Absolute Best Case Scenario

[sidestep]

He might have to. Lin is the only person that can dribble in the starting line up.

This is cause for concern. Bogs' handle is quite poor for a wing player. The lack of a secondary playmaker in the starting lineup will have to be compensated by good team passing, good overall execution and lots of transition play.

Would be lovely if LeVert can justify minutes, but early on I think it's more likely that Atkinson plugs in Vasquez instead as the secondary ballhandler in alternate lineups. A two-PG lineup with Lin and Vasquez, and perhaps with Bogs shifting over to the 3 spot. That might actually make Bogs more effective since his slowness can be more hidden guarding 3s instead of 2s.

It would be a luxury if LeVert proves to be a good shooter, but there is no one on this team except Bogs who can catch the ball running at full speed (off screens or in transition) and immediately getting set for a shot. Even if other players surprise as decent or at least league-average 3P shooters, no one else has this skill except Bogs.

Good passing relies heavily on shooters and guys who can successfully get to the rim. you need to force teams to switch and/or force them to close out on shooters. right now, i see now reason why teams would double, or be forced to help and rotate. they can play us straight up and not need help or switch everything and not need help and outside of bogs when we are home there arent really guys you need to close out on.

look at atlanta for example... good passing helps them ALOT more then us because they guy on Korver can leave him. you switch a small onto milsap and its trouble. teague/schroeder could beat their guys and force you to help. all 5 guys could shoot 3s with success.

we need guys who can beat their man off the dribble and need guys who can shoot. right now brook is the only guy who consistently beats his man and gets to the FT line off the dribble and bogs is the only guy who shoots. lin hopefully can do a little of both but even in that case thats 3 guys only.

Sure, good spacing facilitates passing. But superior passing can be had, albeit with more difficulty, with poor spacing. The Memphis case exemplifies this. They've had poor spacing for a long time but have passed well -- a lot of credit to Gasol -- in tight spaces. Lopez is capable of this, though perhaps not at Gasol's level.

Again, the lack of a secondary ballhandler in the starting unit will have to be compensated with superior passing, cutting and screensetting from the team. And compensated by creating more transition opportunities, which is a strength of Lin's game.

The transition game starts with strong defensive rebounding and the starting unit looks very promising in this area. Lopez is very good at boxing out, RHJ is a really good rebounder, especially for a SF, and Booker is a strong hustle guy on the boards. Also, Lin rebounds well for a PG, and Bogs has decent size for that too. Strong rebounding leads to outlet passes for transition buckets. That will partly alleviate the lack of a secondary ballhandler in the half-court offense.

[spaceballer]

The absolutely best scenario IMHO is just beat the super team of the East, the Knicks. Please sweep them.

Pragmatically speaking, it would be better for the Nets to beat the Celtics due to the pick swap, so that such wins would have tangible benefits at season's end.

As I understand it, the Nets would not benefit from the draft by beating the Celtics. Boston will certainly exercise their right to swap for the Nets 1st round pick, regardless of our season record or theirs; and the Nets will get Boston's 2nd round pick in return.

The only 'benefit' to be had is basically giving a F U to Buston, by sabotaging the quality of that 1st round pick. (Celtics fans are so obnoxious about it that it would serve them right.) But that would have no effect on the 2nd round pick that the Nets will get.

The Nets benefit by beating the Celtics because the more losses the Celtics have, the better the Celtics pick would be. Since it's almost a virtual certainty that the Celtics will exercise the pick swap, the Celtics pick would then be conveyed to the Nets in the pick swap. So the Nets beating the Celtics would make the Celtics record one win less, meaning it gives the Nets a slightly better pick at the end of the season (insofar as that couple of extra wins or losses may affect the Celtics draft position) when they take the Celtics pick as a result of the pick swap.

They play each other 4 times this season. So four more losses instead of four more wins can alter the draft position slightly of the Celtics pick that will be conveyed to the Nets in the pick swap. Though obviously that's overly optimistic and unlikely that the Nets win all 4 matches (or even one, possibly, lol). But this is the absolute best case scenario thread So it does pragmatically help the Nets more to beat the Celtics than to beat any other team.

