron Williams might actually be addition by subtraction, with Joe Johnson maybe finally breaking out a little bit...because I think it's clear now that the Williams/Johnson backcourt experiment didn't really live up to the expectations.   And let's not forget about the coach either, Lionel Hollins isn't half bad.

And given that Brooklyn knows it'll be a little light on picks over the next few years, they know that the only chance they have at being good is by continuing to sign free agents and make trades, which they will do and probably hover around .500 in a bad eastern conference...which doesn't equal a top 5 pick :/

[MJohnnyboy]

Just don't see it. Think people are underestimating how good the Thaddeus Young Brook Lopez front court is and they're playing for a coach who built his success on a dominant 4/5 combo.

The doubt is not how good they are. The doubt is Lopez injury history. He's going to have a bigger workload this season than he did before. Given his serious foot issues (Not good for a big man!), I think Lopez injury doubts may come up again. And they weren't dominant. They were competent.

Ok Joe Johnson is another year older but he's a work horse who's game isn't predicated on athleticism. He's played in at least 70 games in 8 of the last 10 years and averaged 16, 7 and 5 in the playoffs last year. Hardly sounds like a player that's slowing down.

Except his numbers have been dwindling since joining the Nets. Despite the fact that he had more minutes on average last year than he did the year before, his scoring numbers still went down this year, and considering how players who are in their mid-thirties usually get worse, I don't think JJ will be an exception. JJ is decent, but he's deteriorating.

IMO losing Deron will be addition by subtraction since handing the keys to Jarret Jack will at least provide stability

Is that a joke? D-Will may be washed up but advanced metrics show that the Nets were much better with Williams on the court than they were with Jack. Jack is a scoring punch being thrown in as a starting point guard. That's not a good idea. Nets fans don't even like Jack that much.

and knock the Bargnani signing all you like but he will most likely outperform his contract (Bargain-nani?). They have All rookie second team Bojan Bogdanovic and at least 1 of Rondae Hollis Jefferson, Thomas Robinson, Shane Larkin, Sergei Karasev, Chris McCullough or Quincy Miller should turn into a viable rotation player. Finally they have very solid role players in Wayne Ellington, Jerome Jordan, Willie Reed and Corey Jefferson.

You mean the same Andrea Bargnani who hasn't played more than half a season since 2011? You mean the same Bargnani who Toronto and New York utterly despised by the time he left both places? You mean the same Bargnani who doesn't play a lick of defense or rebound? Man I can't wait to watch that defensive tandem with Lopez and Barg. The opposition may as well create lay-up lines.

Thomas Robinson has played on 6 teams in 4 years. Does that scream out "viable rotation player" to you? Shane Larkin had a whole season to get empty stats on a horrible Knicks team, and he couldn't even do that. That's just going to magically change in Brooklyn? The only guy of the "viable rotation players" you listed who is good is Bogdonovic, and he is decent, but nothing special. RHJ could be good, but he's a rookie. McCullough I wouldn't be too optimistic about. Ellington is eh. I'm not too high on guys who got mediocre stats on bad teams. But karasev, reed, and Miller? What have they done? Jordan is a free agent and Jefferson was waived by the Nets. Yeah, solid rotation players indeed. I think you're confusing "should" with "could". Those two words are different.

This team has no incentive to tank, is backed by the owner with some of the deepest pockets in the league, and have a roster that's not built too lose. I see the pick falling in the 11-14 range and 7-10 if Lopez misses significant time. IMO should be pretty similar to the Mavs pick when all is said and done.

Yeah that same owner with "deep pockets" who traded Steve Blake and waived Deron Williams/Mirza Teletovic to save money on the luxury tax. Sounds like a team that was built to win to me. I think people here are too scared to be excited about the Nets lack of chances this year because they're afraid of being disappointed for whatever reason. I'm here to tell you the Nets are going to be awful. The only player keeping them from being dreadfully bad is Brook Lopez, and his foot issues are very troubling. If he goes down, so does their season. End of story.

And it's not just that the Nets roster is weak. It's that the east should by all accounts be tougher. Miami should be much better with a fully healthy roster. Indianas got George back and added Monta Ellis. Charlotte got rid of Stephenson and even if I thought they made some awful moves this summer, they'll be back in the playoff hunt. Orlando should be better than they were last year with all their young and talented players still improving. New York will be playing for a playoff spot with Melo back and some actual role players around him. Brooklyn didn't have to complete with that last season (To be fair, neither did the Celtics). I can't say for sure that Brooklyn will be much worse than those teams, but I know for certain they are not better.