Ranking Brooklyn Nets' Biggest Needs for 2015 NBA Offseason
A 38-win season can't be considered a success for the Brooklyn Nets, even if they did play the Atlanta Hawks closer than many expected in the first round of the NBA playoffs. Yet, the future doesn't look much brighter than this past season did.
The Nets don't have their own draft pick, though they will be getting a late first-rounder from the Hawks in a swap. They don't have the cap room to bring in any big-name improvements. Brooklyn has one move: Get better on the margins and hope to get a little lucky.
Maybe the Nets can hit on a minimum deal with someone who outplays his contract. Maybe they can select a rookie who surprises in his first NBA season, which wouldn't actually be shocking. For all the criticism thrown general manager Billy King's way, Brooklyn has actually drafted well in recent years, selecting Mason Plumee in the first round a couple of seasons ago and picking contributors Markel Brown and Cory Jefferson during the second round of last June's draft.
The process doesn't end just because it's more difficult than usual. Quite the contrary. The Nets have a rocky road ahead of them, but in the Eastern Conference, anything is possible.
Brooklyn can compete next year. It just needs most everything to go right.
Bring Back Brook Lopez
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There wasn't a ton of good on the Nets this year, but free-agent-to-be Brook Lopez was the rare exception.
His numbers ended up somewhat underwhelming compared to his previous healthy seasons, but that's a short sighted approach to evaluating his year. Sure, the Nets' best player finished with 17.2 points and 7.4 per game, the lowest in a healthy season since his rookie year, but he really hit his stride during the second half.
That's when Lopez realized he could dominate the mid-paint area with his floater. It's when he took advantage of his advancing pick-and-roll chemistry with Deron Williams, who will almost inevitably stick around given his team-unfriendly contract situation. It's when he started wrecking opponents on the glass.
Most importantly, it's when he clearly started performing like a healthy player for the first time in two years.
Lopez averaged 19.7 points and 9.2 rebounds after the All-Star break. He had a fantastic 14.5 percent offensive rebound rate during that stretch. He did all this while actually maintaining respectable defense, a trait which goes against his reputation, as I wrote last week.
Lopez is going to command a bunch of money if he chooses not to pick up his $16.7 million player option for next season. But the Nets' cap situation is such that the opportunity cost of letting him walk doesn't matter.
Brooklyn would still be over the cap without Lopez. That's what happens when you're paying Williams and Joe Johnson a combined $46 million for next year. So, you might as well bring your best player back and try to make another playoff appearance, since tanking will, once again, be off the table with the 2016 first-round selection going to the Boston Celtics.
Re-Sign Alan Anderson
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He may have started only 19 games, but Anderson, who will also hit free agency this summer, wasn't an obscure Net. Actually, he's one of the team's more silently important players.
After Markel Brown's second-half surge—Brown started Brooklyn's final 29 games of the year—the rookie became the Nets' token best defensive player. And that's true if we're talking on-ball defense. Brown is ferocious when he hounds dribblers, but he's still learning how to defend off the ball. And that's exactly Anderson's forte.
The 32-year-old veteran is the definition of solid, both as a shooter and defender. And most importantly, the Nets can't afford to lose him.
Of course, it's probably not the best sign that Anderson let out, "I'm free, so...I would love to stay in Brooklyn, but I am a free agent. So I will be free" (h/t to Newsday's Rod Boone).
What if Anderson leaves to go somewhere else? Brooklyn all of a sudden loses its best off-ball stopper and doesn't have the cap room to sign an equally capable player, unless someone was willing to take less money (Brooklyn has Anderson's Bird rights, which means it can offer him more than the minimum to re-sign him).
The Nets could use another shooter or two whether they bring Anderson back or not. But his return would make the offseason process just a little smoother.
Bring in More Shooters
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One of Brooklyn's biggest problems this year was shooting.
