Tanks Again: Nets On Bridges To Nowhere

Wendell Cruz, USA TODAY Sports

Sometimes my posts don’t age well.

So much yesterday’s that had the Nets playing the 2025 game, when their salary cap sheet will be cleaned up so they could target major improvements via trades and free agency.

That all went out the window when Brooklyn reportedly agreed on Tuesday to trade wing Mikal Bridges, its best-all-around player, to the Knicks, of all teams.

For those who claim the Nets got “a haul” in return for Bridges and a 2026 second-round pick—forward Bojan Bogdanovic; unprotected first-round picks in 2025, 2027, 2029, and 2031; a 2028 unprotected pick swap; a 2025 protected first-round pick via Milwaukee; and a 2025 second-round pick—you know what else will be a haul? Brooklyn’s climb back to relevancy.

Make no mistake, it’s going to take YEARS for this franchise to be close to competitive again. The pre-trade timeline has been obliterated. Nets General Manager Sean Marks’ complementary move on Tuesday was to swap out some of the picks (first-rounders in 2027 and 2029 and the 2025 Phoenix pick swap) he acquired in last year’s Kevin Durant/Kyrie Irving demolition in exchange for the full rights to the 2025 and 2026 first-rounders the Nets originally sent to Houston in the 2021 James Harden blockbuster.

You know what that means--all aboard the tank train! Good luck to Jordi Fernandez in his first head coaching gig. I wonder if it was explained to him when he aggressively pursued the Nets two months ago that this was going to be the job.  

I just don’t get this. It’s so easy for folks to overreact to underachieving campaigns with a “just blow it all up” mindset. Do you know the last time an NBA Champion was built after bottoming out? The 2007 Spurs, who lucked into a pair of transformational No. 1 overall picks a decade earlier. And that was well before the league altered the lottery odds starting in 2019 so that more teams now have an equal chance at the top pick.

It’s not like teams haven’t tried the tanking route. In the end, it’s as much of a crapshoot as any other team-building method. Look at the Pistons, a bottom-five team for the last five years and they’re still projected to suck this season. Most famously, the 76ers went through five seasons of hell as part of their “process” only to win just five playoff series since turning up their game over the last seven seasons. Was it worth it?    

Of course, that’s four more series wins than Brooklyn has banked during the same span in which it failed to capitalize during their short-lived superstar era. OK, so it didn’t work. Did it really mean the franchise had to go all the way back to square one like it was 2016? Is ownership really on board with no one watching his team during this lengthy noncompetitive period?

Honestly, I don’t know where the Nets go from here. Is 35-year old Bogdanovic, who only has $2 million of his approximately $19 million salary guaranteed, a keeper? I have to imagine that wing Dorian Finney-Smith, who was always expected to opt out of the final year of his contract after next season, will be on the move in short order. As might the expiring contract of point guard Dennis Schroder.

Rumors are already floating regarding DFS, Bogdanovic, and Cam Johnson. With all this talk of who’s next out the door, is anyone figuring out who will be left to, you know, actually play this season? Get ready for an overpay to keep free agent center Nic Claxton. Obviously, Marks shares the negative consensus opinion on the 2024 Draft class because he bypassed New York pick Nos. 24 and 25 in favor of later years. If there is a particular prospect he relishes no matter where he is slotted, he is certainly armed with the assets to acquire him. More likely, expect the Nets to bring in another army of veteran minimum guys.

And it’s not just the Nets’ personnel that needs refurbishing. The goodwill the franchise wants to hype—family-and-agent-friendly, advanced medical protocols, etc.--hasn’t translated into a culture that keeps its best players in town. Bridges’ reported request to be traded brought the team’s disaffected list to four key players who have begged out in the last three years. Like the pushovers they always seem to be in these situations, the organization granted Bridges’ alleged wish (Yahoo’s Jake Fischer disputes this) to join his three former Villanova mates in New York.

How is Brooklyn supposed to attract top players now? They’re generally into “win-now” situations, playing alongside established names, not a bunch of TBDs.

I get that Bridges isn’t quite an All-Star, but he’s the type of player who’s always in demand, a player who is highly respected around the league that could have helped lure other stars to Brooklyn. In a league where clearing 65 games played is a tall task, he suits up every night. And replacing a wing who, in a down year, averaged 19.6 points per game on 37.2% three-point shooting while guarding the opponent’s top perimeter scorer isn’t something Marks can simply conjure with “development magic.”

Look, it sounds great that the Nets are slated to have four first-rounders in the 2025 Draft. But three of them belong to New York, Milwaukee, and the lesser of Phoenix/Houston/Oklahoma City. Those teams earned Nos. 22, 25, and 26 in Wednesday’s Draft. Maybe Marks can pull a Cam Thomas on one of the dice rolls. Or he could just as easily end up with a bunch of Day’Ron Sharpe/Dzanan Musa types. And the one pick among the four above that Nets fans can look forward to—the return of their own from Houston—could have been generated without trading Bridges.

Ugh, Nets fans should be utterly disgusted with this team, no matter how you viewed the richness of the Bridges return package.