[Prokorov]

This is cause for concern. Bogs' handle is quite poor for a wing player. The lack of a secondary playmaker in the starting lineup will have to be compensated by good team passing, good overall execution and lots of transition play.

Would be lovely if LeVert can justify minutes, but early on I think it's more likely that Atkinson plugs in Vasquez instead as the secondary ballhandler in alternate lineups. A two-PG lineup with Lin and Vasquez, and perhaps with Bogs shifting over to the 3 spot. That might actually make Bogs more effective since his slowness can be more hidden guarding 3s instead of 2s.

It would be a luxury if LeVert proves to be a good shooter, but there is no one on this team except Bogs who can catch the ball running at full speed (off screens or in transition) and immediately getting set for a shot. Even if other players surprise as decent or at least league-average 3P shooters, no one else has this skill except Bogs.

Good passing relies heavily on shooters and guys who can successfully get to the rim. you need to force teams to switch and/or force them to close out on shooters. right now, i see now reason why teams would double, or be forced to help and rotate. they can play us straight up and not need help or switch everything and not need help and outside of bogs when we are home there arent really guys you need to close out on.

look at atlanta for example... good passing helps them ALOT more then us because they guy on Korver can leave him. you switch a small onto milsap and its trouble. teague/schroeder could beat their guys and force you to help. all 5 guys could shoot 3s with success.

we need guys who can beat their man off the dribble and need guys who can shoot. right now brook is the only guy who consistently beats his man and gets to the FT line off the dribble and bogs is the only guy who shoots. lin hopefully can do a little of both but even in that case thats 3 guys only.

Sure, good spacing facilitates passing. But superior passing can be had, albeit with more difficulty, with poor spacing. The Memphis case exemplifies this. They've had poor spacing for a long time but have passed well -- a lot of credit to Gasol -- in tight spaces. Lopez is capable of this, though perhaps not at Gasol's level.

Again, the lack of a secondary ballhandler in the starting unit will have to be compensated with superior passing, cutting and screensetting from the team. And compensated by creating more transition opportunities, which is a strength of Lin's game.

The transition game starts with strong defensive rebounding and the starting unit looks very promising in this area. Lopez is very good at boxing out, RHJ is a really good rebounder, especially for a SF, and Booker is a strong hustle guy on the boards. Also, Lin rebounds well for a PG, and Bogs has decent size for that too. Strong rebounding leads to outlet passes for transition buckets. That will partly alleviate the lack of a secondary ballhandler in the half-court offense.

memphis offense hasnt been good, not something id strive to be... i mean do we want to be a poor mans version of a poor offense?

superior passing doesnt help with a bunch of bench players/poor finsihers/poor shooters/low talent guys. again, this is the NBA, not hickory high. elite passing turns good teams into great ones. it doesnt do much for awful teams, and is basically unachieveable since we dont have many high iq guys or quality passers. its bascially grevis/scola/lin and 2 of those 3 wont play much.

[Prokorov]

The transition game starts with strong defensive rebounding and the starting unit looks very promising in this area. Lopez is very good at boxing out, RHJ is a really good rebounder, especially for a SF, and Booker is a strong hustle guy on the boards. Also, Lin rebounds well for a PG, and Bogs has decent size for that too. Strong rebounding leads to outlet passes for transition buckets. That will partly alleviate the lack of a secondary ballhandler in the half-court offense.

transition game starts with getting stops. we were the 29th ranked defense last year and are unlikely to be much better this year.

[sidestep]

The transition game starts with strong defensive rebounding and the starting unit looks very promising in this area. Lopez is very good at boxing out, RHJ is a really good rebounder, especially for a SF, and Booker is a strong hustle guy on the boards. Also, Lin rebounds well for a PG, and Bogs has decent size for that too. Strong rebounding leads to outlet passes for transition buckets. That will partly alleviate the lack of a secondary ballhandler in the half-court offense.

transition game starts with getting stops. we were the 29th ranked defense last year and are unlikely to be much better this year.