The Nets sank just 33.1 percent of their three-point shots, ranking 26th in the NBA in long-range accuracy. Some nights were worse than usual, too.
The offense was often bogged down with clank after clank. The Nets would miss open shots. They'd struggle to find uncontested ones. They'd work too hard to create open threes for others.
Of course, part of that had to do with Brooklyn's offensive attack. Jarrett Jack isn't always looking to kick to shooters when he dribbles around ball screens, which is how teams end up with many of their catch-and-shoot opportunities from the outside. Williams will also look inside to a rolling screen-setter before he'll peek at shooters on the edge.
But some of it had to do with personnel.
Of course, the injury to another 2015 free agent, Mirza Teletovic, didn't help Brooklyn's ability to spread, and the Nets could do some good by bringing back their only 4 who likes to stretch to the arc with consistency. But it wouldn't hurt to bring in one or two more shooters for the minimum.
Even Kyle Singler or Luke Babbitt, often afterthoughts, could fill useful roles in Brooklyn. This could also be the direction Brooklyn goes with its late-first-round pick Atlanta will send its way. Bring in shooters and give Lopez a little more space to operate in the middle of the floor, and the offense, which ranked 18th in points per possession, can improve.
Find a Backup Big Man Who Fits
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Part of the reason Lopez didn't break out until the second half of the season was because there wasn't a big man who fit well with him. Once the Nets acquired Thaddeus Young, that all changed. But there still weren't other guys to rotate into the game with Lopez on the floor.
Plumlee was supposed to be that player, especially early in the year, when he looked like the team's best big. How long ago does that feel? Maybe 82 games is too long for a full season.
But there was a problem: Plumlee and Lopez couldn't play together on either side of the ball. And they still can't. Coach Lionel Hollins completely got away from using those two bigs together, and the Nets finished the season getting outscored by 13.7 points per 100 possessions when they shared the floor.
The Nets starting center found success rolling to the basket on offense and hanging around the rim on defense. The problem was that Plumlee has the same tendencies. The basketball geometry never worked.
Lopez is the better player, and if the Nets bring him back to Brooklyn, they need someone to play alongside him aside from Young, who will likely return to the Nets before hitting the free-agent market in the summer of 2016.
Brooklyn has to find a way to bring in another capable big who can shoot and guard outside the paint. And having to let go of Plumlee, who seriously disappointed in the second half of the season, shouldn't prevent the team from doing so.
Unload One of the Big Contracts
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Hindsight is 20/20. Remember that when reading the following sentence.
Remember when Plumlee was the reason the Nets didn't end up unloading Williams' contract earlier in the season? Well, that was a crazy time.
The Nets will and should look to free themselves either of Williams' or Johnson's deal this offseason, even if Johnson only has one more season left on his (Williams will be a free agent in 2017). If Brooklyn is looking to save money—and every action it has made over the past year or so (the Andrei Kirilenko trade, the Williams negotiations with the Sacramento Kings, etc.) says it is—then getting rid of one of those overpaid assets is the best step.
"I'm sure something is going to happen,'' Johnson said, via Newsday's Rod Boone. "I don't know what, but I don't see us coming back with the same team. This is my third year here and I could see if each year we've gotten better, but it's kind of been the opposite. So for us to not even be a .500 ballclub in the East is disheartening.
"I think everybody in that locker room is kind of unsure of their future here, so we'll see what happens going into the summer."
It actually might not be impossible to find someone to take Johnson's contract anymore. It's not exactly an albatross at this stage, with only one year left on it. The Nets wing is, after all, still an above-average player in many facets of the game. If a team has the room and financial capabilities and feels it's a piece away, maybe Johnson is that piece.
The problems come in trying to find a team that has the salaries to match up with the almost $25 million Johnson is owed next season. Maybe it's time for the Nets to hit up the Kings again...
Follow Fred Katz on Twitter at @FredKatz.
Unless otherwise noted, all statistics are current as of May 5 and are courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
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