The Brooklyn Nets are expected to be among the favorites for the championship this season, although many also think they don’t have what it takes to win. They have started the season winning 1 game and losing another, which also fits in with the expectations. But their loss saw them give up 130 points against the New Orleans Pelicans, highlighting one of the major areas of concern for the team.
Even though the Nets have added Royce O’Neale and Ben Simmons, and Nic Claxton continues to improve, the team is expected to struggle defensively. With Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, they will have a ton of firepower, especially when Seth Curry and Joe Harris return, but the defense remains a question mark even as the season progresses.
Tim Bontemps Says The Brooklyn Nets Are Similar To The Kobe Bryant-Dwight Howard Los Angeles Lakers From 2012
The Nets have a lot to figure out this season if they want to do what they set out to do and win a championship. And despite how much talent they have at their disposal, NBA analyst Tim Bontemps has compared them to the failed Lakers superteam of the early 2010s.
“The Nets have some high-end talent. I look at this team and it reminds me a lot of the conversation we’ve had about the Lakers… This team in general reminds me a lot of the Dwight-Kobe Laker team.
“Obviously getting Joe Harris and Seth Curry back will help but … you can’t look at this team and tell me that there’s a logical way they’re going to have a decent defense without any size without any permanent athleticism on the team.
“Without any permanent athleticism on the team unless they can turn Joe Harris’s Joe Harris’s contract into another player or they can make some other kind of move or they don’t have draft picks and they don’t have young players to trade I just don’t see how they fix that and it’s hard to see where this goes from here.”
That team didn’t quite manage to achieve anything for the Lakers, and the Nets will need to find another gear if they want to avoid the same fate. Recent seasons have proved that just having superstars is not enough to win the NBA championship, and the Nets will need to figure out some synergy to make it happen. They have the pieces to prove Bontemps wrong, now, whether they actually manage to do it remains to be seen.
