You Asked For it, Nets Fans; It’s Going To Be A Long Four Months

NBA.com

56 games to go. It’s going to be a long four months, Nets fans.

We got our first look at the post-Dennis Schroder Nets on Monday night at Barclays Center, and it was hideous. Cleveland, perhaps motivated to lay one on Brooklyn on behalf of Head Coach Kenny Atkinson, who Nets General Manager Sean Marks fired in March 2020 after three-plus seasons running Brooklyn’s bench, poured it on after about seven competitive minutes in a 130-101 thrashing.

By halftime, the Nets had more turnovers (14) than field goals (13) and were down by 32 points. I estimated that they once went about three minutes without getting a shot off that hit the rim. The NBA-leading Cavs laughed their way through the second half garbage time.

With Nets leading scorer Cam Thomas still sidelined with a hamstring injury, it might not get better soon. Now that Schroder is gone, the Nets are bereft of creative players who can drive offense. They might end up setting an unofficial record for most 24-second violations in one season.

Evidently, however, this is what a large segment of the fan base wants. Brooklyn’s 10-15 mark through the first 25 games freaked them out because Marks reacquired the full rights to the team’s 2025 and 2026 first round Draft picks in last offseason’s trade with Houston. So Schroder, the team’s unquestioned floor leader but who will be a pending free agent after the season, had to go ASAP.

Never mind that the Draft order is a lottery, and the team with the league-worst record hasn’t won it since the odds changed five years ago. To many fans, each Nets victory was still a dagger into the wheels of the tank.

Funny then, that the folks who claim there’d be a huge difference between the Nets picking five versus, say, six-to-eight because of bad lottery luck, have no problem with the paltry consideration Marks extracted from Sunday’s Schroder trade. For the record, after hearing Marks speak on the subject, I’ve come to change my view on the exchange with Golden State, which got Schroder and a 2025 second-rounder via Miami (protected 31-37) for the expiring contract of out-for-the-season De’Anthony Melton, two-way guard Reece Beekman, and three second-round picks (2026 via Atlanta, 2028 via Atlanta, and Golden State’s 2029 pick). Since the Hawks appear to be on the rise, it’s certainly possible that the Warriors will end up getting the highest second rounder among the four included in the deal.

Meanwhile, the Warriors were allegedly hot for Schroder, with four-time NBA champions Stephen Curry and Draymond Green lobbying hard to management. If you’re Marks, who is known for his patience, why not use some leverage on Golden State by waiting past the first day Melton became trade eligible? I have no inside info on Schroder’s value around the league or if another contending team was in the market for a point guard with an affordable contract, but he seemed to be the best one available. We’ll never know if a first-rounder was truly unobtainable because Marks pulled the trigger with a little less than two months to go before the trade deadline.

Marks didn’t confirm it outright, but he too made it seem like the urgency was based on accelerating the losing when he talked about the team’s “future.” I mean, Brooklyn’s inventory already counted 11 second rounders through the 2031 Draft before the trade, per NetsDaily. What’s the marginal benefit to a couple of more? Usually, taking on a worthless contract like Melton’s gets you additional compensation; if it was taken into account in this deal, I can’t see it.

It was always understood that Schroder—and starting forward Dorian Finney-Smith—would be the first to go this season. This isn’t about me holding out hope that the Nets would sneak into a play-in seed where they’d get slaughtered—that was clearly going to be off the table once the roster talent was slashed by the trades. I’m just complaining about this timing and return.

I feel for all the Nets ticketholders, Gotham Sports subscribers, and, most of all, rookie Head Coach Jordi Fernandez. All of his positive culture building over the first 25 games looked like it had left the arena with Schroder.

You could see the disheartenment on the players’ faces and body language upon the realization on Monday night that they were impotent against such a superior opponent. Whereas they opened the game with energy in getting into the Cavs ballhandlers’ grills, the defense quickly devolved, both in transition and in the halfcourt. Cleveland got to the majority of 50/50 balls. Bad Nets shots fed more bad defense, and the rout was on.

Cleveland was probably going to win that game anyway had Schroder stuck around for the day—they were shooting lights out even with superstar Donovan Mitchell having a bit of an off night. Still, I’ll be curious to see how the Nets respond in Toronto on Thursday night. Though point guard Immanuel Quickly and forward Scottie Barnes have been out of the Raptors’ lineup, I can see them giving Brooklyn fits with their speed and athleticism. Strange as it may seem to our area’s basketball fans, but R.J. Barrett might be the best player on the court that night.

This isn’t easy for Fernandez to coach around. He has to scrap his entire pick-and-roll section of the offense with Ben Simmons at point guard, especially when fellow non-shooting center Nic Claxton is sharing the floor and clogging the paint, because Simmons is not a threat to step back and hit a jumper. Instead, all Fernandez can do is plea for his club to “fight.”

When they didn’t to his satisfaction on Monday night, he went into his angry bag during his postgame press conference, which we have seen a few times over the first quarter of the season. Such fiery rants over the team’s inadequate battle level, however, can diminish in effect if repeated too often.

It was better when Schroder also delivered the message on the court, but losing an extra five games for solely miniscule lottery benefits was deemed the greater good.

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By the way, I also retract the prior Keon Johnson post. Oh, he still is miles from developing into an NBA player, but with the tank now on full blast, who cares how much Fernandez plays him.