Brooklyn Nets: Time for Change

Following Friday night’s loss to the crosstown New York Knicks, the Brooklyn Nets are 5-14.

While it’s not even a quarter way through the 2015-16 NBA season yet, it is evident that major changes need to be made to this franchise. A good first step is to replace both the coach and general manager at the end of the season, unless the team proves otherwise.

Starting with Game 6 of the first round of last year’s NBA playoffs, the Nets have not shown the willingness to play hard in games, and have instead demonstrated lackluster energy. Aside from Brook Lopez and a couple of other players, the team looks like it doesn’t even want to be on the court.

According to a conversation with The Record about his impending free agency, Joe Johnson is already making plans to leave this summer (if he doesn’t get traded by then) and join a serious title contender, which the Nets are clearly not.

Take Friday’s game against the Knicks, for example. Anyone watching could see that the game was over five minutes into the first quarter. They were unable to score the ball with any consistency and were equally unable to stop the Knicks’ three-point barrage. It’s about time that we start to blame these problems on coach Lionel Hollins and GM Billy King.

Hollins was brought into coach this team, largely based on his defensive-oriented reputation. Through 19 games, the defense is nowhere to be found. The Grizzlies had let Dave Joerger replace Hollins in Memphis, and did not really make a serious push to retain him. Looking back, it looks like Memphis made the right decision. The Hollins hire in Brooklyn was sudden, due to Jason Kidd‘s push for power. Of the two logical candidates, Hollins and Mark Jackson, Jackson was never a realistic option for the front office.

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In regards to Hollins’ system which revolves around Brook Lopez and Thaddeus Young, the Nets have failed to utilize their other options. They are at the bottom of the league in pretty much every three-point statistic, and show no willingness to even attempt them. Although Lopez and Young are good inside players, it would also be smart to spread the floor sometimes and shoot threes.

One common argument is that the Nets’ roster doesn’t consist of any dangerous three-point threats. I think this counter falls apart because the Nets still have Johnson. I know that his shooting hasn’t been very effective this year, but I still trust him to have him take more shots. Just a couple years ago, he was knocking down threes left and right. The best thing for a shooter to do is to keep shooting the ball. We all know that once Joe joins a title contender, his role will be to knock down open threes. Why doesn’t he start now? Against the Knicks, he passed up many open shots in order to distribute the ball. Whether that was his idea or Hollins’s idea, the philosophy needs to change back to what it was a few years ago.

The team has been trending downwards after Kidd left, but GM Billy King was the one who originally got the ball rolling in that direction. By making foolish trades for aging veterans while giving away valuable assets, King has turned the team into a laughing stock. It’s possible that he made those trades under a direct order from the owner, but he didn’t have to throw away all of his draft picks in order to do so. The first thing a general manager has to be competent at is the art of negotiation, which King apparently defines as acquiescing to the other person’s demands.

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Trading away most of your draft picks is bad enough, but giving up on the players you received is even worse. Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett are not what they used to be, but King made no effort to retain Pierce and traded away KG (which was one of the few good things he did). At the time of the trade, I thought the idea of bringing in championship experience was a good thing, but I never liked the price the Nets had to pay in order to get them.

The summers of 2016 and 2017 are supposed to be when all of the big free agents explore their options, but do you really think superstars would want to come to a team which doesn’t have draft picks or a plan? At this point, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if King signs Joakim Noah or Rajon Rondo to a max contract.

Nov 25, 2015; Oklahoma City, OK, USA; Brooklyn Nets head coach Lionel Hollins reacts to a call in action against the Oklahoma City Thunder during the second quarter at Chesapeake Energy Arena. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports

Regarding the current roster, there are more holes than Swiss cheese. They have no outside shooting depth, and are lacking explosive players. All you have to do is take a look and see that Shane Larkin, Andrea Bargnani and Thomas Robinson are on the team. No disrespect to them, but they couldn’t even make the Knicks or 76ers roster. And now, they are receiving significant playing time with the Nets.

To top it all off, owner Mikhail Prokhorov probably doesn’t have any idea of what’s going on with the team. If he did, he wouldn’t allow the GM to clean the mess he himself made. Unless Prokhorov realizes that change is overdue, this franchise isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

I doubt that King or Hollins will get fired midway through the season (they’ll probably get extensions at this rate), but fans would not mind changes being made in the offseason, if the remaining 63 games resemble the first 19.

I would like to see the Nets pursue Tom Thibodeau or Mark Jackson for a dual-role (coach + GM), but I don’t think it will happen under this owner. The Nets have made many changes in recent years, and now it looks like it’s time for another.