I think you know what I meant. I was not going to put forth that the team will be good at getting stops, and instead focused on something else.

I know it hurts you to hear anything positive, but please show some pain tolerance.

[MrDollarBills]

Defense should be somewhat better though with Lin-RHJ-Booker.

[Prokorov]

Defense should be somewhat better though with Lin-RHJ-Booker.

for sure... thad worked hard but was poor and played with low IQ. RHJ's metrics on D were off the charts when healthy. Lin may or may not be a huge upgrade but he probably wont be much worse if at all.

bogs ( i hope) cant possibly get worse.

issue is how much of a bump? 29 to 24?

[MrDollarBills]

Defense should be somewhat better though with Lin-RHJ-Booker.

for sure... thad worked hard but was poor and played with low IQ. RHJ's metrics on D were off the charts when healthy. Lin may or may not be a huge upgrade but he probably wont be much worse if at all.

bogs ( i hope) cant possibly get worse.

issue is how much of a bump? 29 to 24?

from what I saw from Lin defensively its an upgrade from Jack who was a sieve.

problem is, of course, can't switch on 1-5 P n R plays because of Lopez's footspeed and once again we have a wing who is a liability on D in Bojan. Lopez's shortcomings would be a bit more masked if we had a 2 guard that was two way. Still, I can't put a number on the improvement. Depends on how well the team defense looks as well with Booker and RHJ out there. Just having a full season (we hope) of RHJ should do wonders for the defense overall added with better defense from Booker at the 4. We should be a solid rebounding team next season as well. I don't doubt we should be a team that will play hard for four qtrs just like last season but again, talent will trump our efforts.

Every Net fan needs to seriously be rooting for Caris LeVert to make Marks look like a genius because he's the only wing I see could be a legit two way guy that slide right in next to RHJ if he adapts quickly to the NBA game. Nevermind the fact that we need a second ball handler. I think Bojan and RHJ are a bad fit and the line up numbers I saw last year were not good.

[sidestep]

Defense should be somewhat better though with Lin-RHJ-Booker.

for sure... thad worked hard but was poor and played with low IQ. RHJ's metrics on D were off the charts when healthy. Lin may or may not be a huge upgrade but he probably wont be much worse if at all.

bogs ( i hope) cant possibly get worse.

issue is how much of a bump? 29 to 24?

You're still using last year as a baseline to compare additions/subtraction to the roster but how is last year even relevant to this year?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BRK/2016_depth.html

Of all the guys who got at least 800 minutes last year (roughly 10 min per game), only 2 guys are still on the team: bogs and brook. 2 guys! and there's a new coach too, and you're still talking about how much of a 'bump' compared to last year. how does that make any sense? this is a vastly different team.

[reelsgm]

Defense should be somewhat better though with Lin-RHJ-Booker.

for sure... thad worked hard but was poor and played with low IQ. RHJ's metrics on D were off the charts when healthy. Lin may or may not be a huge upgrade but he probably wont be much worse if at all.

bogs ( i hope) cant possibly get worse.

issue is how much of a bump? 29 to 24?

You're still using last year as a baseline to compare additions/subtraction to the roster but how is last year even relevant to this year?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BRK/2016_depth.html

Of all the guys who got at least 800 minutes last year (roughly 10 min per game), only 2 guys are still on the team: bogs and brook. 2 guys! and there's a new coach too, and you're still talking about how much of a 'bump' compared to last year. how does that make any sense? this is a vastly different team.

Not to mention a ridiculous 6 guys now out of the NBA (or still looking): Bargnani, Larkin, Sloan, Karasev, Brown and Sims. And another 3 who missed 50 games each: Jack, RHJ and McCullough.

These might as well be 2 completely different teams what with the coaching/FO changes as well, makes virtually no sense to compare the two. Makes about as much sense as comparing these Nets to the Pacers, since after all they now have Thaddeus Young.

