The Nets At The Break: Freefalling Into Fan Apathy

Celtics.com

The Nets limped into their All-Star break with their 24^th loss in the last 33 games, an embarrassing 136-86 rout in Boston on Wednesday night for a back-to-back sweep. At 21-33, Brooklyn’s hopes for a sixth consecutive postseason appearance are rapidly dimming. Worse, there have been too many games where they’ve played like they didn’t care.

How bad was this latest defeat? The 50-point margin was the second largest in Nets NBA franchise history. I can’t read minds, but it sure seemed like many Nets bodies were already on a break.

In the stages of grief, numerous Nets fans have turned to apathy, though I happen to be one of those who will always be stuck on seething and bitterness. It boiled over when Head Coach Jacque Vaughn went back to his old reliable continuity excuse during Wednesday’s postgame press conference. As if the pitiful effort could be traced to the trade deadline acquisition of Dennis Schroder, an NBA veteran.

The Nets have actually gotten healthier over their last five games, though a handful of players are on minutes restrictions from ramp-ups. Yet they’re still losing at unacceptable rates.

This is an indictment of everyone—owner, management, coaches, and players. This team doesn’t deserve your attention, never mind your cash support. Too bad NBA reality doesn’t feature a “sim” component like a video game where the results of the Nets’ remaining games could be determined by a computer to spare further agony.

Of course, all of the games will go on as scheduled, and the Nets will be picked by oddsmakers to lose a good chunk of them. Given their road-heavy schedule (18 of 29 games), the Nets could easily fall short of my preseason projection of 36 wins, which was already on the low end of the pundits’ spectrum.

Without any picks in the 2024 NBA Draft thanks to the James Harden trade with Houston three years ago, the Nets don’t even have a reason to tank. But just like it did in their pre-superstar era when coming out from under the Kevin Garnett/Paul Pierce ruins, it might look like that anyway on many nights during this upcoming stretch “run.”

That’s because before and after the trade deadline, General Manager Sean Marks constructed a team of ill-fitting parts run by his hand-picked coach who has not yet figured out how to get a bunch of well-respected individual defensive players to play good team defense. Despite deserving to be left on the side of the road in Boston after Wednesday’s deplorable effort, Vaughn will likely survive the season, even as he appears willing to die on the hill of believing his club can function efficiently playing 3-on-5 in the halfcourt with non-shooters Ben Simmons and Nic Claxton together in the starting lineup. On the nights the fragile Simmons suits up, of course.

Simmons (knee injury management) didn’t on Wednesday, but his missing presence didn’t account for the magnitude of the debacle. At this stage of a career that has been hindered by back injuries and with this particular supporting cast, he is a backup point center anyway, nothing more. Until Vaughn accepts that reality, the Nets will be battling uphill on most nights. When Simmons has been used in this manner, however, such as during Tuesday’s second half, Brooklyn has found success.

Simmons replaced Day’Ron Sharpe with about two minutes left in the third quarter and the Nets trailing by 19 points. Brooklyn had previously been outscored, 42-31, in the 16 minutes where Simmons and Claxton shared the court.  That’s about par for the course since Simmons returned from rehab on January 29. In a smaller lineup surrounded by shooters, though, Simmons helped spark a run that cut the deficit to six points over the next six minutes of action. That the Celtics then pulled away to a 118-110 victory was inevitable given the overall talent discrepancy between the two clubs. One side knows how to lock in and execute during crunch time; the other tends to waste possessions at the most inopportune moments.

I get that it’s not easy to keep players in line when your team is losing this much and the pecking order isn’t clearly defined. But that’s Vaughn’s job. It seems like he’s only encouraged the devolving of this campaign into a bunch of guys auditioning for their next gigs. This far into a season, players should have a firm grasp of where they’re supposed to be on each end depending on the call. Instead, we too often see two guys running out to rotate on a shooter or three players standing along the same sideline in an improperly-spaced set. Sorry, but those lapses are not all because Schroder just arrived.

In fact, Vaughn’s recent adjustment to go back to a switch-everything defensive scheme has exposed his smaller and weaker defenders like Cam Thomas and Schroder. Both players get hunted by opposing team’s stars unmercifully. Meanwhile, Claxton is often stuck on the perimeter instead of in close proximity to the basket where he can help with rim protection and rebounding. That the Nets rarely fight through screens, execute rotations, or hit people under the boards exacerbates the flaw in the defensive game plan. In a stunning display of meekness on a night where they got their butts smacked, they committed just 12 fouls on Wednesday. Couldn’t anyone give just one Charles Oakley/Anthony Mason hard foul?

I knew this season was going to be a downer: I just didn’t expect it to go into this heavy a freefall. Believe it or not, there is a plan that involves restoring the franchise to respectability no later than the 2025-26 season. Until then, I may feel compelled to to watch how this plays out in case something occurs in a particular game that’s worthy of a post, but you should feel free to pick this team back up in the offseason.

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How many of you are aware that Jalen Wilson is about a year older than Thomas? Heck, Trendon Watford is five days younger than the Nets second round pick who has intrigued fans with his shooting and hustle over recent outings.

I bring this up because when a team is this bad, fans often search for hope in prospects who can develop into part of a future core. In Brooklyn’s case, many of its “young” players are on expiring contracts, including Claxton. Wilson, 23, is a mature two-way player whose ceiling appears to be as a bottom-of-the-rotation guy (which is great for him, just not at the level that gets fans excited). Of Brooklyn’s two 19-year old first round picks in the 2023 NBA Draft, Dariq Whitehead is out for the season with shin splints while Noah Clowney needs to hit the gym this summer to be able to compete against NBA bigs.

That leaves 2021 first round picks Thomas and backup center Sharpe for our focus while Brooklyn plays out the string. Unfortunately, the book might be out on Thomas, who has struggled to adjust to the added attention from all those high-scoring affairs. Since his 40-point performance in Philadelphia two weeks ago, he has shot 35% from the field over the last six games.

It’s been depressing because Thomas’ development has been a Nets priority this season. He’s getting the playing time he had always been lobbying for. Unfortunately, while he has made incremental steps with his playmaking and defense, those parts of his game still underwhelm. And when he goes 1-for-9 from the field like he did on Wednesday, he becomes unplayable.

If only Thomas has had some help with the scoring load, maybe his slump wouldn’t be as noticeable.