Who’ll Take Five? Preseason Allowed Nash To Evaluate Options For Irving’s Replacement As Nets’ Fifth Starter
The Nets wrapped up their preseason slate on Thursday night with a 107-101 victory over the visiting Timberwolves. Like all exhibitions, you can flush the results down the toilet. Brooklyn’s 3-1 record will now reset to 0-0, the same as the league’s other 29 teams.
Still, the games were useful for Head Coach Steve Nash to experiment with different lineup combinations—big versus small, offensively-oriented or more heavy-weighted with defenders. The tweaking will definitely continue into the regular season, which begins with Tuesday’s showdown at reigning NBA titlist Milwaukee.
That’s because the Kyrie Irving Affair necessitated an unanticipated challenge for Nash to solve—who should start in the superstar point guard’s place now that he’s been effectively banished from the team until he relents on getting the COVID-19 vaccine?
Nash may have stated before Thursday’s game that he’s done talking about Irving, but the issue isn’t going away. Make no mistake, this team will feel the loss of one of the most gifted players to ever lace them up. Irving is coming off the NBA’s ninth-ever 50/40/90 shooting split last season while finishing 10th in the league in scoring at 26.9 ppg. Only teammate Kevin Durant was more efficient in isolations (minimum 3 iso plays per game), according to NBA.com.
Brooklyn just can’t stick anyone into its starting five and replicate that production, as Durant admitted after Thursday’s game. However, the hope is that Nash can find the right fit to both play next to KD, James Harden, Joe Harris, and Blake Griffin as a starter and also someone who can run the offense during Harden’s rest periods so it doesn’t go in the tank like it did versus Minnesota.
Those two roles might not be filled by the same person, as Nash mixed things up to great effect on Thursday by going with Paul Millsap instead of Bruce Brown as the fifth starter. That may have been because Griffin was given the night off and Nash wanted to give Nicolas Claxton some opportunities to face Minnesota’s imposing Karl-Anthony Towns. Claxton reinserted himself into the rotation conversation with his performance but, like Brown, he is not a threat to score outside of the paint and Nash is loath to pair two such non-shooters together on the court.
I won’t bore you with meaningless preseason metrics, but you can feel the difference in the Nets defensive rebounding, a weak area last season, when Millsap is on the court. If Millsap can space the floor to the tune of something close to a league average three-point percentage (and maybe not turn the ball over so damn much), I don’t see how he isn’t the starter in games against the Nets’ bigger opponents, like conference rivals Milwaukee and Philadelphia.
In Millsap’s last four matchups against the Bucks while with the Nuggets, NBA.com had him holding Giannis Antetokounmpo to 10-for-22 shooting (plus three shooting fouls) with 1 assist and 5 turnovers as the nearest defender. Give Millsap a shot on Tuesday, let Griffin and Harden hang out with center Brook Lopez and wing Grayson Allen on the perimeter and keep Durant attached to sniper Khris Middleton.
That leaves Harris on point guard Jrue Holiday, which is not an ideal matchup. If it becomes too troublesome, then you can always lean more on hounds Brown or Jevon Carter, who arrived this offseason in the Landry Shamet trade to Phoenix. Carter has shown impressive three-point form this preseason, which might give him a leg up on the gig, but it remains to be seen whether that can carry over into the games that matter.
As for Harden’s understudy, Patty Mills will surely be given every opportunity to fill the sixth man role as he did in San Antonio for the last 10 seasons. I won’t jump to conclusions based on preseason efforts, so let’s just say that the hyped free agent acquisition is still feeling his way around the team. He seems to be at his most comfortable moving off the ball as opposed to facilitating with it in his hands. That’s kind of what Shamet brought to Brooklyn last season--I guess I was expecting more.
I’d like to see Mills assert himself more as the regular season progresses because neither Carter nor Brown showed much aptitude as lead men either this preseason and rookie Cam Thomas is just not ready for prime time. Of course, the Nets could easily run everything through KD for the 8-10 minutes Harden rests per game, but how much should they really tax Durant over the course of 82 games? Good health is still the team’s number one priority this regular season. Also, while there isn’t anyone in the league you’d rather have bringing it up, breaking down the defense, and shooting every possession than Durant, the stagnation makes it an unsustainable plan of attack.
NBA.com’s on/off splits per 100 possessions for Harden last season weren’t outrageous because Irving suited up for 54 of the 72 games. As awesome as Harden was at running the show, creating for himself and others like few players ever had, the Nets still performed like a top-11 offense with him off the court. I will predict that won’t be the case in 2021-22. The Nets will continue to boast historic efficiencies during Harden’s minutes, but right now it’s looking like they’ll come down to a bottom-tier offense when he sits.
Unless, of course, Irving simply decides to get vaccinated so he can return to the game he allegedly loves.