The Brooklyn Nets are one of the biggest disappointments of the early 2022-23 NBA season. With renewed hopes that they could be back in contention this campaign, the team and the fans were ready to see something different, but so far, they have struggled to get things going.
Of course, they’re not at the level of the Los Angeles Lakers, but the Nets were expected to at least be above the .500 mark after the first 10 games of the season. Steve Nash was fired after their 2-5 start, and now under Jacque Vaughn, they are showing a different face, but it’s not enough to be considered contenders yet.
The Kyrie Irving situation has also taken a toll on the rest of the team, and it’s never easy to focus completely on basketball when you have some things going on off the court. This turbulent moment could lead the front office to make some drastic decisions and abruptly end a 3-year project that is yet to win a championship.
Brooklyn Nets Could Start A New Era
Brian Windhorst of ESPN recently discussed what could happen to the Nets in the near future. The insider believes that the team could blow things up this season, especially because they don’t have draft capital after the James Harden trade with the Houston Rockets.
“This is just something that league executives are talking about and, frankly, the Brooklyn Nets’ front office has to seriously start considering,” Windhorst said, via Ahn Fire Digital. “And that would be a potentially nuclear option of beginning a blow-up to this roster this season.”
“They owe the next four drafts, essentially, to the Houston Rockets,” Windhorst continued. “A pick swap this year, (Brooklyn’s) pick unprotected next year, another pick swap in two years, and in three years, their pick. But of those four, this year is interesting.”
Windhorst suggests that the Nets could take advantage of the pick swap this season, as the Rockets aren’t going anywhere yet, and they will probably stay at the bottom of the standings to have more chances to land Victor Wembanyama or Scoot Henderson.
“If this Nets team is not going to rebound, if Kyrie Irving isn’t able to satisfy the Nets and bring him back, if Ben Simmons’ knee and returning from his back issue is too big of a hurdle for him to be an impact player, maybe they need to look at what would happen if they took advantage of the pick swap this year, because the Houston Rockets are one of the league’s worst teams,” Windhorst said. “And with Victor Wembanyama and Scoot Henderson in this year’s draft, they’re going to stay one of the worst teams.”
This could be a privileged situation for the Rockets, but the Nets could also be in the mix to get a good selection in the 2023 NBA Draft.
“If the Nets elected to go down the path of an instantaneous rebuild, they could get their pick into position where even if it swaps with the Houston Rockets this year, it’d still potentially be a lottery pick in a very deep draft,” Windhorst stated. “It would also potentially bring Kevin Durant back on the market to be traded. And so if the Brooklyn Nets did this, they would potentially have the assets they got from a Kevin Durant trade, potentially a very good lottery pick, and potentially other pieces and parts from other players they could trade this year.”
Things can get very interesting for the Nets, who haven’t been able to even play in the Eastern Conference Finals. This team was expected to win multiple championships after they landed Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in the summer of 2019. Now, they are struggling to get things going and even to keep their two stars on the court.
They went from being a serious championship contender to the subject of jokes around the league, and until they don’t make a definite decision on this, they’ll keep trying, wasting their players’ best years without finding success.
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