[Prokorov]

You're still using last year as a baseline to compare additions/subtraction to the roster but how is last year even relevant to this year?

because we basically return 3 starters (bogs/brook and RHJ) and have the same defensive liabilities starting as last year (bogs, who was bargani level bad, and brook, whose issue are well documented.)

is booker and upgrade to thad? sure he is. is RHJ for a full season a nice boost? absolutely.

but neither is heloing in 1-5 pick and rolls. neither is going to prevent bogs from being a major liability. every major defensive issue we had defensively last year is still there.

we dont have many defenders, and we dont have defenders in two of the most impactful defensive positions (C and 1 of the 2 wing spots).

Of all the guys who got at least 800 minutes last year (roughly 10 min per game), only 2 guys are still on the team: bogs and brook

right, the 2 guys who are most responsible for us being a bottom 2 team defensively.

[Prokorov]

for sure... thad worked hard but was poor and played with low IQ. RHJ's metrics on D were off the charts when healthy. Lin may or may not be a huge upgrade but he probably wont be much worse if at all.

bogs ( i hope) cant possibly get worse.

issue is how much of a bump? 29 to 24?

You're still using last year as a baseline to compare additions/subtraction to the roster but how is last year even relevant to this year?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BRK/2016_depth.html

Of all the guys who got at least 800 minutes last year (roughly 10 min per game), only 2 guys are still on the team: bogs and brook. 2 guys! and there's a new coach too, and you're still talking about how much of a 'bump' compared to last year. how does that make any sense? this is a vastly different team.

Not to mention a ridiculous 6 guys now out of the NBA (or still looking): Bargnani, Larkin, Sloan, Karasev, Brown and Sims. And another 3 who missed 50 games each: Jack, RHJ and McCullough.

These might as well be 2 completely different teams what with the coaching/FO changes as well, makes virtually no sense to compare the two. Makes about as much sense as comparing these Nets to the Pacers, since after all they now have Thaddeus Young.

but we just replaced those bench/dleague types with more bench/dleague types.

and our 2 biggest d liabilities are back as starters

[sidestep]

You're still using last year as a baseline to compare additions/subtraction to the roster but how is last year even relevant to this year?

because we basically return 3 starters (bogs/brook and RHJ) and have the same defensive liabilities starting as last year (bogs, who was bargani level bad, and brook, whose issue are well documented.)

is booker and upgrade to thad? sure he is. is RHJ for a full season a nice boost? absolutely.

but neither is heloing in 1-5 pick and rolls. neither is going to prevent bogs from being a major liability. every major defensive issue we had defensively last year is still there.

we dont have many defenders, and we dont have defenders in two of the most impactful defensive positions (C and 1 of the 2 wing spots).

Of all the guys who got at least 800 minutes last year (roughly 10 min per game), only 2 guys are still on the team: bogs and brook

right, the 2 guys who are most responsible for us being a bottom 2 team defensively.

Okay, Brooklyn's defense was the second worst in the league last year. So, you're saying that two guys, Lopez and Bogs, bear the majority of the responsibility for that? Is that what you're saying?

[MrDollarBills]

for sure... thad worked hard but was poor and played with low IQ. RHJ's metrics on D were off the charts when healthy. Lin may or may not be a huge upgrade but he probably wont be much worse if at all.

bogs ( i hope) cant possibly get worse.

issue is how much of a bump? 29 to 24?

You're still using last year as a baseline to compare additions/subtraction to the roster but how is last year even relevant to this year?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BRK/2016_depth.html

Of all the guys who got at least 800 minutes last year (roughly 10 min per game), only 2 guys are still on the team: bogs and brook. 2 guys! and there's a new coach too, and you're still talking about how much of a 'bump' compared to last year. how does that make any sense? this is a vastly different team.

Not to mention a ridiculous 6 guys now out of the NBA (or still looking): Bargnani, Larkin, Sloan, Karasev, Brown and Sims. And another 3 who missed 50 games each: Jack, RHJ and McCullough.

These might as well be 2 completely different teams what with the coaching/FO changes as well, makes virtually no sense to compare the two. Makes about as much sense as comparing these Nets to the Pacers, since after all they now have Thaddeus Young.

This doesn't mean much. There could be guys on this roster that end up out of the NBA next offseason too.

