Brooklyn Nets Season Outlook
The NBA season tipped off this week and while the New York media mostly has their eyes set on the New York Knicks, we’re looking at the team from across the bridge, the Brooklyn Nets, in this one. Let’s dive into a breakdown of what to expect from this team throughout the year.
The season opener for the Brooklyn Nets was a close contest against the Atlanta Hawks. Brooklyn lost by just four points, 116-120. It may have been an insight of what’s to come this year. This team appears to have a handful of average players without the stars to win close games, or a lot of games, for that matter.
On paper this team may have the least talent in the league. It’s not a shot at the players on the team and likely the Nets organization would say the same thing. They traded their top players over the past couple of years which includes James Harden, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and last year, Mikal Bridges. These trades haven’t left them with much talent right now but a bunch of draft picks for later down the road.
With that being said, the best the Brooklyn Nets may do is the play-in games. To get that they would have to at least get to the 10th spot in the Eastern Conference, which isn’t impossible. The East is not very strong, especially at the bottom and any team has a real shot at getting 10th.
The more likely scenario is that the Nets lose a lot of games and trade some of their veteran players before the trade deadline. Bojan Bogdonovic, Cam Johnson, Dorian Finney-Smith, and Dennis Schroder are all prime candidates to be moved before the deadline in February.
Until then, expect some high scoring outputs for Cam Thomas. He had 36 points in the first game and took a whopping 27 shots. He will get shots up and score in bunches, but probably not super efficiently. Dennis Schroder and Ben Simmons will also have some big games periodically.
All in all, don’t expect too much as a Brooklyn Nets fan for this season. Thomas will have some impressive games as well as some Simmons flashback moments. Besides that, trades will be something to look for as the Nets finally rebuild from the ground up.
By Jack Stradley, I’m a sports writer always looking for a gripping story and a hot take.