FITTING IN
How Nets can make it work in Year 1 with Kyrie
No one saw it coming until it was too late: The Nets swooped in at the 11th hour and stole Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant and DeAndre Jordan from the Knicks, then gave D’Angelo Russell a $117 million max deal and a first-class ticket to Golden State as a thank-you for his services.
Brooklyn won free agency. Now it has a loaded roster in the Eastern Conference, even if Durant doesn’t play next season while recovering from his ruptured Achilles. But what exactly will this team look like on the court? The pieces can absolutely fit together, so long as Kenny Atkinson mixes and matches them properly.
The Nets didn’t just land their new
Big Three of Irving,
Durant and Jordan; they also traded for Atlanta’s Taurean
Prince, and drafted rookies Nic Claxton and Jaylen Hands. Throw veteran guard Garrett Temple into the mix for good measure, too. Brooklyn is poised to significantly improve on their first playoff season of the Sean Marks and Kenny Atkinson era. They may have lost Russell, DeMarre Carroll, Ed Davis and potentially Jared Dudley, but Brooklyn has enough sauce.
Irving will replace Russell and start at point guard. He’s one of the most dazzling offensive talents to ever step on a basketball court; a scoring machine and big-time bucket-getter with a penchant for delivering under pressure (the 2019 Conference Finals notwithstanding). Irving and Russell have similar play styles. They’re both ball-dominant, pick-and-roll heavy guards able to light it up from downtown.
Russell, though, relied on pickand-roll action on about half of his offensive possessions, according to data from Synergy Sports Technology, while Irving relied on screens less that 30 percent of the time. The numbers can be an imperfect science: Irving shot a better percentage and averaged more points per pick-and-roll possession than Russell, who used more screens to generate his offense.
Brooklyn, however, relied on pick-and-roll offense with the seventh-highest frequency in the NBA in part because Russell needed screens to compensate for an inability to get around sticky defenders. Irving needs no such help. He has superior ball-handling skills that allow him to reduce a defender to ash in a way Russell may never replicate. He also made nearly half his shots in isolation scenarios. But Irving’s handles have historically lent themselves to instances of over-dribbling and hero ball.
This will be part of Atkinson’s challenge: Ensuring Irving gets his cake but feeds the other players on this roster, too.
The more space Irving has to operate, the better. He will break the defense down, and when the help comes, Irving is capable of making the right decision. That means the Nets should be starting both Joe Harris and Caris LeVert on the wings alongside Irving, just like last season with Russell. It provides two capable shooters — including one who defeated Stephen Curry in last year’s three-point shootout — to spread the floor, plus another playmaker who can shoulder a load when Irving needs a blow.
Remember: LeVert was making the team his own before his injury redirected ownership to Russell. Irving, Harris and LeVert alone provide Brooklyn a chance to score efficiently at all three positions. The front court, however, raises a few more questions than answers.
For starters, what does Brooklyn do at the four? Last season, the Nets split the power forward minutes between rookie Rodions Kurucs, and veterans Dudley and Carroll. Du
rant makes sense here once he returns from injury, but that can is kicked down the road until 2020. This season, Atkinson could give the nod to Prince, whose minutes at the four in Atlanta last season were more productive than his minutes anywhere else on the floor. At his best, Prince can hit threes, run the floor and defend multiple positions. The Hawks, however, did not receive Prince’s best last season. At just 25 years old, there’s hope he can rebound for the Nets.
Center is a different sort of conundrum. Jarrett Allen is coming off of a standout sophomore season, but the Nets just gave Jordan four years worth $40 million. Allen is also turning into a capable corner three-point shooter. Jordan will turn 31 before the regular season begins and has seen his athletic gifts begin to diminish. He can mentor Allen the same way he took Mitchell Robinson under his wing, while providing key minutes off the bench. The Nets also have rookie Claxton, an athletic, defensive big who can earn minutes in spurts, too.
One thing is for sure, and that’s that Brooklyn has options. Spencer Dinwiddie will be a Sixth Man of the Year candidate next season, but the Nets would be negligent not to experiment with an Irving-Dinwiddie lineup. LeVert is also an offense initiator, someone who can put the ball on the floor, run the pick-and-roll and create for shots for his teammates. There will be opportunities for him as the sole facilitator in instances with Irving on the bench.
This is Kenny Atkinson’s jigsaw puzzle, and he’ll be tasked with making all sorts of irregular, oddly-shaped pieces fit into a better puzzle this year than Brooklyn constructed last season. The Nets will run and gun, they’ll run the pick-androll, and also move the ball in Atkinson’s freeflowing pace-and-space offense.
Of course, there’s a saving grace: Durant, the ultimate puzzle piece, will return in 2020. No matter what Brooklyn does this season, they’ll end up re-piecing it around Durant and Irving next summer, too.