Brooklyn Nets' 2015 Trade-Deadline Shopping List
The Brooklyn Nets have needs but not many ways to fulfill them.
The Nets have come up in trade rumors about as much as any other team during the first half of the NBA season. Still, there hasn't been any actual movement.
With its record standing at a disappointing 17-24 and owner Mikhail Prokhorov looking to sell, according to Bloomberg's Scott Soshnick (h/t Forbes), Brooklyn has thrown its three biggest stars—Deron Williams, Brook Lopez and Joe Johnson—on the block.
Still, they haven't moved—and there aren't many other assets on the roster.
The Sacramento Kings, Charlotte Hornets and Oklahoma City Thunder: These are the teams who have come up in Nets-related trade gossip more than once over the past few months. But moving the big names isn't general manager Billy King's only priority—or at least, it shouldn't be.
Clearly, a team that's seven games below .500 has other needs before it can return to relevance (and no, the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference does not count as "relevance"). There's no realistic way for Brooklyn to turn around its season with one huge trade (unless King knocks one out of the park). The Nets are a long way off from contention with their lack of draft picks.
Still, improvement on the margins is always essential for a team trying to sneak into the postseason. Lionel Hollins and Co. have a chance to do that.
Bench Help
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It seems silly that a third-string point guard would ever be that much of a concern, but that's how the Nets work right now. In Brooklyn, the issue is that the third point guard is often up a slot due to Williams' consistent injury issues.
So Darius Morris has been thrust into a role for which he's not ready, and Jarrett Jack ends up playing far more than he should—like when Hollins ran him for 41 minutes against the Wizards Saturday evening on the second night of a back-to-back.
Morris has mostly been a 10-day-contract guy during his career. He shouldn't necessarily be playing a rotation role for a team trying to make the postseason.
It would've been crafty if Brooklyn had gone after former Milwaukee Bucks point guard Nate Wolters when Milwaukee waived him a couple of weeks into the new year. Now, let's see what happens with Nate Robinson, whom the Celtics just waived on Jan. 15.
Actually, the guard position as a whole has been an issue across the reserves unit. That's why somewhere, at this very moment, Joe Johnson is leaning over, hands on knees and panting heavily.
Yes, the 33-year-old Johnson has averaged a preposterous 38.5 minutes a night since the calendar turned to 2015.
At some point, he won't be able to do this anymore. And even though Hollins has said time and time again that one of his goals is to get Johnson some much-needed rest, he's not exactly showing it, like when he left his highest-paid player in during Friday night's 20-plus-point shellacking of the Washington Wizards until the three-minute mark of the fourth quarter.
At this point, any kind of help Brooklyn could find at guard will do.
A Lopez, Williams or Johnson Taker
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Why stop at finding a Lopez taker? How about a Williams one? Or someone willing to absorb Johnson's contract?
According to ESPN.com's Marc Stein and Ohm Youngmisuk (h/t ProBasketballTalk's Brett Pollakoff), Brooklyn is trying to unload its three biggest names (and three biggest contracts, of course). But the Nets are in a stranger position than most teams that are rebuilding.
It's possible Brooklyn doesn't own its own first-round selection until 2019, with each season's pick heading to the Boston Celtics or Atlanta Hawks either without protection or in a possible pick swap. So unlike most teams with bloated payroll and underwhelming performance, the Nets don't actually benefit from pulling a Sam Hinkie and bottoming out.
Unless it's purely a financial move, it wouldn't make much sense for Brooklyn to unload any of these guys for significantly lesser value.
That's why it's taken so long to ship them somewhere else.
Trade talks with the Kings for Williams quieted because Sacramento wanted Mason Plumlee in addition, according to Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski. (That's how much Williams' value has fallen. Plumlee has to be a chip to entice someone to take a guy who was once one of the NBA's best point guards but now isn't even a top-15 floor general.)
Still, there are non-basketball reasons for the Nets to rid themselves of their highest-paid guys. It's easier to sell a company that isn't bogged down by fat financial commitments, and Prokorov has at least three of those driving him into luxury-tax territory.
A Shooter
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Maybe the Nets should try to change what Hollins deems as their "identity."
"We have established an identity: We don't make shots," a chippy Hollins joked in early January. "That's an identity."
Brooklyn is sinking just 32 percent of its three-point attempts on the season, good for 27th in the NBA, and there aren't many shooters to go around.
Mirza Teletovic has struggled, even if his season does feel more like an extended cold streak than a bad year on the whole. Jack is having the worst three-point season of his career. Bojan Bogdanovic and Sergey Karasev haven't shot with the accuracy their reputations implied they would.
