Brooklyn Nets have small window to explode roster and begin recent, however they’re unlikely to make use of it

Relaxation assured, there might be no scarcity of dialogue about all of the flawed turns the Brooklyn Nets have taken over the previous few years to finish up the place they’re. The one factor that issues now could be how they transfer ahead. Sean Marks’ first order of enterprise might be discovering a brand new head coach, and CBS Sports activities’ Invoice Reiter has confirmed the a number of studies that it’s going to probably be Ime Udoka who replaces Steve Nash. 

Apparently Kyrie Irving is not offering sufficient controversy on his personal for the Nets. They need to add extra to their PR plate with a coach who was simply suspended for the season by the Celtics for his shady office habits. Clearly Marks thinks Udoka will show to be well worth the headache. He thought the identical of Irving. 

Maybe it is time for Marks to cease making an attempt to avoid wasting a home that is engulfed in flames, and simply let it burn. First, scrap the plan to rent Udoka. Subsequent, eliminate Irving, both by buying and selling him for the pennies he is at the moment price or by merely sending him dwelling. Name the Lakers and inform them you may take Russell Westbrook and simply one in every of their future picks, whichever they select, maybe even with protections, and put Irving on the primary jet to LAX. 

After that, commerce Kevin Durant, who by no means needed to return again to this workforce within the first place. You will get somewhat grasping right here, as Ok.D. is your one All-Star asset with worth that’s really commensurate together with his expertise, however get it performed. Take the haul of draft picks he can deliver again to exchange those you gave to Houston within the James Harden deal, and get on with the rebuild. 

Since we’re on the subject of these picks the Nets owe Houston, here is an vital level: the 2023 choose is a swap, that means the Nets may, in concept, tank the remainder of this season and the worst 2023 draft slot they may find yourself with is Houston’s. 

Instance: Only for the sake of argument, as an example the Nets go into full tank mode, win the lottery, and find yourself with the draft’s No. 1 choose. Houston will take that choose from them, and the Nets will get Houston’s slot, which is an efficient guess to finish up on the higher finish of the lottery as properly. Both that, or the Rockets find yourself with a better choose and the Nets maintain their choose, wherever it falls. 

For the Nets, this would possibly not be a viable alternative for lengthy. They owe their choose outright to the Rockets in 2024. It isn’t a swap. In different phrases, if the Nets postpone their rebuild till subsequent yr, when Irving will nearly actually be gone and there is in all probability a good likelihood Durant reissues his commerce request, they will not have something to realize from dropping. They may go 0-82, land the primary choose and it goes to Houston. Sorry. That is the deal you made. 

In concept, Brooklyn may play the tank technique in 2025, when their take care of Houston can also be a swap, however here is the issue with that: The Rockets owe their 2024 and 2026 first-round picks to Oklahoma Metropolis for Westbrook, that means that is the final season Houston is incentivized to be unhealthy for some time. If Brooklyn waits till 2024-25 to tank, there’s an opportunity, maybe a very good one, that their choose finally ends up higher than Houston’s, by which case they’d lose it through the swap. 

Once more, all of this trivia is to say, if the Nets need to transfer on from this mess and begin their subsequent section of roster constructing, that is arguably their greatest time achieve this. They will not get Victor Wembanyama (in the event that they one way or the other had been to land the No. 1 choose Houston would provoke the swap and take it), however the 2023 draft class is loaded. There’s loads past Wembanyama to be enthusiastic about. 

Chances are high, the Nets usually are not going to go this route. It would not make a lot sense to rent Udoka, and take care of all the luggage he brings, simply to commerce everybody and begin dropping, and certainly, if the trade-everyone-and-tank argument I simply laid out is no less than price contemplating, so too is the argument to maintain this factor collectively. Kevin Durants do not develop on timber, and for as poorly as they’ve performed, that is an especially gifted Nets roster. Perhaps, simply possibly, Udoka reels all of it in. 

But when not, and the Nets make their run this season solely to finish up dropping within the first or second spherical earlier than drafting within the 20s, they are going to have probably missed their final likelihood for some time to kickstart a rebuild with a high-leverage lottery asset of their palms. It is a danger both approach. It isn’t the state of affairs by which the Nets envisioned being after they lured Irving and Durant within the first place. However it’s the place they’re at now. How they received right here would not matter. All that issues is the place they go subsequent.