The Brooklyn Nets are no longer considered a championship contender now that Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving are on other teams. While Vegas believes that the Nets will finish with a below-average record, there is one NBA analyst who believes that Brooklyn can finish with a much better record than most are giving them credit for.
John Hollinger of The Athletic recently wrote an article of the five teams in the league that he believes will play better than their respective win total over/unders, according to BetMGM, would indicate. For the purpose of this writing, Hollinger has the over/under for the Nets listed at 36.5 wins which is about where Brooklyn has been throughout the offseason.
Brooklyn no longer has a superstar on the team, but they have some factors to be optimistic about. For starters, as Hollinger points out in his piece, the Nets have some type of draft pick/pick swap that they owe until 2027, including their own unprotected 2024 first-round pick to the Houston Rockets. Brooklyn has little incentive to tank.
Also, the Nets have some promising players on the team in Mikal Bridges, who could be an All-Star this season, Cam Johnson, and Nic Claxton, along with the chance that a fully-healthy Ben Simmons could finally give Brooklyn good production.
Here’s a snippet of what Hollinger had to say about the Nets:
“Even if they stand pat, the Nets roster is more than good enough to achieve pleasantly inoffensive averageness at the very least, and perhaps more. “A bunch of pretty good players” isn’t a great model for advancing deep in the playoffs, but it can tow you a long way through the regular season slog.
I don’t love the bench, but the Nets have what you might call “positive wild cards” in that while we’re not expecting much, they have the ability to overdeliver (Cam Thomas, Ben Simmons, Dennis Smith Jr.). Roll your eyes if you must at the annual Simmons offseason optimism, but if he delivers much of anything, it will help this second unit greatly. Brooklyn also has a lot of flexibility to make moves in-season because of a $19.8 million trade exception from the Joe Harris trade, in addition to those future firsts from Phoenix.”
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