After Another Griffin DNP-CD, Are Nets Leaning Toward Elevating Edwards For Playoffs?
Thanks to another disruptive wave of injuries (Ben Simmons and Seth Curry) and illnesses, both COVID-19 related (Goran Dragic) and non-COVID varieties (James Johnson), the Nets only had ten players available for their must-win game against visiting Houston on Tuesday night.
Four of them were centers, with another big—rookie Day’Ron Sharpe—loaned out to Long Island for its G-League playoff loss at Delaware.
The unbalanced roster was more than enough to hold off the athletic but wayward-shooting Rockets, 118-105, which, combined with losses by the Hornets and Hawks, allowed Brooklyn (41-38) to leapfrog from tenth back into the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference, just 1.5 games behind seventh-place Cleveland.
All but one of Brooklyn’s uniformed personnel saw action on Tuesday, with Blake Griffin the odd man out even with Johnson sidelined and starting center Andre Drummond hampered with foul trouble in the first half.
It’s funny that Nets Head Coach Steve Nash often waxes poetic about “positionless basketball” yet he has a blind spot when it comes to playing Griffin. Want to stick undersized Bruce Brown at the 4? Sure, it’s positionless basketball. Four smurfs with Kevin Durant at the 5? Positionless basketball.
But when asked last week why the six-time All-Star Griffin still can’t get much run, Nash said, “His best position is at the 5.” Heaven forbid Nash play Griffin, who was once one of the NBA’s best power forwards before injuries robbed him of his awesome athleticism. next to another big man.
Nash did go with Twin Towers lineups of Nic Claxton and LaMarcus Aldridge, in his first appearance in a month due to a hip injury, for 16 minutes in relief of Drummond, but no Griffin in a game where the Nets’ energy was again on the fritz against a vastly inferior opponent. The Rockets shot 25.6% from deep and 56% from the line and couldn’t guard Kyrie Irving (42 points) if they were allowed fishnets, but managed to hang around for about 46 minutes because the Nets couldn’t grab rebounds and loose balls, Griffin’s specialty.
I already wrote about my dismay over Griffin’s usage, or lack thereof, last week (Nash Search For A Nets Player With An Edge Should Land On Griffin (substack.com). Looking ahead, the fact that Nash didn’t get Griffin off the bench on Tuesday when the team was so shorthanded and needed juice makes me wonder about the team’s plans for the postseason.
It seems that Kessler Edwards, the Nets’ second-round pick in the 2021 NBA Draft who was signed to a two-way contract for this season, has crawled back into Nash’s rotation, albeit with inconsistent minutes. He’s seen action in 11 consecutive games, though, averaging 5.4 points with a 50/45.8/80 shooting split in nearly 14 minutes per game to bring his 45-game season totals to 5.8 ppg on 41.2/36.2/82.4 shooting in 20.1 minutes.
At 6-foot 7 with a 6-foot 11 wingspan, Edwards, 21, just might be the Nets only true “3-and-D” wing outside of Durant (unless Brown’s recent shooting prowess isn’t a fluke—he’s knocked down 9-of-11 three-pointers over his last three games, including his first pull-up three-ball of the season on Tuesday).
Edwards is still considered very much in the development stage—his strength, handles, and defensive understanding need work—but if he can stand in the corner and hit 3s at an above-average clip while not getting TLC’d on defense (readers from my WFAN days know what that means), he could definitely be in Nash’s mix come playoff time.
Unfortunately, the only way that could happen is if the Nets sign Edwards to a standard contract and then cut someone from their 15-man roster. Brooklyn General Manager Sean Marks must submit his playoff roster on April 11 at 3pm and it wouldn’t be out of character for him to use every second before making such a determination.
While most fans would concur with me that Johnson should be the one to go if Edwards is indeed elevated, I think we all know that it’s an unlikely scenario given Nash’s (undeserving) faith in Johnson’s veteran presence on both ends.
The better odds would go toward the Nets whittling down their center depth chart number. If Aldridge is healthy, he’s safe alongside Drummond and Claxton. The Nets have a bigger investment in Sharpe as a first-round pick with a 2022-23 salary guarantee than in Griffin, who is on a league minimum contract (though still getting paid by Detroit after his buyout last season).
Ergo, it would be hard for Griffin to get around the math.
The Nets first have to get through the final three games of the regular season, with the Knicks waiting for them at Madison Square Garden for Wednesday’s back-to-back. Though locked into a play-in seed, Brooklyn is in control of its destiny in terms of securing seventh place, which would require them to lose two games, with both at Barclays Center, in order to be eliminated. Stumbling just once could put them in the dreaded 9/10 game, where it would take only one loss to end their season and two wins to advance into the tournament.
If Simmons were close to returning from the herniated disc in his back, the need for a player like Edwards wouldn’t be as urgent. Though perimeter shooting is not an area of strength, Simmons’ size and playmaking ability would at least make for a massive improvement over Brown and Johnson, relegating them to lesser roles—and in Johnson’s case, no role. Unfortunately, Nash recently ruled Simmons out through at least the play-in round.
As such, the Nets might be boxed into a corner when deciding Edwards’ postseason fate. It turns out positions matter.