[MrDollarBills]

You're still using last year as a baseline to compare additions/subtraction to the roster but how is last year even relevant to this year?

because we basically return 3 starters (bogs/brook and RHJ) and have the same defensive liabilities starting as last year (bogs, who was bargani level bad, and brook, whose issue are well documented.)

is booker and upgrade to thad? sure he is. is RHJ for a full season a nice boost? absolutely.

but neither is heloing in 1-5 pick and rolls. neither is going to prevent bogs from being a major liability. every major defensive issue we had defensively last year is still there.

we dont have many defenders, and we dont have defenders in two of the most impactful defensive positions (C and 1 of the 2 wing spots).

Of all the guys who got at least 800 minutes last year (roughly 10 min per game), only 2 guys are still on the team: bogs and brook

right, the 2 guys who are most responsible for us being a bottom 2 team defensively.

disagree here.

I don't think you can single out Brook regarding our defense last year when we had holes at PG, SF, and PF last year defensively. Brook is still good vs bigs one on one and he provides shot blocking. Its not just "brook and bojan kill our defense".

Lin, RHJ, Booker on D is better than Jack, Johnson, and Young on d. so we should see at least some difference.

[reelsgm]

You're still using last year as a baseline to compare additions/subtraction to the roster but how is last year even relevant to this year?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BRK/2016_depth.html

Of all the guys who got at least 800 minutes last year (roughly 10 min per game), only 2 guys are still on the team: bogs and brook. 2 guys! and there's a new coach too, and you're still talking about how much of a 'bump' compared to last year. how does that make any sense? this is a vastly different team.

Not to mention a ridiculous 6 guys now out of the NBA (or still looking): Bargnani, Larkin, Sloan, Karasev, Brown and Sims. And another 3 who missed 50 games each: Jack, RHJ and McCullough.

These might as well be 2 completely different teams what with the coaching/FO changes as well, makes virtually no sense to compare the two. Makes about as much sense as comparing these Nets to the Pacers, since after all they now have Thaddeus Young.

This doesn't mean much. There could be guys on this roster that end up out of the NBA next offseason too.

If we get to that bridge next season then you'll have made a point. In the meantime know that the Nets far and away led the league in guys booted out of the NBA. Roughly 2.5 is average per team.

[Johnstarks]

Defense should be somewhat better though with Lin-RHJ-Booker.

for sure... thad worked hard but was poor and played with low IQ. RHJ's metrics on D were off the charts when healthy. Lin may or may not be a huge upgrade but he probably wont be much worse if at all.

bogs ( i hope) cant possibly get worse.

issue is how much of a bump? 29 to 24?

You're still using last year as a baseline to compare additions/subtraction to the roster but how is last year even relevant to this year?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BRK/2016_depth.html

Of all the guys who got at least 800 minutes last year (roughly 10 min per game), only 2 guys are still on the team: bogs and brook. 2 guys! and there's a new coach too, and you're still talking about how much of a 'bump' compared to last year. how does that make any sense? this is a vastly different team.

Well on offense we measure "usage" rates. Think of brook lopez as having a high "usage" rate for your defense. If you have a bad defensive center he will be put into a ton of PNR's which tend to lead to a compromised defense because they either give up open perimeter jumpers or allow penetration which leads to scrambled rotations. Having a weak defensive center pretty much assures that you won't be a top half defensive team unless you surrounded it with elite defenders. Something like chris paul, danny green, rhj, mkg, and lopez would probably be able to overcome their defensive issues. But you start subbing out all world defenders for avg guys like lin and terrible defenders like bogs and it all comes apart.

This is why okafor trade value is so low.. and guys like kanter, vuce vic, etc don't have much value... and biyombo got 4/ $72. And thompson got 5/ $82. Defense from the center spot is vital. Heck evendors Mozgov got 4/ $64 and noah 4/ $72 and no one is even sure those guys are playable anymore.

Do Howard got 3/ $70 and he can't even touch his toes anymore his flexibility issues are so dire

[MrDollarBills]

what are some good metrics to gauge Brook's defensive impact vs the 1-5 PnR?

