Five Predictions For The 2023-24 Nets: Back To Another Brooklyn Bridge Season
It’s understandable how the glass half-full section of Nets Nation can feel encouraged about Brooklyn’s prospects this season. Nets General Manager Sean Marks has constructed a team of intriguing pieces, many of whom could clearly make noteworthy contributions to legitimate contenders.
You start with Mikal Bridges, who took off to the tune of 26 points per game after coming over in the Kevin Durant blockbuster with Phoenix at last season's trade deadline. Add in guys like wings Cam Johnson, Dorian Finney-Smith, and Royce O’Neale, who have a combined 117 games of quality playoff experience under their belts and are all in their primes. Spencer Dinwiddie is an efficient straight-line driver out of isolations. For youth, you have Nic Claxton, a Defensive Player of the Year candidate, and walking bucket Cam Thomas. And if Ben Simmons can get to somewhere within a reasonable proximity of his former All-Star capabilities before physical and mental issues sidetracked his career, who knows, right?
Unfortunately, an NBA team is more than the sum of its parts. Fit matters. The will to do whatever it takes to win matters. And having that one superstar who can step up to take over close games, is absolutely essential.
And those are just some of the areas where Brooklyn, at best, is questionable as it attempts to qualify for a playoff berth for a sixth consecutive season.
The more likely scenario is one where this will be more of a bridge season between the failed superstar era and whatever Marks can pull off in the next offseason or two. Player development should be more of a priority over securing an eighth-to tenth place play-in seed.
Sometimes, these types of pieces fall nicely into place, like it did in 2018-19. But even if that team hadn’t stunningly ascended to a playoff seed, the growth in the young players like D’Angelo Russell, Caris LeVert, Jarrett Allen, and Dinwiddie would have still made it at least a moderate success.
That’s the best Nets fans should hope for this season. With that in mind, here are some realistic predictions for the 2023-24 Nets:
1) Bridges is snubbed on All-Star weekend
It’s tough for players on losing teams to secure an All-Star spot. Heck, Boston and Milwaukee might eat up five or six of the Eastern Conference seats by themselves.
Bridges will put up numbers—somebody on Brooklyn has to. He’ll be reasonably efficient too, maybe not as strong as his 47.5/37.6/89.4 shooting split in his 27 games as a Net last season, but only a few ticks down as he consumes more of the opponents’ focus on a nightly basis. He’ll also maintain his reputation as one of the NBA’s better perimeter defenders.
Unfortunately, a team’s record is often the deciding factor in close calls, making it hard to elevate Bridges over someone like Boston’s Jaylen Brown.
2) The Simmons/Claxton pairing won’t work
Those who mine NBA.com for data would probably be shocked to find that the Nets were big winners last season during the 517 shared minutes with the above non-shooters on the court together. However, when you dig deeper and see that 326 of those minutes also included the brilliant Durant, the solid 115 two-man lineup offensive rating makes more sense. It’s the “Michael Jordan and four guys off the street” parable. When you also add Kyrie Irving to that four-man mix for 294 minutes, it was logical that scoring was never going to be the problem.
Bridges may be developing into a terrific finisher and Thomas can bust out for 40 points on any given night, but they’re not KD and Kyrie. The effect of seeing extra defenders in the vicinity from being able to leave Claxton and Simmons unguarded outside the paint will make Brooklyn’s primary scorers hesitant about how they attack and limit their efficiencies.
Simmons being shut down with a back injury after four February games made the post-trades sample size of his shared minutes with Claxton too small to draw conclusions (though the ratings were bad) and preseason numbers are meaningless. Still, the crystal ball projects the Nets to post a sizable minus net rating, with the offense generating under 110 points per 100 possessions (the equivalent of a 28th-ranked offense), when Claxton and Simmons play together.
3) Thomas will average 14.5 points per game
It’s a step in the right direction, but still far below the 25 ppg Thomas insisted he could average if given the ball on a consistent basis.
He might have a better argument to warrant such an opportunity if he could flatten the consistency curve in his own performance—on both ends. Thomas’ sophomore campaign last season was notable for its extremes—four games over 40 points, another 7 games over 20 points, and 28 games under 10 points, not to mention all the DNP-CDs.
There were just too many awful outings in between his star turns last season that, when you factored in that he’s a general liability on defense, it was hard to bash Vaughn for putting Thomas on the backburner down the stretch when the organizational mission was to finish above the play-in seeds.
I see Thomas, 22, getting more regular rotation minutes this season, though his struggles with consistency will continue to be part of his development process. It will result in an approximately 4 ppg increase from last season’s average production.
4) The Durant trade exception expires unused
Nets Governor Joseph Tsai has a track record of requisite spending when his club has a chance to compete for an NBA title. Brooklyn has been paying luxury taxes in each of the past three seasons.
There is no need to make it four in a row and subject the organizational retooling to heavier “repeater taxes.”
As I review it from various salary cap sources, the Nets are currently sitting approximately $7.9 million under the NBA’s luxury tax threshold for 2023-24. The tax bill, however, is computed based on the payroll at the end of the season.
As such, Marks can make all the moves he wants to raise or slash player compensation throughout the season so long as the total of the end-of-year roster’s salaries stays under the current luxury tax level of $165,294,000.
What that means in practice is that though the Nets have draft capital to acquire a decent player, they won’t be utilizing the approximately $18.1 million trade exception that was created by the Durant trade to get him by the February deadline. The exception cannot be combined with another Nets player to reduce the net payroll added in the same deal.
Brooklyn also holds a $19.9 million trade exception from offloading Joe Harris to Detroit during the offseason—that one expires in July, which is the next league year. That’s the one to watch.
5) Jacque Vaughn survives the season
Despite many calls from impatient fans to make an in-season change at Head Coach, Vaughn will be given the year and then will be evaluated thereafter.
Vaughn has been on the Nets’ staff since Marks’ first full season running the ship in 2016. They also overlapped a bit previously in San Antonio. I’ve heard that the two are pretty close.
There would probably have to be a near mutiny this season for Marks to abandon Vaughn, who is an optimist by nature and by all accounts a decent fellow. I’m guessing that he knows how to lay into the team at appropriate times, but not to the point where it grates on professional players.
The Nets had heavy turnover among Vaughn’s staff this offseason, but none of the newcomers have NBA head coaching experience. Sure, Marks could turn to a Kevin Ollie or a Will Weaver for interim service, but what would that accomplish?
I just don’t see this group extending their run into the postseason no matter who directs the plays. But as the season progresses, if players Marks drafted and his handful of younger pickups are improving, then Vaughn is doing his job.
2023-24 Prediction: 36-46 (11th place in East)