Brooklyn Trade Biggest Deal $900,95.75 Million Prolific Star Player For The 2024 Season…
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The Brooklyn Nets upended their roster at the trade deadline last season with their trades of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Luckily for the Nets, they were able to get off to such a strong start with those two to sneak into the playoffs after dealing both of them.
Brooklyn started last season 31-20 with both of those players in tow. But after the trades, the Nets went 14-17 and were promptly swept in the first round of the playoffs.
The first topic of discussion at practice for the Brooklyn Nets on Friday afternoon was not basketball. It was, of course, the magnitude 4.8 magnitude Earthquake that struck North Jersey, and by extension, New York City.
Brooklyn did not employ a single player or coach the last time a ‘quake was felt in the city, in 2011, and the current Nets reacted accordingly.
“No, not really,” said Dennis Schröder when asked if he expected to deal with fault lines upon moving to Brooklyn. Then he half-joked, “Always grateful to see another day. Gotta make the most out of it.”
“I didn’t feel it,” said Kevin Ollie, “but I’m used to it. I’m from L.A.”
The news of the day served as an easy ice-breaker before discussing the harsh reality of Brooklyn’s failure to reach even the Play-In Tournament, a reality that sunk in on Wednesday night thanks to an Atlanta Hawks win in Detroit.
“Life happens like that sometimes, where you don’t get to where you want,” said Mikal Bridges. “But you don’t just stop playing, start quitting. You keep going until the end.”
And the end, for the Nets, comprises a three-game home-stand, a visit back to Madison Square Garden, and a bus ride to Philadelphia. That’s it, and then it’s time for goodbyes. And while the team may have under-achieved this season, but Bridges doesn’t think it will be so painless to go their separate ways.
“I think everyone is coming to that realization, especially since we’re not really traveling anymore, so we’re kind of at home. So I think that last road trip had made it seem like — you know, it’s just that last road trip of the year. So yeah, I think it’s starting to hit us.”
There is but one option over these final five games and subsequent offseason for Bridges and his teammates, and it’s nothing that will produce immediate results or wash away the bitter taste of a 30-ish-win season:
“Learn from it and get better. It’s not a rocket science thing. Just get better, learn what you have to get better at and attack that.”
There’s not much more to say; no matter how Brooklyn plays to close the season, it won’t change their story, but it’s not quite time for the true self-reflection that will happen in the dark days of the summer.
In the meantime, the Nets might as well keep riding the wave of a 4-2 stretch, their best play of the Kevin Ollie Era, capped with a win over the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday night that had the head coach gushing like a proud father in his post-game presser:
“The Pacers made some great shots but they kept fighting … it just shows the pride of this group. I just told them you have to celebrate these because everybody in the world thought we were going to give up but that group in there and that’s what I’m proud of the most.”
It might be a fruitless endeavor to build positive vibes at the end of a down-trodden season, particularly with a roster that the front office isn’t married to, but what else is there to do but try?
Said Ollie: “That’s what it’s all about right there … it’s about spending this time together, loving each other, coming together, keep building on the positive vibes. And the score will take care of itself; it’s what we’re doing in the process of figuring it out together.”
This kumbaya attitude may not move any Nets fans, but there is some tang
ible progress occurring on this 30-47 team, progress from one of the only players capable of injecting positivity into a franchise playing for just pride in April. That is, of course, Noah Clowney, who set career-highs in just about every major statistical category in the win over Indiana, including 22 points and ten boards.
“He knows how to play the right way,” said Bridges, “just understands basketball really well. And really efficient, too.”
Clowney’s production didn’t just help Brooklyn notch a win on Wednesday, but his seemingly permanent move from Long Island to the borough has brought smiles to the bench, and given fans another reason to tune in. What’s easier to rally behind than a rookie?
“He should be very proud of himself, but not be satisfied with himself, too. There’s a lot of work to be done, but he’s entered into the right way,” said Kevin Ollie.
In years past, Clowney may have been frowned upon as a “tweener,” unable to play the 4 or the 5 consistently, caught in between more rigid positional designations. Good thing he plays in the present. Now, Clowney is just a young (won’t turn 20 till July) hooper with a variety of skills, and his head coach isn’t bemoaning the change in philosophy:
“Oh, yeah, you can’t even write on the board 1-2-3-4 now, they get mad. ‘I’m a four?’ It’s like, we gotta put their initials on it,” chuckled Ollie. “So that’s changed. Larry Brown never put our initials on it. He put ‘1, you was a 1, you the 2 [Allen] Iverson, you the 3,’ that’s the difference now.”
He continued: “But it’s all good, we love it. He’s position-less, and we want him to play like that. He’s sticking one-through-five. I got some clips of him sticking, going over the pick-and-roll and blocking Poole, and switching out onto big men, got a charge yesterday. I mean, he’s done all of those small things, and when he got comfortable shooting his 3-point shot, look out.”
Nets fans are looking toward the off-season, even without imminent draft picks. When the losses pile up and the reality of a middling ball-club is inescapable, it’s the off-season where potential lies. On Wednesday, Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report dropped an unsurprising-but-still-interesting nugget about Donovan Mitchell, a long-rumored Nets target…