Biggest Offseason Call Might Be What Nets Can Do For Brown
When Brooklyn’s Bruce Brown would make a nice play to get a bucket, the great YES Network announcer Ian Eagle would often bellow, “Oh, what can Brown do for you?!”, a riff on an old UPS commercial.
As the Nets head into a crucial offseason following their four-game sweep at the hands of Boston in the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, maybe their most important roster-related question now becomes, “What can the Nets do for Brown?”
After signing an approximately $4.7 million qualifying offer prior to the season, Brown will be an unrestricted free agent this summer. The Nets, who project to be well into luxury tax territory, hold Brown’s “Bird rights”, which allows them to ignore the salary cap and luxury tax limits, and can match another team’s offer due to a quirk in the qualifying offer rules, but it will be exponentially more costly. ESPN’s Bobby Marks estimated that if the Nets raised Brown’s 2022-23 salary to $10 million, they’d owe another $36 million in taxes.
Marks’ colleague Adrian Wojnarowski predicted that the market for Brown’s services will go even higher, perhaps to $14 million. The Almighty Woj then opined that the Nets “have to sign him.”
In my view, it’s not so cut-and-dried.
Nets fans adored Brown’s energy and effort level, mostly because it was a stark contrast to what too many cast members brought to Barclays Center every night, but we also understood his limitations, perhaps better than Brown did himself. That Brown was considered by many (and me) to be Brooklyn’s third-most indispensable player after Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving spoke more about the team’s ill-fitting roster construction than of Brown’s talents.
While Brown certainly improved his three-point shooting efficiency, from 29% last season to over 40% in 2021-22, opponents like the Celtics still treated him disrespectfully when he was stationed outside the paint, allowing them to send extra defenders at the Nets’ stars. We just witnessed how detrimental that can be to a team’s offense in the playoffs, particularly during crunch time when the games often bog down to isolations.
Generously listed at 6-foot 4 with no mid-range game, Brown was too often guilty of challenging bigger players at the rim—those previously patented floaters only dropped in on 34.4% of his attempts this season, per NBA.com.
Defensively, Brown was by far Brooklyn’s best perimeter stopper, whether it was navigating screens, preventing penetration, or contesting shots, though that’s like saying someone was the fastest guy on crutches. None of the other Nets guards played with Brown’s physicality or consistent effort level.
Ordinarily, I would say that letting Bruce loose would be a convenient way for Nets owner Joseph Tsai to reallocate his resources. With Ben Simmons on the payroll, keeping Brown would mean that Tsai would be spending a little south of $50 million (before luxury taxes) on that one position. Meanwhile, the team is in dire need of true 3-and-D wings, not just guys who can do one but not the other. I think even Head Coach Steve Nash realizes now that he can’t win with three smurfs in most lineups. Or maybe not.
However, as you are all so well aware, this isn’t an ordinary team.
On the face, it would be easy to transfer Brown’s role next season to Simmons and his unique blend of size, speed, and athleticism. Simmons may be significantly worse than even Brown is at shooting, but, with the added six inches and two All-Defense honors on his resume, he not only checks all the other boxes, he will be much more effective at them.
Of course, no one has any idea where Simmons’ head will be in six months. The most recent leaks emanating from his camp to The Athletic’s Shams Charania indicated that the mental health issues that caused him to sit out the entire season—starting with Philadelphia until he was included in the February 10 trade package for James Harden—was as much a reason for his reluctance to suit up with his new Nets teammates in Game 4 as was the herniated disc in his back he suffered while undergoing ramp-up conditioning in Brooklyn.
As such, Nets General Manager Sean Marks has to think long and hard about whether he needs “Simmons insurance.” Can he fill next season’s roster with better players than DeAndre’ Bembry, James Johnson, and Jevon Carter, all of whom were similarly defense-only players obtained last offseason and then subsequently cut? Marks probably won’t be able to, since the most he can offer is the taxpayer midlevel exception, which is expected to be in the $6.3 million range. Brown might be Marks’ safest bet.
The other possible advantage of re-signing Brown is that his new salary could serve the club better in putting together trade packages prior to next season’s deadline. The only other Net under contract in that pay grade range is Joe Harris, whose three-point shooting was sorely missed after he broke his ankle in November. Instead of matching salaries by giving the counterpart a bunch of young players you’ll have to replace and they might have to cut anyway, give them Brown.
Marks has plenty of decisions this summer to make when it comes to revamping the roster, but most are either no-brainers (Simmons and Irving will be Nets next season—what other team is going to risk a max salary slot to trade for a player who: A) has no idea when he’ll be ready to play or, B) might go AWOL over the latest geopolitical issue?) or will sort themselves out (guards Goran Dragic and Patty Mills, assuming he opts out of his contract, plus centers Blake Griffin, LaMarcus Aldridge and Andre Drummond will all gravitate toward any team offering a contract over the veteran minimum). Young center Nic Claxton is a restricted free agent, so the Nets can wait on an offer sheet to match.
Keep your eyes on the Brown scuttlebutt, though. How the Nets deal with him will be most fascinating to watch.