GIVE IT A REST
Nets won’t allow fatigue from China trip to spoil early season
The Nets are days away from their season opener against the Timberwolves, but their preseason trip to China has followed them home in more ways than one.
After getting crushed by the reigning NBA champion Raptors in their preseason finale Friday, coach Kenny Atkinson said he could see the fatigue in his team. However, the Nets feel like they’ve done everything they can to prevent the lingering effects of a travel hangover.
“When we came back there was special protocol,” Atkinson said at practice last week. “It wasn’t like we were coming back from Philly or something. We had a plan in place, put together by our performance team obviously, and we adhere to it. I think we knew this when we first added the trip that was going to be important, how we treated this week.”
Historically, some NBA teams who compete in China during the preseason struggle upon return and start slowly. Last year, the Mavericks started 3-7 — including a six-game losing streak — after playing the Sixers, who lost three of their first five regularseason games, in China.
Granted, the Mavericks have struggled mightily the past three seasons, and only the Suns posted a worse record in the Western Conference last year. But the Pelicans can also be an example, considering they opened the 2016-17 season on an eight-game losing streak after facing the Rockets overseas in the preseason.
The Nets performance team mapped out nearly every portion of the trip with ideas of how to combat jet lag and the team’s possible exhaustion. There was an on-the-plane plan, a when-theylanded plan, as well as a comingback plan. While on the plane, there was a strict schedule of when the lights were allowed to be on and when they were supposed to be off.
Players were even shown a PowerPoint presentation before they left the U.S. with tips on how to approach the trip’s possible effects. And when the team first came home, there wasn’t much of a workload in practice with hopes that a light schedule would be beneficial.
Even after a week since returning, the Nets are purposely holding later practices and continuing to monitor each player’s sleep pattern. But Atkinson recognizes the importance of starting the season on the right foot and knows how much the trip could get in the way of accomplishing that.
“It was not like this is a small thing,” Atkinson said Sunday. “This is a big thing and we had an approach.”
According to Spencer Dinwiddie, the Nets need to have a strong start no matter what they had to overcome in the preseason. Especially since the team managed to get two wins over LeBron James and the Lakers overseas, the expectations they have for themselves are high.
The team will be without Kevin Durant, likely for the entire season, as he continues to recover from tearing his Achilles tendon, but Dinwiddie said he expects the Nets to thrive before its star’s eventual return. And if the Nets start flat, he said he doesn’t think there should be any blame placed on the China trip.
“Keep good habits,” Dinwiddie said of avoiding fatigue. “Keep working out obviously. Really try to focus on sleep. I’ve been a little under the weather, so they’ve put sleep at a premium for me even more so. Everybody knows it’s a tough trip but there’s no excuses, we’ve had plenty of time now before the season.
“It’s not like we came back from China yesterday. Just following the plan. Our performance team is one of the best, if not the best, in the business. Just listen to everything they tell us to do.”