The Brooklyn Nets have not had a good season to this point as a 13-10 start has devolved into a 21-33 record heading into the All-Star break. While Brooklyn is just 2.5 games behind the Atlanta Hawks for the 10th seed in the Eastern Conference, the final play-in tournament spot, this season has not been what everyone has expected.
Coming into the 2023-24 campaign, the Nets were expected to be one of the teams in the NBA with a losing record, but just narrowly missing the postseason. However, there were some outlets who predicted that the best case scenario for Brooklyn would be making the play-in tournament if they played above expectations.
With the Nets beginning the season at a 13-10 record, which had them on pace to win 46 games, it had appeared to everyone that Brooklyn was going to be better than originally thought. However, the bottom has fallen out for the Nets since then as they are just 8-23 from that point on due to a variety of issues throughout the organization.
One of the themes of this season following Brooklyn’s uninspiring performance heading into the All-Star break has been the growing presence of fans cheering for the visiting team instead of the Nets. Nets guard Mikal Bridges recently described on an episode of the “Roommates Show” podcast what it was like to hear the fans at Barclays Center cheering for the New York Knicks instead of the Nets:
“No, that wasn’t fun, you know? If we would have won, then I would’ve just been like aha, but, we lost so that wasn’t really fun. Especially, it was the play when y’all (the Knicks) got the block and then Julius (Randle) got the dunk. That’s when it really blew me. Just the reaction off the block was crazy.”
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