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Not only are they 12-11 at home and 16-5 away, but they would get Kyrie Irving for potentially 4 games, including games 1 and 2 if they have a road series, vs. at most 3 games (3,4, 5 or 6), if they play at home.

I think the obvious answer from their perspective is "no they are professional athletes, they don't lose games on purpose". But...from a fans perspective, it's an interesting subplot as we get deeper into the season. What would you be rooting for? Do you think it's a viable strategy or the sample size isn't big enough to deduct that maybe this team is better off on the road?

KD and Harris are both out.

All they would need to do is give the rookies more playing time to drop a game here or there.

Don't you think come playoff time the Nets would just let Kyrie play at home and eat the fines? I mean the fines are not that substantial and it could be the difference between winning a championship or not.

There's really no reason to not let him play anymore. To start the season they had Kyrie sit out all the games on "principle" but now that he's playing away games principles have gone out of the window.

I doubt that's a thing. They're good enough to at least win 1 at home against any team. It doesn't matter.

Harry Garris wrote:Don't you think come playoff time the Nets would just let Kyrie play at home and eat the fines? I mean the fines are not that substantial and it could be the difference between winning a championship or not.

There's really no reason to not let him play anymore. To start the season they had Kyrie sit out all the games on "principle" but now that he's playing away games principles have gone out of the window.

Pretty sure Woj corrected the original report. They can't just pay the fines, the league won't allow that.

Nites wrote:I doubt that's a thing. They're good enough to at least win 1 at home against any team. It doesn't matter.

Their .500 record at home and the fact that Kyrie can't play home games doesn't matter?

I mean the logic obviously checks out. Kyrie's impact > home court impact.

The possibility of them "eating the fine" or the unlikely scenario in COVID restrictions being changed can obviously make a difference here, but the Nets are so close to the 5th seed right now anyways that they don't have to worry about this anytime soon. They are likely to organically drop lower until KD returns, and even if they don't, they could easily discretely make up the difference in the last 10-15 games of the season by giving some extra rest.

Harry Garris wrote:Don't you think come playoff time the Nets would just let Kyrie play at home and eat the fines? I mean the fines are not that substantial and it could be the difference between winning a championship or not.

There's really no reason to not let him play anymore. To start the season they had Kyrie sit out all the games on "principle" but now that he's playing away games principles have gone out of the window.

and the vaccine is widely available so the only person kyrie puts at risk is himself

Brooklyn don't have home court advantage anywhere so no sweat off their back

Yeah they should honestly avoid homecourt advantage. Even with this fringe all-nba version of Harden, a team with these three will be too good to beat four times.

Scalabrine wrote:

Nites wrote:I doubt that's a thing. They're good enough to at least win 1 at home against any team. It doesn't matter.

Their .500 record at home and the fact that Kyrie can't play home games doesn't matter?

No, not really. Like I said, they're good enough to beat anyone at least once at home. They only really need the one, and they have 3 to 4 attempts to get it.

I expect that the NYC vaccine mandate will be lifted or altered before the playoffs allowing Kyrie to play. My guess is by the end of March.

It took 2 weeks for Omicron to peak in NYC. The 7 day average has already dropped by about 60% in 9 days, and that's before the new NY math the governor instituted took over.

Can the Nets opt to play their home games in a different arena or is that not even possible?

What about winning all of your opponents in 4-6 games?

Oh, yeah. Well, Boston doesn't even want to make the playoffs - so there!!!

TheNetsFan wrote:I expect that the NYC vaccine mandate will be lifted or altered before the playoffs allowing Kyrie to play. My guess is by the end of March.

It took 2 weeks for Omicron to peak in NYC. The 7 day average has already dropped by about 60% in 9 days, and that's before the new NY math the governor instituted took over.

While we all hope Omicron is the last wave, March will be too early to say whether it is or not.

Imagine if Knicks make a big trade, sneak into postseason to meet Nets in the 1st round. Kyrie can't play at all, one of KD or JH pick up an injury...oops

RiRuHoops wrote:Imagine if Knicks make a big trade, sneak into postseason to meet Nets in the 1st round. Kyrie can't play at all, one of KD or JH pick up an injury...oops

I'm not even sure a big trade is needed. Prior to this three game skid Knicks had gone 10-5. We've had a top 5 defense for 2 months now. RJ Barrett has found his rhythm, all we need to Julius to find his, plus get Rose back and it's totally reasonable to see us at the very least getting into the play-in. We're only .5 game behind the Celtics for 10th and 1.5 behind the 8th seeded Raptors. It's a real possibility even without a roster shake up. Also another reason the Nets should be gunning for that 4th or 5th seed.

I think that trying to use the track records of past performances (Nets home/away record, Nets with/without Kyrie record) is flawed if we don't also consider Kyrie's erratic playoff performances.

Kyrie has been incredible and abysmal in past playoffs. I don't know if it makes a lot of sense to strategize around an unreliable talent if the strategy would otherwise put a Kevin Durant team at a disadvantage.

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Nites wrote:I doubt that's a thing. They're good enough to at least win 1 at home against any team. It doesn't matter.

So you're assuming they sweep the road games? I don't know about other EC teams but there's absolutely zero chance any version of the Nets go 3-0 in Miami assuming the Heat are reasonably healthy