Shhh, Could The Nets Actually Qualify For A Play-In Seed?

AP

Post NBA trade deadline basketball isn’t for the purists. For the majority of teams, their mission is to either get to the postseason in one piece or lose enough to generate a few more ping pong ball combinations in the upcoming 2025 Draft lottery.

The result is a lot of awful games for viewers. Of Monday night’s eight early contests, just two were close with five minutes to go.

Among the blowouts was the Nets’ home victory over injury-riddled Charlotte, a game where the Hornets were able to trim the final score to a more respectable 97-89 because Brooklyn stopped playing with six minutes left and was then outscored, 14-0.

It was a brutal watch. Charlotte’s star guard LaMelo Ball was lost for the game after playing 10 minutes due to an ankle injury and center Moussa Diabate, the one Hornet who seemed to be giving it his all, was hit with an eye injury during the third quarter and did not return.

Outside of a few “names” on each side, the casual fan needed one of those old “Who’s Who” books to identify the participants. On one play, Hornets rookie Tidjane Salaun put a rebound of a Day’Ron Sharpe miss into his own basket, delighting YES analyst Richard Jefferson, who spent all game demeaning the kid by constantly asking his cohort Ryan Ruocco, “Where was he picked?”, forcing Ruocco to remind him that he was the No. 6 overall selection.

Still, Brooklyn (19-34) hung on for its fifth win in its last six games with hurting Philadelphia coming to Barclays Center on Wednesday for the last game before the All-Star break. The preseason odds I saw had the Nets over/under win total at 19.5 (others got 18.5). A victory over the Sixers would obliterate that proposition with more than a third of the season remaining.

Either way, I like to remind folks that the Nets were always too good to tank to the degree that many of them had hoped when General Manager Sean Marks reacquired the rights to Brooklyn’s 2025 and 2026 first-round picks from Houston for the equivalent of four 1s last summer. Unfortunately for the pro-tank contingent, with Head Coach Jordi Fernandez squeezing all the juice out of a limited skill cast, this team is on a pace to finish with about 29 wins, or just three fewer than last season.

And that too could be lowballing it. Dare I imagine, could the Nets possibly get to the Play-In Tournament?

It seems ridiculous on its face. After all, that one loss in this stretch was to the 9-win Wizards at home last Wednesday. That game showed that if Brooklyn shows any slippage in effort, they won’t ever be able to overcome their glaring talent deficit relative to their nightly opposition. Looking at the Nets’ remaining schedule, they might be favored seven times over their last 29 games.

On the other hand, this is the Eastern Conference we’re talking about, where a team 15 games under .500 isn’t necessarily out of it. The Nets are getting healthy and they’re playing better collectively, most notably on defense. During this six-game stretch, they’re surrendering 103.6 points per 100 possessions, tops in the league, per NBA.com. Take out the two outliers against deplorable Charlotte and Brooklyn’s defensive rating is still a respectable 108.4, the league’s fourth best.

It’s going to take a larger sample to determine if the Nets are truly “getting” what Fernandez has been preaching all season to little effect. However, the eye test is showing improved connectivity and scrambling to contest opponents’ three-point looks while funneling the closeouts into the protection manned by centers Nic Claxton and Sharpe. The team’s overall length and activity is forcing turnovers at a much higher rate than earlier in the season, allowing them to get out in transition.

Injuries are a league-wide epidemic, but the Nets have to be up there in man games lost this season. More than several instances have they gone into a game with fewer members of their 15-man NBA roster available than on the sidelines. It’s hard to win with multiple two-way players getting heavy minutes, and they didn’t for a long while, dropping 17 of 20 games in one pathetic stretch. But here are the Nets’ records when the following players have suited up:

Cam Johnson 16-22

Trendon Watford 10-8

D’Angelo Russell 7-8

Cam Thomas 8-11

Sorry folks, but those aren’t tank level records. From that list, all but Thomas have returned to action. When Brooklyn’s leading scorer does at some point after the break, the offense will certainly see a bump in the numbers. The Nets are last in the league in offensive rating since Thomas reinjured his hamstring on January 2 and even as low as 25^th in the last six games. Brooklyn’s offensive rating when their certified bucket getter is on the floor? A team-high (among remaining Nets) 115.1, per NBA.com.

Want another potential boost? What if Bojan Bogdanovic, out all season while recovering from foot and wrist surgeries, isn’t bought out as most have assumed but is able to play his way into the Nets’ rotation next month? That’s another veteran scorer Fernandez would be able to throw into the mix for a run into the play-in.

As of this writing, the Nets are in 12^th place in the East, 1.5 games behind Philadelphia for 11^th and 3 games behind Chicago for 10^th place and the final play-in seed. Sixers star center Joel Embiid was quoted about needing another surgery on his perpetually aching knee, followed by a long rehab process. Unless Philly goes on a heater after the break, it might be more prudent to just shut him down for good. The Bulls, meanwhile, have gotten blown out twice since trading leading scorer Zach LaVine for three backups. They too might be prepping to get in line with the other tanks.

So if they really want to go for it, the play-in is up for grabs. And by “they”, I mean the Nets players and Fernandez, who have ignored the haters all season to defy everyone’s expectations.

Obviously, accumulating wins from this point can do more harm to Marks’ original plan for a top Draft pick than the good of earning an extra game or two before elimination. Then again, the winner of the 2024 lottery was Atlanta, who finished 10^th in the East.