Brooklyn Nets: A realistic look at next season’s starting lineup

Unlike their friends over at Madison Square Garden, the Brooklyn Nets have a fantastic chance to make a big splash in free agency.

Just like every other team in the NBA, this draft and free agency window is incredibly important into building a championship caliber team. There won’t be a better opportunity to get the pieces necessary to build that next possible dynasty for years to come. Most organizations have chances to sign marquee names this offseason, but the Brooklyn Nets may have the best odds of them all to pick up big-time players.

Point Guard: D’Angelo Russell

There’s a lot of recent speculation going around that Kyrie Irving is going to sign with the Nets at the start of Free Agency on July 1st, but god I hope not.

If Brooklyn acquired Irving, it would be a sure-fire waste of D’Angelo Russell‘s talent. There are two things that I’ve learned by watching both Irving and Russell perform for their respective teams this year. First, as the leader of the team, Irving is not suited to go out and play alongside young, developing players on a nightly basis. We saw his clash of personalities with young stars such as Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Terry Rozier. What makes fans think he’ll be able to change at all playing with Caris LeVert or Jarrett Allen?

Second, Russell (22) could almost be considered a better all-around player at his current age than Irving when he was 22 in Cleveland.

I’m not saying that the above stats will lead to Russell automatically becoming a better player than Irving based off of their seasons at 22 years old. Though, I am saying that based off of the basic development of an NBA player, it makes sense that the current Nets star will only improve with time and become even more so than he already is. Bottom line, it would be a massive mistake if the Nets let go of a guy Russell and let him take his talents to any other team.