[cl2117]

As a Celtics fan I'm obviously fairly invested in the Nets at the moment, but more in a sadistic sort of way. So really the best case scenario for you would be my worst case scenario (no offense). So here's my worst case scenario from the C's perspective:

When I look at the Nets roster, I'm not going to lie, I get really excited at the prospect of that 2017 pick swap. That being said what worries me is the fact that although as a team the Nets aren't exactly intimidating I think there is enough individual talent where they could will the team to wins in individual games. And while that won't be nearly enough to have them chase for a playoff spot, I think it could be enough to play spoiler both for the C's and down the stretch as other teams fight for those last spots.

Brook is pretty much the epitome of this for me. He's got enough talent where he can literally carry the Nets with his offense when he gets going and I could easily see that being the difference maker in say 10+ games where the Nets pull out wins.

Lin is another prime candidate for that kind of impact. I watched him play some last year in Charlotte and he was solid, but there were times he was able to take games over in a way that was very reminiscent of Linsanity and I could see him do that for a similar number of games as Lopez.

Then you've got Booker, RHJ, Scola and Bojan who I think are all candidates to have similar games. Bojan in particular I think, especially after the Olympics, seems poised to go off occasionally. And then since we're doing the best case scenario I think RHJ being able to have a similar impact would be amazing for Brooklyn both for this season and going forward. Personally I see him less as the kind of player who is going take the game over and more as the kind of player who is going to make the winning play when it counts and be steadfast throughout.

I think best case scenario you get around 10 games from Brook, 5 games from Lin, 10 games from those other 4 (possibly Levert towards the end of the season?) and then you combine that with teams blowing it against BKN and a handful of "team" wins where everyone just does their job and pulls it out and you've got close to 35+ wins.

That's best case scenario record wise. then I think in terms of development giving RHJ a ton of minutes really should produce some good results, I'm high on him as a future glue guy. I think Levert if healthy could be a real steal for you. And I love Lin's contract (well really I hate it, but love it for you) and I think he could easily outperform it.

Lastly best case for the draft is the C's getting hit with some injuries up front with Horford or with IT and struggle because of it, you take control of what you can and win all 4 games against us, and then end up with a late teens pick in the'17 draft.

As far as worst case scenario (my best case scenario) I think you guys could really struggle at the start of the season to get your footing based on the turnover you've seen and then even after that I think depth is going to be a big issue. The problem being that even on those nights that Brook is feeling it (and/or one of the other guys mentioned) it might not be enough because of how poor your second unit is going to be and because it could just get overpowered by teams that have better players who also have great nights.

The absolutely best scenario IMHO is just beat the super team of the East, the Knicks. Please sweep them.

Pragmatically speaking, it would be better for the Nets to beat the Celtics due to the pick swap, so that such wins would have tangible benefits at season's end.

As I understand it, the Nets would not benefit from the draft by beating the Celtics. Boston will certainly exercise their right to swap for the Nets 1st round pick, regardless of our season record or theirs; and the Nets will get Boston's 2nd round pick in return.

The only 'benefit' to be had is basically giving a F U to Buston, by sabotaging the quality of that 1st round pick. (Celtics fans are so obnoxious about it that it would serve them right.) But that would have no effect on the 2nd round pick that the Nets will get.

Just to clarify the Nets will receive Boston's first round pick this year not their second round pick, hopefully that perks your day up a bit. So for this year Boston would have swapped with BKN to take #3 and then the Nets would have gotten #23.

So it would benefit the Nets to beat the C's both as an F U, but also potentially to improve that pick. You could potentially get something like a 5 slot swing from say #23 to #18 with 4 extra losses on the C's record depending on how things shake out (and vice versa it could push the Nets pick out of the top 5).

[Prokorov]

Okay, Brooklyn's defense was the second worst in the league last year. So, you're saying that two guys, Lopez and Bogs, bear the majority of the responsibility for that? Is that what you're saying?

a huge role in it, yes. your talking about 2 of the 3 most important defensive positions Wing and Center. if you cant defend the wing and cant defend pick and rolls your not going to be very good defensively