Brooklyn has struggled to hit threes even more of late, knocking in only 26 percent of its attempts over the past nine games.
The Nets don't necessarily need to go big with a shooter. They could take a chance on someone from the D-League or even try to pull off a trade for a raw, lesser-played performer stuck in an unfit role—think along the lines of John Jenkins, a shooter currently nailed to Atlanta's bench. Or they could think a little bigger and try to pry Randy Foye from a Denver Nuggets team which is bound to learn at some point that it isn't a playoff contender in the Western Conference.
In reality, it's not like Brooklyn is loaded with assets, so its sights would have to be set a little more modestly. But taking on a few low-risk, medium-sized-reward contracts could work.
Still, one of the reasons players like Jenkins don't get on the floor is because of their inability to move off the ball, a struggle many Nets share...
A Strong Off-Ball Cutter
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Becoming a great shooter isn't just about accuracy; it's also about how a player moves off the ball.
Kyle Korver isn't putting up an inhuman 52-54-92 shooting line this season just because he never misses (he does never miss, by the by). There are other reasons, like his ability to navigate screens and the Hawks' proficiency at getting him open off pin-downs and other types of picks.
The Nets, though, don't really have anyone with that sort of navigation skill.
Brooklyn isn't particularly adept at setting screens (another reason why its offense doesn't open up guys for good looks as often as it would like). But the off-ball players aren't great at running around them, either.
Too many times, you'll see a Net move around a screen and stop running around 20 feet from the basket before actually getting to the three-point line.
This is a thematic problem within the Brooklyn attack. It's why the spacing can appear so cramped at times. Even when the Nets offense is making shots, you'll sometimes see guys standing two or three feet inside the three-point arc...for no reason.
It doesn't open up the floor and shows off a lack of court awareness.
So maybe that's what the Nets need: someone with offensive court awareness.
Bogdanovic will pull off a prompt rim cut every once in a while (and he's been better of late), but the small forwards in particular play off the ball a bunch, and the waiting-in-the-corner approach isn't exactly working.
Maybe Brooklyn could work its way into a trade involving Jae Crowder, considering every Celtic seems to be up for grabs nowadays. It could also try for Orlando Magic forward Mo Harkless, who has progressively lost playing time as the season's continued. Neither of those guys is a shooter, but they at least understand how to rim cut aggressively and how to find space within an offense.
Off-ball cutting isn't necessarily a highly valued trait in terms of financials. The Nets could get a capable mover for a decent price, and if they could acquire one who can also shoot in return for one of their big names on the market, it could help them down the line.
A Rebounder
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The Nets have a rebounding problem, and it's hard to figure out a solution.
It's an odd conundrum, because the Nets' top three big men are pretty much locked in as long as Lopez remains with the team, which of course is hardly a guarantee. But the Nets' struggles don't really stem from the bigs.
Plumlee is grabbing rebounds at a high rate. Kevin Garnett actually has the second-highest defensive rebound percentage of his entire career. Even Lopez has been hitting the defensive glass harder than he has since his rookie season (and his rebounding numbers have gotten better and better with each month this year).
In the end, this is a problem with the guards and wings, who don't rebound particularly well from the perimeter.
In particular, the Nets haven't corralled bounces on the offensive end very well. Brooklyn ranks 26th in offensive rebounding rate and doesn't seem to be turning it around.
As with finding a shooter, the Nets don't necessarily need to acquire someone who can play major minutes or help in other areas. All they need is a guy to come in on nights when Brooklyn is getting rocked on the boards, play 15 competent minutes and get the Nets some second chances. Such a strategy could be especially effective on nights when Teletovic isn't sinking his shots.
The issues on the wings and at guard are down to collective effort, something that can't necessarily be cleared up with just one trade. So in the end, it could help Brooklyn to acquire one glass glutton who can spike rebounding production almost on his own.
Really, the Nets could just benefit from a Reggie Evans type. Actually, they could just reach out to a 16-24 Sacramento team to see if they could acquire Evans himself, the former Net whose value couldn't be all that high.
There is, of course, another scenario: Just play Jerome Jordan, who rests inside the NBA's top 10 in offensive rebound rate and has actually proven capable of playing some defense and scoring around the rim. Of course, these hypotheticals become slightly easier to manage if Brooklyn trades Lopez—or gets decidedly creative and buys out Garnett's contract to let him go to a contender.
Fred Katz averaged almost one point per game in fifth grade but maintains that his per-36-minute numbers were astonishing. Find more of his work on ESPN's TrueHoop Network at ClipperBlog.com. Follow him on Twitter at @FredKatz.
All quotes obtained firsthand. Unless otherwise noted, all statistics are current as of Jan. 19 and are courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
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