r/GoNets

I feel like the unsung hero of this season was Josh "Why Not" Minott?

I'm not gonna stat-dump his production here, but he was good. That's for sure. And his post-game comments against that Knick game showed me he has that "Brooklyn Grit" that Sean Marks keeps babbling about.

Only 23. Really good defender. Shot well with us. Can play 2-4. I mean, if we don't get Peyton Watson (or another free agent upgrade at the 4), I'd honestly just focus on developing him. Start him too.

Let’s build nets roster. I don’t know how we all get them but why not..
My dream lineup:

MBJ/Traore/Saraf
Demin/Luke Kennard/Minnot
Ament/Dort/Powell
Steinbach/Clowney/Morez Johnson
Mara/Sharpe/Wolf

I’ve been doing my amateur deep dive on all the prospects in the Nets range, and the player I came around to the most is MBJ. I think he’s the best combination of skill, upside, personality at 6.

That being said the one thing that frustrates me about watching him is he shows some LaMelo bad habits. I was watching Louisville vs Baylor, and see him take a step back, mildly contested 3 with a good 4-5 feet behind the 3 point line and 20 seconds on the shot clock. I just remember making a disgusted face and thinking “why?” and he made it! You watch his highlights, and he makes plenty of these crazy shots which is where his upside lies, but so many look like bad decisions.

We hear bad shot maker and get PTSD, he’s not Cam Thomas shooting mid range chucks over double teams bad. But like LaMelo, it looks like sometimes he’s trying to make Tik Tok plays instead of the best basketball decision.

Now if there’s anyone that should be able to coach it out of him, it’s Jordi, but am I crazy for seeing these as a real concern?

But watching Brunson consistently hunt/cook Harden defensively in the 4th quarter is exactly why we need to draft a player that isn’t a cone on defense with our 6th overall pick

Doesn’t call timeout during a huge run ✅

Garbage rotations ✅

Star player having less minutes than other team star player ✅

No adjustments ✅ (let Brunson iso Harden every time in the 4th and didn’t involve Brunson on defense)

Great development head coach, but absolute worst in game head coach. Steve Nash would run circles around him.

We are so far away from being legitimate championship contenders it is so depressing man. Tanked for two seasons and didn’t get a single top 5 pick let alone the top pick. Like where are we going with this roster? Who on our roster is even getting playing time on this OKC or Spurs roster?

Fuck man. Basketball is the one sport I truly enjoy. I watch baseball and football but nothing brings me joy more than basketball and this franchise is so cursed. Even when we were “contenders” with KD Kyrie and Harden we didn’t have a single day without some off the court bullshit. When were we as a fanbase truly enjoyed watching basketball? The Russell Dinwiddie team? And that was only one year too.

This franchise is devastating to root for.

Just a reminder:

1. For the first three years of Mark's tenure (2016-2019), he was given one of the worst professional sports situation in history. He was given a losing team, no player assets, all draft picks were traded away for the next four seasons, and the team was over the cap. His only ability was to trade for bad salary or find G-League gems (which he did).
2. The next 3.5 years the Nets were held hostage by the stars (2019-2023). The signing of the big three also undercut his ability to GM. Durant and Irving fired Atkinson, demanded a third star, and totally undercut Mark's ability to GM with threat after threat. Honestly, Irving, Durant, and Harden are the three hardest NBA stars to manage in the modern NBA.
3. For the past 3 years (2023-now) Marks traded away every good player, shed salary and made the Nets purposely bad - as that's how the NBA is now. You have to be bad to rebuild. And sadly Marks got caught rebuilding in the worst tanking season in history. So he had to make the Nets as bad as possible to get to this point.

With that, this is the first time Marks actually is being given tools, assets, and the goal of being of good. Let's see how this season goes (his first real season to GM without an arm tied behind his back)