The Nets made some major moves this past week to get younger and gain draft assets. Where do you think the pick that they owe us in 2024 will fall? Ideally we will get some lottery balls at the end of the 2024 regular season.
There's no way of knowing this at this point without having an idea of what direction the nets are heading. They have a number of good wings on their roster they can flip for picks and an owner who spends. Once the nets start making some moves will give a much better sign of what direction they're heading whether its a full rebuild or trying to remain a playoff team in the east
Do they have any incentive to tank? Also the east is generally a quagmire of mediocrity. I'd say mid lottery is most likely but the confidence interval is across the board.
My guess is late lottery. I expect them to compete for the play-in next year and perhaps make the playoffs depending on what moves they make. A lot can happen between now and then though.
its 100% irrelevant and distracting even...you either know ball and can work with any pick or you dont know ball and no top pick will ever help you because it takes good coaching/management/culture to develop even the best talent or at least not to ruin it... 1 find a good GM 2 let him find a good coaching staff 3 and create good culture >>>>>>>>> all top picks in the next 10 years
They are headed to middle of the road, yes the owner will spend but so will many other big market teams in the coming seasons. They are and have been a mess. Now they no longer have high end talent. Unlike the Rockets they don't have quality youth that could grow. Like Yolo said they could change directions but even if they did I see them no better than middle of the road 2024. My guess is since they have no reason to tank they will try and find a star to sign with them but the star will be overpaid and not elite so 2026 will be a decent pick to middle of the road again. I am not surprised one bit it imploded, I had several trying to tell me Harden was going to get them a ring several years in a row. I stood by they better win it the first year he was there or the pressure would make him crumble and then the rest would follow. Stone did fine.
they haven't had an offseason to rebuild. remember they have a lot of picks and desirable players now to be buyers next year. they could be around 500 and a borderline playoff team (or better if a star hits the trade market) for the rest of their obligation to us.
Maybe, but I am optimistic. They're being tied down by Ben Simmon's completely untradeable contract until 25-26 and will have zero cap space going into next season. Mikal Bridges is on a great contract, but I wouldn't think they'd be looking to trade him if they have intentions of competing. He's a great core player. And they have two more years of Spencer Dinwiddie and Joe Harris on their 20 million a year contracts - (not a bad contract for Dinwiddie but Harris's contract is a liability these days). They also have 3 more years of Dorian Finney-Smith but I suspect if they were making a trade he would be part of the trade filler. Everybody loves a 3&D wing. The big take away here is that just in Simmons and Harris they have 55 million in essentially dead salary for the next two seasons. If their intention is to continue competing, they'll have big decisions to make after next season when Dinwiddie, O'Neal, Claxton, and Cam Johnson will all be free agents. It will also be interesting to see what they do with Yuta Watanabe. He's really played his role this year and he's going to be an unrestricted free agent this offseason. I could see all or most of those guys getting significant pay raises. So one would think you'd need to include some of them in an outgoing deal too if you're retooling. Otherwise you're just going to be stuck with no cap room and essentially this same roster. It's possible they can re-tool, but man, Simmons is really going to be a huge obstacle in that. It's hard competing when your highest paid player is sitting on the bench getting minutes Josh Christopher wouldn't consider significant. I agree that it's possible they could use their picks and maybe an expiring Joe Harris and a spare 3-D wing next year to get a star (though it's highly unlikely they'll get anyone near the level of Durant), I think it's more likely they don't get that lucky and they're stuck waiting until Simmons expires before they can even really begin their rebuild. I'm pretty stoked on our chances. It seems to me that even in a worst case scenario those picks are going to be significantly more valuable than they were expected to be when we sent them Harden to create one of the more formidable big threes in NBA history.
Went 12-15 after the trade (11-13 with the Bridges/Claxton/Dinwiddie/Finney-Smith/Johnson lineup) Swept in the first round $40M anchor (2023-24: $37,893,408 | 2024-25: $40,338,144) Johnson & Curry free agents
Hold onto that 2024 pick. Who knows where the nets end up next year. With the flattening of lotto odds the way they are, it could be another opportunity for a top 3 pick.
I dont think they make the postseason as is and they can’t really improve their roster without trading out Simmons. And marks might be the worst gm in The game
Harden with 11 assists and only 3 TOs in 40 minutes, helping his team clinch a sweep without Embiid. Yet people will say he shat the bed in the playoffs "again" because he shot poorly and finished with only 17 points.
Amazingly enough, this way-too-early thread from February has been bumped and is still way too early. At least wait until after free agency/summer.
Their record since the trade deadline would place them approximately around #8-10 next season. That would be about a 25-30% chance at a top 4 pick, and otherwise back end of the top 10. They don't have cap space or trade assets to make significant upgrades in the offseason. They don't own any good draft picks any time soon--just a few Phoenix and Philly draft picks which could literally be in the 25-30 range. They are deep in the luxury tax and have no practical way to free up space. Their only real chance at serious improvement is if Ben Simmons magically turns into a healthy, hardworking player who immediately begins living up to his potential. Other than that, we're looking at a lottery pick IMO. I think Stone could sell some teams on this being a mid-lottery pick in the lead-up to this year's draft. Maybe it's enough to move up from #4 or #5 and get Scoot if he lands on a guard-rich squad like Charlotte, Detroit, or Indiana, for example.
Also, this is a repeater team. If we throw a 3 year 35m front loaded deal at Johnson, we can either 1.) hurt them financially making it almost impossible to make any other moves on an already mediocre team or 2.) Steal a decent player away and improve our draft pick.
I dunno, it appears that they will have a hard time staying where they are much less improving that team. If they are in the tax they will be repeaters and that's costly. They have only $15m between the current numbers and the tax line. They have no premium draft picks but do have two #1 picks at #21 & #22 that will be in the books, assuming they aren't traded, for about $3m each eating into that $15m between them and the tax line. They could easily lose Cam Johnson even though he's RFA, a team giving him a big enough deal to push them into the tax isn't hard to imagine. It's likely. They cannot match an offer for him above $12m and use the NT-MLE without exceeding the apron and this does not account for the above draft picks $$. They do have an $18m trade exception .... but again, that would instantly push them into the luxury tax with no other avenues of improvement. They'll have the MLE to use but that caps them at the apron of $170m and they couldn't use both the MLE and their $18m trade exception as they'd be over the apron. 146+18+12=176. It's going to be hard for them to get better the next two seasons - Simmons contract and the picks owed the Rockets are really hurting them.
